Kyle Gann: Piano Music and more!

[lontano]

Go Look and See:
 https://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20090617/D98SLO380.html

An amazing American composer of vast talents, and he has given us much of his music under a common distribution rights as per:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
 
I was first led toward Kyle Gann in search of contemporary musicians who were in favor of the music of Conlon Nancarrow and who may have worked to evolve his concepts.

I was directed toward Kyle Gann, a living American composer (and much more), who has composed many works in many assortments of instruments, and has several works for Piano Solo available on his website. I find his Desert Sonata a fantastic exploration of haunting atmosphere, rhythm and pianistic delight! [I can't play it, but you CAN download the PDF and Play it if you have the Chops!]

www.kylegann.com

This is a great website and I hope the people here will look into the piano music, initally, and into the larger sphere of the works of Kyle Gann!

PS: Some works have been Recorded and Published, and to hear them you must find them (not hard as KG links you to them), and some works are available as free MP3's to listen or download, performed by the composer or otherwise), and PDF Scores are available for many works. Check out his Disklavier Works! Incredible, and if you like anything by Conlon Nancrrow, you want to visit www.kylegann.com - I just find this composer worthy of deep investigation!

[retrouvailles]

I am not a huge fan of Kyle Gann's works, but he has produced some interesting pieces for disklavier. The piano music hasn't been a great source of interest, but rather his usage of just intonation and microtonality. Overall, I don't think he is doing anything that is really amazingly remarkable, for a lot of his style is an outgrowth of the crazy rhythmic studies of Conlon Nancarrow and the tuning explorations of Harry Partch and Lou Harrison, but his work is more palatable than the aforementioned composers. I really haven't heard anything that has warranted more than one or two more listens, though. It may be interesting or sound nice, but I just haven't found anything with any sort of visceral musicality or passion, which is what makes me come back to something new. There are plenty of living American composers today who are interesting, but Kyle Gann isn't one I would devote a lot of serious time to. The creative commons thing is nice too, but other, better composers such as Stephen Hartke have also provided music under creative commons. Shame none of his piano music on there, but his amazing chamber work "Meanwhile" (which I saw performed twice this year) can be found there.

Also, why did you link us to an article about cold remedies?

[lontano]

  The link to "cold remedies" was unintended. It was sitting in my clipboard and just got stuck on the page 

As for Kyle Gann, I agree with some of what you say, and the more of his music in various styles I hear the less impressed I become. However, if there is one work that I can recommend without hesitation it is the Desert Sonata (piano solo). I find it to be quite remarkable and I don't think your general disdain for his work as a whole should be taken by all to mean "don't bother looking further". His Disklavier CD is quite a lot of fun, especially for people who like "extended player-piano technique", especially Nancarrow. These 2 CDs are interesting, some fun, and in the case of the Desert Sonata well worth investigating.

Lontano