In the Studio: Solo Improvisation Piano Concert with Joel Garten
Pianist and composer Joel Garten will play a passionate concert of his solo piano improvisations at the Tenri Cultural Institute, NYC on Wednesday, March 24th. Garten's piano work is intense yet contemplative, and at the nexus of free jazz and contemporary classical music; a meeting of the music of jazz improviser Keith Jarrett and classical minimalist Morton Feldman.
Garten creates heartfelt music that marries sonorous repetitive rhythms with dissonance and entrancing harmonies. The concert takes place in an intimate setting evocative of a studio recording session. This concert celebrates the release of his new CD "In the Studio," capturing the spontaneity and depth of works created and performed by Garten in his Toronto studio.
"I love that my music can reside outside of the mainstream, but connect with people in a sublime way that they didn’'t expect, they can feel the love that goes into it and have a new musical experience. I stay in the moment when I play, but at the same time I am transported to another world, so much so that I forget about the audience totally. There is this intensity and yet this calm at the same time," says Garten.
Though Garten has played in venues around the world, this is his debut performance in New York. This concert is a great opportunity to hear a fresh musical voice.
"I love the direct spontaneity that comes from performing a totally improvised concert, it allows me to express the musical voice that resides inside me with great freedom," says Garten.
Joel Garten was born in Toronto, Canada in 1981 and has been composing music since the age of eleven. Garten has given concerts on three continents, including a memorable impromptu concert in the Shar-Dor Medrassa in Samarqand, Uzbekistan. Garten has traveled to more than forty countries, absorbing various musical/cultural influences, including studying gamelan with an aged master in Bali, Indonesia. He is influenced by visual artists such as Pollock, Rothko and Giorgio Morandi, as well as by musical artists most notably Keith Jarrett and Morton Feldman.
