Piano (Piano Solo)
SKU: HL.49046935
Solo Piano.
Composed by Gregory
Spears. Piano Solo.
Classical. Softcover. 98
pages. Duration 6180
seconds. Schott Music
#ED30418. Published by
Schott Music
(HL.49046935).
ISBN
9781705169353. UPC:
842819116837.
9.25x12.0x0.5
inches.
SEVEN DAYS
is a cycle for solo piano
in 21 movements, most
lasting between three and
seven minutes,
distributed in the form
of a custom app produced
by the 92Y and released
during their Fall 2021
season. Using the app on
their phones, listeners
are asked to listen to
three movements a day
according to an
approximate schedule -
one movement in the
morning, one in the
afternoon, and another
sometime in the evening -
for seven days. The music
is performed by Pedja
Muzijevic and presented
alongside paintings by
Gloria Maximo. (Please
visit 92Y.org for
information on how to
download the Seven Days
app.) The work is
designed as a listening
experience that tunes us
into the passing of time,
connecting us both to the
present moment as well as
the cycle of the week.
The experience invites
music to inhabit and
structure our everyday -
to find us where we are
in the world. The
morning-afternoonevening
schedule is meant to
focus participants on the
dawn-to-dusk cycle as
well as to create a
communal listening
ritual. It is also an
experiment in large-scale
form, designed to draw
attention to musical
material developing
across a week-long
expanse, interspersed
with vast silences. SEVEN
DAYS was shaped by a year
spent in relative
isolation due to the
pandemic. While it is a
work composed during a
time of quarantine, it
will be experienced first
by an audience in the
process of returning to a
more normal world. In
that sense, it is an
artwork born out of a
year of relatively
cloistered existence that
seeks to preserve aspects
of that experience as we
move forward. The piece
was also inspired by the
work of Morton Feldman
and Chantal Akerman,
whose large-scale works
consider time, process,
and stillness. Their art
struck me with a fresh
relevance during the
silent stretches of the
pandemic year 2020. It
was also a year in which
writings about time,
penned by contemplatives
like Henry David Thoreau
and Thomas Merton, held
new weight. All of this
in turnresonated with
Gloria Maximo's profound
paintings, which I've
long admired. SEVEN DAYS
is an artwork we are
invited to do - using
music to point our
attention to the present
moment, the everyday, and
the seemingly mundane. It
is a piece listeners are
also asked to live within
as it unfolds over a week
rather than to witness it
live. The key players
here are time and the
listener's own
surroundings, starring
together alongside music
and art in a wordless
drama. -Gregory
Spears.
Listening
