The creative work of Paul Cantrell: composer, pianist, programmer, professor, rabble rouser, redhead
In college, I took a religious studies class called The Letters of Paul. I took it for two very good reasons: I was (and am) named Paul. The prof, Cal Roetzel, was (and is) cool. I didn’t figure it was an especially practical course. It was for fun, for the challenge, for the cultural knowledge, for the pleasure of doing it. The class turned out to be more or less “A Letter (singular) of Paul:” we…
A poem of tender steps. Composition for piano. View score >
A fanfare for summoning the tides. Composition for piano. View score >
Scenes from the liminal waters of a pandemic. Distance No Peace Healing Song Night Watch Without Reason For the Living Composition for piano. View score >
Lush song cycle flirting with the edges of language. Needless / Endless Only On _(Title TBD)_ Into Wide and Open Falling The Smallest Things Rift Zone / Birth Composition for soprano, piano. View score and listen >
A collection of favorites from Keys Please! concerts 2004–2007 Nomade à Clef Rattlesnake Song No. 2 Cartoons out of Monk I: Both Sides of the Issue Monday, September Still Fragrance XX: Jy’laahorlx A Watery Lion’s Circle Ditty Slightly Warming Quiet By Now Nocturne Op. 37 No. 1 The Usual Topic Inspiration: After Aairam’s Letter Mary Lou’s Chihuly Anthem I: Ancestor Energy piano, poemmetry,…
Last June, an extraordinary thunderstorm ripped through my fair city, leaving half a million without power and downing an astonishing number of beautiful old trees. On my daily walk to the coffee shop, a tall tree lay across 34th Street, door-sized chunks of sidewalk split like a drawbridge over the gaping hole where its dangling roots once ran. The top of its canopy, previously the domain of…
I’m starting up a new composer organization, The New Ruckus . The mission statement says it best: We are composers, improvisers, sound artists, and songwriters. Our mission is to help each other achieve a sense of purpose and satisfaction in our musical lives, by providing moral support and practical help in creating our work, getting it heard, and making personal connections through it. We…
Tucked into today’s encouraging tidbits of news about the Twin Cities orchestras is one telling detail. The MN Orchestra board wants to restore the organization’s mission statement to its former proper state (they removed the word “orchestra” last year, if you can believe it), but “with two changes to emphasize community service and financial stability.” In that proposal is laid bare the…
Nothing prepares you for what the doctor says: “You have brain cancer. The tumor is large and growing. We need to remove approximately one third of your brain , and we need to remove it immediately. If we don’t, you will be dead in five years.” You are stunned. This was just supposed to be a routine physical. You’ve always been a little bit nervous about medical visits, but your doctor has praised…
The NYT asks, “Is Classical Music Dying?” My answer is a single two-letter word. (Hint: starts with ”N.”) Like many who lament the imminent demise of classical music, Les Dreyer focuses on large institutions: orchestras, radio stations, record labels. He misses half the picture. While classical music is seeing a heart-sickening crumbling of the large, it is undergoing a renaissance of the small.…
During hurricane Sandy, I tweeted (yes, I have a Twitter account; can you believe it?) about how wonderful it is that pianos still work when the power is out. Turns out that while I was thinking it, one In the Hands listener was living it. I will let him tell his story in his own words: Since we last emailed…. we were hit with Hurricane Sandy. (I live in Jersey City NJ just outside of NYC). If you…
As the lockout of Minnesota’s two world-class orchestras continues, I’ve given a lot of thought to the dilemma. A credible outside perspective is hard to find, and we’re left in a “he said / she said” back and forth between management and musicians. Listening to it all, I believe them both on their key points: yes, an organization that is drawing heavily from its endowment cannot last — and yes,…
The Broken Mirror of Memory is now released! (Fanfare!) And the best place to get it is straight from the artist . (That’s me!) In this episode is one track from the new album. This is part 2; you heard part 1 in the last episode . The bass clarinet has a kind of talking quality throughout part 2 that involves some unusual sounds you might not have heard before. You’ll hear a few bends and…
Melodic, rhapsodic, prize-winning epic duo. Entanglement Soliloquy Tango Flight Composition for bass clarinet, piano. View score and listen >
