Praised for his creativity, passion, and imagination in performance and composition, Michael Arnowitt is a classical and jazz pianist of international renown. His piano compositions have been described as a “tour de force of brilliant pianism.” In addition to compositions, Michael has performed both classical and jazz pieces around the world, including each of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, and his story has been retold through a documentary about his life titled Beyond 88 Keys.
The most embarrassing thing that ever happened at one of my concerts occurred during a performance of George Crumb’s “Dream Images” from his Makrokosmos I. Earlier in the day I had noticed that on stage there were various theater props for a production that had been in rehearsal. While I practiced before the concert, a man occasionally walked around the stage working with the materials of the set, and I didn’t think anything of it. The Crumb piece is extremely delicate and soft, and while I was performing it the audience was so quiet that this same man I had seen earlier in the day started walking casually right onto the middle of the stage, completely unaware that a concert was taking place. Suddenly, the truth dawned on him that there were hundreds of people sitting in the auditorium listening to this piano guy he must have thought was just doing some more practicing. He silently walked backwards off the stage, retracing his steps as if to say “let’s pretend this never happened,” but I still have the memory of the look on his face when he must have thought, sh**, I’m in the middle of a concert!
Even though I’m a pianist, my favorite instrument has always been the violin. I tend to think about music texturally, and the diversity of touch the violin bow can make with the instrument’s strings is like the brushstrokes of a painter. The bow can make sounds that are light, dark, soulful, agitated, dramatic, heavy, humorous, scattered with lots of spaces between the notes, or beautifully connected and smooth. I did study the violin as a second instrument from when I was about 12 to 14, but unfortunately, the calluses you get on the fingers of your left hand from violin playing are bad for playing the piano, so I decided to give it up.
I am hoping to do a tour of southeast Asia one of these years, to countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. I’m a foodie and my favorite cuisines are Malaysian and Burmese – I really like the food from that part of the world. My favorite dish to eat is probably a Malaysian mango curry, as I love the blend of fruit and curry flavors. I’ve been in a gamelan group in Vermont in the United States and am working on a piece to be called “Sound Essence” for jazz quartet and gamelan ensemble. I would love to travel to Indonesia and listen to gamelan music and perform the piece with local groups there.
In my tune Midnight Forest, I wanted to depict a scene of a forest of tall trees looming above, in the middle of the night. A path curves left and right through different parts of the forest, with giant trees, perhaps redwoods, seeming to lean and arc overhead in the dim moonlight. To musically portray these immense trees, I came up with the idea of a melody where each note was a chord, a brass chorale of widely spaced harmonies. I struggled for a while deciding which instruments should play this chordal melody, ultimately settling on six-note chords of three flugelhorns and three trombones. An unusual sound is created by having the drums play with the brass but withholding the bass and piano to fill in at the ends of phrases. One of my absolute favorite moments in the entire recording is the absorbing flugelhorn solo on this tune by Dave Smith.
We tend to listen to music in a seated, stationary position, but in reality music is all about motion and journey. To me, listening to a piece of music is like travelling through a varied landscape of rolling hills. We go up and down and round corners to see constantly changing vistas of different colors and textures.
There are 14 instrumentalists on the recording – 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, alto sax, tenor sax, violin, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, piano, bass, drums, voice, and spoken word. I think these musicians did a great job evoking the diverse colors, images, and moods of the different songs on the recording. A long time ago, I received a nice compliment that as a performer I didn’t try to project my sound from the stage to the audience, but rather created a feeling as if the audience was being brought on stage to be with me. I like the idea of making the line between performer and audience disappear. I hope SWEET SPONTANEOUS gives a sense of odyssey, of the listener joining myself and the other musicians for a voyage together through the interesting lands of these songs.
SWEET SPONTANEOUS is now available through Big Round Records for streaming or purchase. Click here to explore this new album.