Sustenance is a concept album of premieres on which several chamber pieces are linked together by electronic "passages" by composer Peter Gilbert. Includes performances by several of New York's most active new music performers, featuring guitarist Daniel Lippel in various chamber combinations.
Sustenance is a concept album including several new chamber pieces involving guitar. All the larger pieces are linked together by electronic "passages" by composer Peter Gilbert and in two cases with guitar improvisations by Dan Lippel. These "passages" manage the transitions between musical spaces, erecting a sort of musical architecture that the album rests on. Music is architecture in time; ritual is architecture in time; music is ritual.
Recorded 3/05-8/05 in Huntington, Long Island, and New York City, and 1/07 at William Paterson University, NJ
Recording Engineer/Editing/Post-Production: Ryan Streber
Producers: Peter Gilbert, Daniel Lippel, John Link
Cd Layout Design: Ellen Butters
Sustenance Variations was commissioned by Armin Kelly and Guitars International, and premiered at the Cleveland Institute of Music by Flexible Music
"Sustenance" was partially funded by a grant from the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust.
Personnel:
Shende: Elizabeth Weigle, soprano; Daniel Lippel, guitar
Webb and Silverman: Flexible Music
Link: Jeffrey Irving, percussion; Daniel Lippel, guitar
Pereira: Erin Lesser, flute; Jeffrey Irving, percussion; Daniel Lippel, guitar
Oh: Erin Lesser, flute; Daniel Lippel, guitar
Passages: Peter Gilbert, electronics; Daniel Lippel, guitar (Passage IV and V)
Guitarist Dan Lippel, called a "modern guitar polymath (Guitar Review)" and an "exciting soloist" (NY Times) is active as a soloist, chamber musician, and recording artist. He has been the guitarist for the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) since 2005 and new music quartet Flexible Music since 2003. Recent performance highlights include recitals at Sinus Ton Festival (Germany), University of Texas at San Antonio, MOCA Cleveland, Center for New Music in San Francisco, and chamber performances at the Macau Music Festival (China), Sibelius Academy (Finland), Cologne's Acht Brücken Festival (Germany), and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. He has appeared as a guest with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and New York New Music Ensemble, among others, and recorded for Kairos, Bridge, Albany, Starkland, Centaur, and Fat Cat.
http://www.danlippel.com“In contrast, the six composers of the works on Sustenance have deliberately created a cohesive album-as-work. Where dim sum (and Dim Sum) is a whole bunch of little things to take in more or less at once, this work is a series of courses, each section discreet but in its larger place, in proportion and harmony with what comes before and after. In between songs and chamber pieces, Peter Gilbert has composed electronic "Passages" (perhaps the wine for each course?) not always explicitly musically derived from the pieces before or after but structurally and atmospherically linking them so that the whole 75 minutes plays without break. It's very interesting and beautifully performed. Elizabeth Weigle singing Vineet Shende's Sonetos de Amor is particularly outstanding. Orianna Webb's Sustenance Variations for Flexible Music, a quartet of percussion, piano, saxophones, and guitar, is exciting, even in the still passages, and entirely convincing. John Link's duo For Irving Lippel has some captivating, restrained moments where the resonances of guitar and vibraphone are allowed to shimmer and blur in an exquisite way. The whole forms a pleasing arc of textural and timbral density.”
American Record Guide March/April 2008
"Daniel Lippel keeps on keepin' on with this recording of contemporary guitar music, featuring a variety of distinguished, guest performers including flautist Erin Lesser, vocalist, Elizabeth Weigle, and the exciting ensemble Flexible Music. Going somewhat all over the map here, Lippel still manages to wow us with his instrumental prowess. Orianna Webb's Sustenance Variations is an exciting piece of compositional decision making, and Seung-Ah Oh's So-Ri I is a rewarding trip to the auditory snack bar. Fans of new guitar music can look forward to his next release, as Mr. Lippel continues to promote new music for our friend, the guitar."
On this album, we find contemporary music by American composers who were born in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century.
The first four songs are Sonetos de Amor by Vineet Shende, composed to the words of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Their insturmentation is the classical guitar and soprano. They were made at various speeds, with the appropriate dramaturgical load and a part of Romanticism. An interesting phenomenon is the six-part composition "Passage" by Peter Gilbert. Each of these parts is divided by works by other composers. All of them have been kept in an ambient atmosphere, so they allow the listener to relax on more demanding fragments of the album. Sustenance Variations Orianna Webb introduces an atmosphere of anxiety and chaos, while the guitar brings us peace. However, it does not last too long, because other instruments distort it all the time. "Three Fell Swoops" by Adam B. Silverman would be perfect as a soundtrack for a movie whose plot is drawn by the dominant saxophone. In For Irving Lippel by John Link, thanks to the sound of the vibraphone, we are introduced into a bit of a fairy-tale atmosphere. The Bento Box by Joseph Pereira is distinguished by the hypnotizing power of the flute, and it is another example that would certainly prove to be a complement to the film image. Korean composer Seung-Ah Oh diversified the list of songs about So-Ri I, in which she used elements typical of traditional Asian music. The record is a great proof of the diversity of contemporary music, which draws full of various genres and styles.
- Mikolaj Furmankiewicz, Moosik Blog, 3.2018