The Broken Mirror of Memory – 1. Entanglement The Broken Mirror of Memory – 2. Soliloquy The Broken Mirror of Memory – 3. Tango The Broken Mirror of Memory – 4. Flight Composition and piano Paul Cantrell Bass clarinet Pat O’Keefe Recording and mixing Paul Cantrell Mastering Greg Reierson Recording assistance Mike Olson Matthew Smith Cover design Andrew Bessler Cover photograph Paige Whitney Listen…
The Kickstarter project for The Broken Mirror of Memory has passed its first major milestone! I’m now able to pay for printing the CD, and distributing in online music stores. Huzzah!! In celebration, and as a huge thank you to all the awesome backers who have pitched in so far, I’m posting part 1 (out of 4) of the piece. Here it is! Paul Cantrell ▶️ The Broken Mirror of Memory – 1. Entanglement…
Astute readers of this blog will notice that it’s been a really, really long time since I’ve posted a new recording. I have not been musically idle, however! Oh no. I have been working my little pianist tusch off. One of the projects I’ve been working on, years in the making, is now finally coming to fruition. It is a composition for bass clarinet and piano called The Broken Mirror of Memory.…
Ten years ago, I was trying to figure out what the heck to do with myself. I wanted to stay serious about music and not give up my piano training, but the world of professional piano performance was clearly not my cup of tea. I wanted a world my music could live in, and wasn’t sure where to find it. Then these two delightfully crazy musicians named Carei Thomas and Todd Harper asked me to do a…
Questions 1 and 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 First time, last trout Salvelinus fontinalis Le Birdwatching Northwoods Police Report – Two Men Northwoods Police Report – A Young Man Northwoods Police Report – Jumping on Cars Northwoods Police Report – A Moose Drinking Coffee with Alan Hovhaness Rattlesnake Song No. 1 Tree. River. (½ a palindrome) Worm Love Five Little Trout Songs – Autumn Wind…
A retrospective of recordings made between 1966 and 2009 at Janet Wallace Concert Hall, Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota Sonata Op. 111, 1st movement Sonata Op. 111, 2nd movement Soundings VI: Invocation for Piano Mephisto Waltz No. 1 Ballade No. 3 (Op. 47, in A flat major) Soundings XIII: Courting the Timeless Within Time Piano Donald Betts Viola Tim Betts Recording and Mastering Greg…
Matthew McCright will be premiering my Disembodied Dance this Saturday at Merkin Hall in New York City. A rough draft of the piece appeared on this blog; this weekend, you can hear the final product. Matthew is an excellent pianist, and it’s really exciting to hear him play my work. He’s got chops that I don’t, and thus has interpretive options in a virtuosic climax that aren’t available to me.…
Entropy dances, for a time of things falling apart. Entropic Waltz Dance for Remembering and Forgetting Manic Dance Cradle Waltz Rhetorical Dance Songs for Lost Things Disembodied Dance Broken Dance Elegiac Waltz Composition for piano. View score and listen >
Visiting the house of my composer friend Matthew Smith (who has an outstanding CD out now, by the way), I noticed the score to Chopin’s E minor prelude out on the piano. It turns out that his wife, children’s book illustrator and author Lauren Stringer , is taking piano lessons, and she has been working on it. I was delighted — the piece is a favorite of mine. I dug out my recording of it for her…
I don’t usually write jazz tunes, but my friend Todd asked me to write one for him. It sounded like fun, and he had written several great pieces for me, so I took up the challenge. Nomade à Clef is the result. Todd premiered it at this year’s Keys Please , with David Edminster on tenor sax, and I think they did just a marvelous job with it. They really made it fly. I only wrote a lead sheet (just…
Things may have been quiet on the blog, but I’ve been doing tons of music work lately. The recent round of Zo went well: I took a bit of a risk playing mostly pieces that were fresh out of the practice oven (or, in a couple of cases, still baking), but people seemed to enjoy it, and I was certainly satisfied. (If you want to know about future concerts, you should get on the mailing list .)…
Can this really be the sixth year? Groundhog Day approaches fast, and that means it’s time for Keys Please! Carei Thomas, Todd Harper and I have been running this annual tradition of a playful, genre-bending celebration of keyboard music since 2001, and by golly, I think we’ve got something special going. It shows a slightly different side of my musical life than In the Hands , and it’s unlike any…
Of interest to listeners in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area: I have scheduled some house concerts for next week. I’ll be playing some Chopin and original work not yet heard on In the Hands ! Dates, more info, and reservations here .
