The next OUR Recordings release ALBUM FOR ASTOR with accordeonist Bjarke Mogensen is now uploaded
All my life I have admired, studied and performed the music of the extraordinary Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). It is a great pleasure to release a whole instrumental Piazzolla album for the centenary of his birth. I decided to base my tribute solely on Piazzolla titles but also dived headlong into designing a varied and comprehensive listening experience, an hour of interchanging accordion solos, instrumental duos, and pieces that I arranged for myself and a small group of mixed instruments.
The music is all Astor but with a touch of Bjarke here and there and maybe everywhere, in fact. There are no
singers involved, but Piazzolla’s music sings, and our instruments sing, and at every corner there is melancholy, tripping feet, fast figures, and an atmosphere of Buenos Aires. Bjarke Mogensen
All of Piazzolla’s more than 750 works are inextricably bound to an essential and unmistakable Argentinian identity. In commemoration of 100th anniversary of the birth of the genius of Nuevo Tango, the young Danish master of the modern accordion, Bjarke Mogensen, is joined by the award-wining percussionist Johan Bridger and winner of the title “Chromatic Harmonica World Champion”, and ‘New Jazz Star of The Year’ Mathias Heise. Together with members of The Danish Chamber Players they bring Piazzolla’s vibrant and sensuous scores vividly to life!
MIRROR OF THE PAST uploaded
It is a great pleasure to inform about our new OUR Recordings Digital EP: MIRROR OF THE PAST – music I have composed, based on four Tang Dynasty Poems. It has been great and inspiring to read the Tang Dynasty Poems which as a common theme has man’s wonder at and deep dependence on nature. In their apparently naive form, they explore the reverence humans used to have for nature, and thereby give perspective to the distorted relationship we have today. As such it is a comment to the environmental situation the world is facing today. The music is written for counter tenor (Stephen Yeseta) - erhu (Xu Ziling) - recorder (Michala Petri) - percussion (Gert Mortensen) and guitar (which I play myself).
