Charlemagne Palestine
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
minimalist
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, performer, and visual artist. Palestine studied at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Mannes College of Music
Mannes College of Music
Mannes College The New School for Music is The New School university's music conservatory. While the university's main campus is located in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mannes maintains its main academic building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....
, and the California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
.
A contemporary of Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock
Phill Niblock is a composer, filmmaker, videographer, and director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.-Biography:...
, and Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
, Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against Western audiences’ expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer originally trained to be a cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
and electronic drones
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
, and he is perhaps best known for his intensely performed piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
works. He also performs as a vocalist: in Karenina he sings in the countertenor
Countertenor
A countertenor is a male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of a contralto, mezzo-soprano, or a soprano, usually through use of falsetto, or far more rarely than normal, modal voice. A pre-pubescent male who has this ability is called a treble...
register and in other works he sings long tones with gradually shifting vowels and overtone
Overtone
An overtone is any frequency higher than the fundamental frequency of a sound. The fundamental and the overtones together are called partials. Harmonics are partials whose frequencies are whole number multiples of the fundamental These overlapping terms are variously used when discussing the...
s while moving through the performance space or performing repeated actions such as throwing himself onto his hands.
Palestine's Strumming Music (1974) remains his best-known work. It features over 45 minutes of Palestine forcefully playing two notes in rapid alternation that slowly expand into clusters. He performed this on a nine-foot Bösendorfer
Bösendorfer
Bösendorfer is an Austrian piano manufacturer, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha. The brand is known for producing pianos with a uniquely rich, singing, and sustaining tone...
grand piano with the sustain pedal depressed for the entire length of the work. As the music swells (and the piano gradually detunes), the overtones build and the listener can hear a variety of timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
s rarely produced by the piano. A recording of Strumming Music was also Palestine's second vinyl album in the 1970s, reissued on CD in 1991. Since then, several additional recordings (featuring Palestine on piano, organ, harmonium, and voice) from the 1970s—including new recordings of more recent works such as Schlingen-Blängen—have become available.
Palestine's performance style is ritualistic: he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animal
Stuffed animal
A stuffed toy is a toy sewn from cloth, plush, or other textiles, and stuffed with straw, beans, plastic pellets, cotton, synthetic fibres, or other similar materials. Stuffed toys are also known as plush toys A stuffed toy is a toy sewn from cloth, plush, or other textiles, and stuffed with straw,...
s, smokes large numbers of kretek
Kretek
Kretek are cigarettes made with a blend of tobacco, cloves and other flavors. The word "kretek" itself is an onomatopoetic term for the crackling sound of burning cloves. Haji Jamahri, a resident of Kudus, Java, created kreteks in the early 1880s as a means to deliver the eugenol of cloves to the...
(Indonesian clove cigarettes), and drinks cognac
Cognac (drink)
Cognac , named after the town of Cognac in France, is a variety of brandy. It is produced in the wine-growing region surrounding the town from which it takes its name, in the French Departements of Charente and Charente-Maritime....
.
Music critic and scholar Kyle Gann
Kyle Gann
Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...
named Palestine composer of the month in June 2005.
Selected Discography: Solo Works
- Karenina. 2 CDs. Solo performance with Indian harmonium and falsetto voice, rec. March 1997 in Paris. London: World Serpent Distribution.
- Schlingen-Blängen. Solo performance for organ. US: New World Records.
- Four Manifestations on Six Elements. Solo pieces for piano and for electronics. Belgium: Barooni Records.
- Godbear. Solo pieces for piano. Belgium: Barooni Records.
- Strumming Music. Solo piece for piano. Felmay, San Germano, Italy, 1995; reissue of New Tone recording nt6742
- Three Compositions for Machines. Staalplaat, 1997.
- Schlongo!!!daLUVdrone. Organ of Corti, 2000.
- Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn. Piece for found sound and electronic drones. Belgium: Barooni Records.
- Alloy. Alga Marghen, 2000.
- Continuous Sound Forms. Alga Marghen, 2000.
- Charlemagne at Sonnabend. 2 CDs. CP, 2001.
- Music for Big Ears. Staalplaat, 2001.
- In Mid-Air. Alga Marghen, 2003.
- Old Souls Wearing New Clothes. VPRO, 2003.
- A Sweet Quasimodo between Black Vampire Butterflies: For Maybeck. Cold Blue, 2007.
- The Apocalypse Will Blossom. Yesmissolga, 2008.
- Voice Studies. LP only. Alga Marghen, 2008.
- From Etudes to Cataclysms. 2 CDs. Sub Rosa, 2008.
Selected Discography: Collaborations
- Pan Sonic and Charlemagne Palestine. Mort aux vaches. Staalplaat, 2000.
- Charlemagne Palestine, David Coulter and Jean Marie Mathoul. Maximin. Young God Records, 2002.
- Charlemagne Palestine, David Coulter , Michael GiraMichael GiraMichael Rolfe Gira is an American musician, author, and artist. He is the main force behind the recently reformed New York City musical group Swans and fronts the Angels of Light...
and Jean Marie Mathoul. Gantse Mishpuchach / Music in Three Parts. Fringes Recordings, 2004. - Charlemagne Palestine and Tony ConradTony ConradTony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
. An Aural Symbiotic Mystery. Sub RosaSub RosaThe Latin phrase sub rosa means "under the rose" and is used in English to denote secrecy or confidentiality, similar to the Chatham House Rule....
, 2006. - Charlemagne Palestine, Terry JenningsTerry JenningsTerry Jennings was an American minimalist composer and performer.Terry Jennings was born in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California, in 1940. Coming from a background in jazz, he played piano, clarinet, and saxophones...
, Tony ConradTony ConradTony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
, Robert Feldman, Rhys ChathamRhys ChathamRhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...
. Sharing a Sonority. Alga Marghen, 2008. - Charlemagne Palestine and Christoph HeemannChristoph HeemannChristoph Heemann , is a German musician.Heemann has recorded under his own name, with the tape music group H.N.A.S., and with many collaborators in alternative rock, soundtrack production and visual arts....
. Saiten in Flammen. Streamline, 2009.
External links
- Charlemagne Palestine official Web site
- Interview in ESTWeb
- "Matter—Viewpoint: Do you still identify yourself as an American composer? —Charlemagne Palestine", from NewMusicBox, November 1, 2002
- Charlemagne Palestine: Searching for the Golden Sound, interview by Marcus Boon
- 2002 Interview with Daniel Varela
- Kyle Gann on Music After Fact
- Conversation between Charlemagne Palestine and André Éric LétourneauAndré Éric LétourneauAndré Éric Létourneau is a French Canadian media and transmedia artist, author, musician, composer and curator based primarily in Montreal, Canada. He uses several pseudonyms, most notably François Quoirez and algojo)André Éric Létourneau (born September 25, 1967) is a French Canadian media and...
(In French) - Web site of the Canadian Broadcasting CorporationCanadian Broadcasting CorporationThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster... - Charlemagne Palestine in the Video Data Bank
See also
- Minimalist musicMinimalist musicMinimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
- Noise musicNoise musicNoise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
- DroneDrone-Nature:The male sex of social Hymenopterans, such as a* Drone * male wasp* male ant-Chemicals:An abbreviation referring to one of two psychoactive drugs:* Mephedrone* 4-Methoxymethcathinone, commonly known as methedrone-Vehicles:...