As I went through some old recordings, I found that these two make a nice pair. Arranging nice little transitions like this is one of my favorite parts of doing a concert. It’s the same little pleasure as assembling a mix CD or playing DJ: even the simple act of ordering songs is a kind of composition, and carries the joy of being creative. The keys of the two pieces (E flat and A flat) are…
Perhaps it would have been better if I’d just admitted to myself (and the world) that I’d be taking the summer off from In the Hands . But where’s the fun without the suspense? Here’s what I currently have in the pipeline (not necessarily in this order): Some newly composed pieces of my own. A new recording of at least some part of The Broken Mirror of Memory , my bass clarinet / piano work. A…
Last weekend, I lead a session at MinneBar in which I talked about my experiences producing In the Hands , my sense of the past relationships between art and society, and my wishes for the future. The audience joined in, and it was a very interesting 40 minutes of discussion. Tim Wilson has very kindly made an audio recording of the session available on They Savvy Technologist . He did a good job…
After a cold (which left my voice in bad shape for podcasting) and MinneBar (which was a great pleasure), it’s back to In the Hands! I’m continuing from last time the series of recordings I made recently with soprano Kim Sueoka of songs by Todd Harper. For several years, Todd has been writing songs full of the sort of jazz changes that are his roots, but as much in the tradition of lieder as…
Here, for the first time in a long time, is something I wrote — but it’s not the music! A couple of weeks ago, I recorded some of my friend Todd Harper’s songs with Kim Sueoka , a marvelous local soprano who sings with (among others) the Rose Ensemble and a first-rate voice/guitar duo called Voce y Cuerdas . She’s great, Todd’s great, and by golly, we had a wonderful time making the recordings!…
Here is a second selection from this year’s Keys Please to follow Todd’s little musical rattlesnake adventure . This is an improvisation by Carei Thomas, the rattlesnake’s narrator, now on piano. I thought — and he said afterward — that there was a little nod to my own funny little improvs in this one, especially in the way it starts with a very low note and a very high one … but it’s definitely a…
Things don’t look good for me to create more new piano recordings in my home studio in the immediate future, so I’m going to have to stall — but I figure I might at least stall with something good! This is a piece from the most recent Keys Please! concert . It adds a nice little bit of variation to the blog: not only is it not Cantrell, Chopin, or Brahms, but … it doesn’t even have a piano in it!…
I’ve added a two new things to my web site that may be of interest: New Music-Only Podcast For those of you not up on all the tech-y stuff, this site has a “podcast” — a feature that lets your computer automatically download the music and save it to your music library or portable music player. Until now, the podcast has featured a spoken version of the written commentary that goes with each piece.…
In the Hands will come back to life soon. I’m getting settled into my new job (which is a good thing: nice people, interesting problems), and I’ve sorted out the “sudden car death” crisis that’s been eating up lots of time lately. In the meantime, if you’d like a sneak preview of the two Chopin nocturnes I’m planning to record, come to my concert this weekend: Keys Please: The Untold Story…
Sorry for the long hiatus. It’s been a busy time: my latest sabbatical is running to its end, I’m broke, and back to job hunting. So I’ve been having to put aside the music and be all practical lately. Still, I have not left In the Hands completely neglected. Listening to some other podcasts — and some of those old school … what are they called? … oh yes, radio shows — I noticed what a difference…
I’m doing something today that I haven’t done in far too long: sharing a recording of a new composition in progress. I’ve been working for some time on a set of piano pieces, all of them dances in one way or another — and all of them, in one way or another, full of the feeling of entropy, full of things falling apart and things slipping away. This particular one has much sweetness in it, but its…
