Philip Carlsen & Steve Drown
Elliott Schwartz Memorial Practice Rooms Project Sound Installation
Sept. 1-Sept. 30th, active at 11:30am and 4:00pm
Opening reception: 9/7/23, 5:00pm-7:00pm
Free and open to the public
“The Elliott Schwartz Memorial Practice Rooms Project,” a tribute to one of Maine’s leading composers and teachers, was conceived and directed by retired UMF music professor Philip Carlsen, in his role as head of the Back Cove Contemporary Music Festival at the Portland Conservatory. Eight pianists took their positions at the pianos in the eight studios along the third-floor hallway, doors wide open. The recording engineer Steve Drown, along with his associate Noah Cole, recorded the event with a complicated setup of twelve microphones, a big mixer, and lots of cables. It is with that multi-track recording, played back through widely separated speakers, that Drown and the Emery Center staff aim to recreate the original sonic experience in Emery’s large public space.
Link to video documentation of the exhibit
A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
On a snowy evening at the Portland Conservatory, back on January 18, 2020, one day before what would have been Maine composer Elliott Schwartz’s eighty-fourth birthday, a large group of pianists, composers, and listeners came together to celebrate his legacy in the most appropriate way possible—with a concert of experimental world premieres. The event had a quirky twist. Rather than performing on a stage in an auditorium, the eight pianists involved took their positions in the eight teaching and practice studios lining the conservatory’s third-floor hallway. All the doors were open. A rapt audience sat close to one another on benches and chairs along the hall or in the rooms next to the musicians as they played, bathing in the stereophony of music coming at them from all directions. The spread-out ensemble pieces, about five minutes each, had been written especially for the occasion (and its odd performance configuration) by nine of Elliott’s friends, colleagues, and former students: Francis Kayali, Joshua Jandreau, Harold Stover, Miho Sasaki, Philip Carlsen, Bill Matthews, Joshua DeScherer, Nancy Gunn, and Michael Schelle.
In his Press Herald review of the concert, Allan Kozinn wrote, “As a composer who was always seeking new sounds and new ways to present familiar ones, Schwartz probably would have been amused by the inherent zaniness of the Elliott Schwartz Memorial Practice Rooms Project.” It was likely that zaniness that drew so many wonderful musicians to join the project in the first place. Many thanks for the generous gift of their time and talents to the pianists (several of whom have taught or performed at UMF): Melsen Carlsburg, Bridget Convey, Jesse Feinberg, George Lopez, Gulimina Mahamuti, Chiharu Naruse, Steve Pane, and Jim Parakilas.
The other key person who jumped wholeheartedly into this project was the recording engineer Steve Drown. In collaboration with Noah Cole and Hunter Coleman, Steve recorded the concert with a complicated setup of twelve microphones, a big mixer, and lots of cables. It is with that multi-track recording, played back through widely separated speakers, that Steve and the Emery Center crew aim to recreate the original sonic experience here.
-Philip Carlsen, August 2023
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