A Single Note | Randy Gibson profiled in the New York Times | 2017
The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield
Seth Colter Walls profiles Randy Gibson for The New York Times
″As is sometimes the case with outwardly unvaried Minimalist music, the texture emerges from the overtones, the frequencies that sound above fundamental notes (in this case, those seven Ds on the piano). Mr. Gibson’s electronic design for the piece highlights these naturally occurring acoustic phenomena, making their ghostly quality more easily perceived.″
The Four Pillars Appearing around the world | 2017
The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield
Marc Medwin explores the history of a single note for Dusted
″I have never heard piano and electronics joined in such complete symbiosis and to such organically singular effect. ... All elements converge to create one of the most important contributions to recorded piano music of at least the past 20 years.″
2017 End Of Year Lists featuring The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D | 2017
The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield
Best Drone Recording of 2017 (Sequenza 21)
″Composer Randy Gibson is best known for his compelling experiments with intonation. R. Andrew Lee is the go-to pianist for Wandelweiser and minimalist-oriented music. On Gibson’s The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield 16 VIII 10 (Kansas City), he meets Lee in the middle, creating a mammoth work out of very restricted means.″
The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield was commissioned with the help of 79 generous supporters as part R. Andrew Lee's project, ″Commissioning Music of Considerable Duration″ including Jay Batzner, Paul A.Epstein, Robert Fink, Robert Gable, Steve Gisby, Michael Harris, Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Tad Kline, Julie Ann Koehlinger, Richard and Jamie Lee, Kirk McElhearn, Mark Movic, Gareth Pashley, Patrick Rogers, Fred Salevsky, Dan Schmidt, Craig Shepard and Beth O'Brien, Burton Thomas, and two Anonymous Donors
World Premiere: ATLAS performance space, Boulder, Colorado - October 18th, 2014
Premiered by: R. Andrew Lee - Piano
Avant Premiere: Sixth International Conference on Music and Minimalism at The Nief-Norf Summer Festival at The Standard, Knoxville, TN - June 22nd, 2017
A Single Note | Randy Gibson profiled in the New York Times | 2017
The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield
Seth Colter Walls profiles Randy Gibson for The New York Times
″As is sometimes the case with outwardly unvaried Minimalist music, the texture emerges from the overtones, the frequencies that sound above fundamental notes (in this case, those seven Ds on the piano). Mr. Gibson’s electronic design for the piece highlights these naturally occurring acoustic phenomena, making their ghostly quality more easily perceived.″
The Four Pillars Appearing around the world | 2017
The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield
Marc Medwin explores the history of a single note for Dusted
″I have never heard piano and electronics joined in such complete symbiosis and to such organically singular effect. ... All elements converge to create one of the most important contributions to recorded piano music of at least the past 20 years.″
2017 End Of Year Lists featuring The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D | 2017
The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield
Best Drone Recording of 2017 (Sequenza 21)
″Composer Randy Gibson is best known for his compelling experiments with intonation. R. Andrew Lee is the go-to pianist for Wandelweiser and minimalist-oriented music. On Gibson’s The Four Pillars Appearing from The Equal D under Resonating Apparitions of The Eternal Process in The Midwinter Starfield 16 VIII 10 (Kansas City), he meets Lee in the middle, creating a mammoth work out of very restricted means.″
Commissioned and performed by the pianist R. Andrew Lee, this work deals directly with the overtone structure of the piano. As an avid proponent of Just Intonation, I realized that an equal tempered piano actually contains one "in tune" interval, the octave. The work is performed entirely on the Ds of the piano, and uses selective narrow-band filtering and amplification to highlight the specific overtones of the instrument that fall within the cosmology of The Four Pillars creating chords and melodies from a single tone.
With each performance of the work, Lee’s timings grew longer as his sense of pacing within the work slowed. The performance as released by Irritable Hedgehog in 2017 lasted 3 ½ hours.