The latest episode of the always-excellent Bowed Radio features a movement of The Broken Mirror of Memory . The whole episode is quite wonderful, well worth hearing ( listen ) — and the great sound of the other selections really makes me wish I had a higher-quality recording of Diana’s nice work on Mirror! Adrian graciously describes In the Hands as a “must-listen” for piano lovers, and gets big…
This is a very familiar piece (to piano aficionados, anyway) — but you’ll find Don’s performance a little refreshingly unfamiliar. It’s not a wild departure from custom, but there’s just a subtle tip in the balance in his performance that makes the feeling of the piece quite different. In the last entry I mentioned the question of foreground and background . When most pianists play this piece,…
I’m a fellow of diverse musical tastes, and there are a great many composers I love who don’t appear in the meager list over on the right of this page. So it’s a delight to post this recording, because I get to add a “Schubert” category. Yay for Schubert! This is another one of the recordings I made in the living room of my teacher, Don Betts. He’s playing a little gem of Schubert’s that one…
In the Hands is primarily for my own recordings, but today I have a special exception to make: over the summer, I recorded Don Betts, my piano teacher, playing in his home. Don has made a great many excellent recordings over the years — including the Chopin album available on this web site — but these recordings we made in his living room are something entirely different. They have a special kind…
All right, I admit that it’s not exactly directly related to piano music, but I have to share what my dad is up to. He’s a psychologist who (roughly speaking) deals with learning, with helping people learn how to learn, and has written what I think is quite a marvelous book about raising intelligent children — not in the narrow and fairly silly Mensa sense of “intelligent,” but in a broad,…
Recorded May 2005 at Janet Wallace Concert Hall Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota Scenes from Childhood – From Strangs Lands And People Scenes from Childhood – Curious Story Scenes from Childhood – Catch Me Scenes from Childhood – Entreating Child Scenes from Childhood – Full of Happiness Scenes from Childhood – Important Event Scenes from Childhood – Dreaming (Träumerei) Scenes from…
When I started In the Hands , I also started recording little unplanned improvisations. I’d done some of this same sort of work during college in the Macalester New Music Ensemble, and some things like it at Keys Please, but it wasn’t until last year that I started putting a regular, concerted effort into playing and recording these. They’re perhaps not always as interestingly layered or as…
Last night in tango class, Florencia was trying to impress upon us leaders the importance of learning to follow as well, so we know what the dance feels like to the followers, and so we have a chance to feel what the really good leaders do. You can’t just learn by watching, she explains, because so much of what’s in the body’s motion isn’t apparent to the eye. “Sometimes, you’ll see somebody…
My recent mastering experiments have been all about reproducing … well, not the literal sound, but the musical spirit of real-life piano — but of course there’s another side to this software I’m using, and it seemed a shame not to play with it! So I went and had some fun with Niobrara . (Some fragments of another improv are also tucked away in there; a free CD to the first person to correctly…
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a new mastering process. I spent a great afternoon with Mike Olson in his wonderful studio earlier this week, and I think we finally nailed the source of a rumble in the bass that was bugging me. (Nick noticed it too .) He also got me to completely redo the reverb, and it’s much more transparent now under his direction — the sound is smooth, you don’t hear my…
This is the second half of the thrilling chronicles of my attempts at mastering the piano recordings. ( Here’s part one .) ▶️ Mastering Experiments, Part 2: EQ & Imaging Paul Cantrell , piano ⬇️ Download audio file for Mastering Experiments, Part 2: EQ & Imaging (12:42 / 15.4 M) I’m constantly changing things — I’ve tweaked the process since my last post, and even while making the explanation, I…