........................................................................................ - a weBlog by Snowy and me.

Monday 26 April 2021

The Megasonic Chapel


 'Another album I very happy with is 'Megasonic Chapel' which is an improvised recording that fuses traditional Korean court music, Shamanic music and the Morton Feldman school of 20th century classical music. It happened after Willie Winant and I went on a scholarship to South Korea. Gugak, the Korean classical music institute in Seoul had several people tach us the rudiments of different instruments. Soo-Yeon Lyuh the haegum teacher said that she was coming to the U.S. and I suggested that we should make a record. We really enjoyed working with her and thought we could make a great record.

I always felt that Morton Feldman and Korean court music go together. So I took a solo recording of Soo Yeon and played it over a Feldman piano piece. I asked her 'Can you play like play no matter what is going on in the background?'. She said 'No problem'. So I said 'Let us get some musicians together and we will play a gig and record. Willy Winant, the cellist Danielle de Gruttolla, and the pianist Tania Chen all knew the work of Feldman really well. So that was our jumping off point. Gravity would pull the group in other directions occasionally and Soo-Yeon would always rise to the occasion and fit in. Shen never got flustered even when I started doing my screaming guitar stuff. It was all done at the dynamic level of her instrument so it was not loud in the room.

It was a great experience. We went into the studio and all of a sudden there was this eighty minute piece and we all go 'Whoa where did that come from?'. Soo-Yeon really liked how the album came out. It was about having remarkable musicians interact and collaborate. Willy is probably the best new music percussionist in the country. Tania is an incredibly good improviser and interpreter of John Cage and Feldman. Danielle is one of the best improvisers in the Bay Area. It was a really great group of people.' - Henry Kaiser, from a much longer interview which includes statements on many other subjects which is to be found here.      

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