Date: Monday, December 9, 2024
Time: 19:30 h
Place: EDEN, Studio 300
Breite Strasse 43, 13187 Berlin
Anton Batagov is a composer, pianist and sound engineer. He is one of the most important and iconic figures in the world of new classical music. In the 21st century, he is already considered one of the “living classics” of new music, and his innovative approach to the performance of early and classical music is unparalleled.
Program:
Prelude in C minor, BWV 999 [Bach, between 1717 and 1723]
Rock-n-rOlga [Batagov, 2021]
Moment Musical in F minor, op.94 No. 3 / D 780 [Schubert, 1823]
Breathing In Breathing Out: E minor [Batagov, 2005, 2022 revision]
Prelude in C minor, BWV 847 [Bach, 1722]
Chaconne in A Minor [Batagov, 2021]
Alone Again, As Before [Tchaikovsky, 1893 / Batagov, 2022]
Samsara Ocean [Batagov, 2006, rev.2022]
Prelude in B minor, op. 32 No. 10 [Rachmaninoff, 1910]
Music for December [solo piano version] [Batagov, 1993 / 2022]
Prelude in C major, BWV 846 [Bach, 1722]
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Total duration: 1 hour 20 minutes, no intermission.
Entrance to the studio via the EDEN Cafe, Breite Strasse 43, 13187 Berlin. You are welcome to take a seat in our EDEN Café before the concert begins and enjoy a drink to get you in the mood for the musical evening. The café is open daily from 10 am.
Accessibility: The venue, EDEN Studio 300, is accessible via the entrance to the garden. Barrier-free parking spaces and toilets are available. Seats, for example for wheelchair users, are available without prior reservation. Our drinks menu is unfortunately not barrier-free accessible, please contact our team on site so that a drink can be brought to you if required.
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The Artist's note
I recorded this album in August 2022.
I have never mixed music written by me and classical music in one album before. Now I decided to do so. In one way or another, I've always been both a "performer" and a "composer". My “interpretations” of the classics have always sounded, shall we say, weird (compared to how it is “supposed” to be played), and my own stuff has always had echoes of my performing experience.
But now every sound has to make its way through the impossibility of speaking the language of music and speaking at all. Everything that seemed important and meaningful became meaningless. And it's impossible to continue making art as if “everything is normal”.
The itinerary of the album includes some of the famous classical pieces and some of my own compositions. It goes through my entire life – from the time when my mother put me on her lap facing the keyboard, placed my hands on top of hers and played these Bach's Preludes for me (that's how I "got into music") – to the present moment. From Music for December (1993) to Chaconne in A minor (2021). From Schubert's F minor Moment Musical to my solo piano transcription of Tchaikovsky's very last song (Alone Again, As Before).
This album's eleven tracks are like scattered pages discarded on the shore of Samsara ocean and fallen into someone's hands. An attempt to understand the connection between them, how and why it all happened, and what will happen now. If anyone survives on this planet at all, I am not sure that there will be a desire and an opportunity to listen to music. But just in case, let this album exist.
Rock-n-rOlga
I wrote this piece in 2021 for pianist and composer Olga Ivanova. She wanted to make a concert/album program consisting of nocturnes by different authors, and asked her colleagues to write nocturnes for her. As you know, 19th century nocturnes are a kind of "landscapes": lyrical, sometimes tragic, and, as a rule, with a beautiful melody. The 20th century brought new colors. The 21st century combined everything and removed all the quotation marks placed by postmodernists. I suggested that a beautiful and successful young lady who composes "academic" music and performs piano recitals might want to go to a night club to listen to something quite different, and dance. So I wrote a piece called Rock-n-rOlga. It's a nocturne. Sort of.
Breathing In Breathing Out: E minor
This composition written in 2005 is the main tune of the movie Breathing In Breathing Out directed by Ivan Dykhovichny. In the original soundtrack there were two versions of this piece – the "loud" one and the "quiet" one. Recently I made a new revision of the quiet version and recorded it for this album.
Chaconne in A Minor
Written in 2021, commissioned by a New York festival Bang on a Can. A chaconne is not a title but a form: a simple chord sequence followed by numerous variations. All sorts of textures, melodies, and other things are built on the basis of those chords. It was one of the most common forms in baroque times. For a "minimalist", a chaconne is something really native because these are the principles that "minimalist" compositional methods are based upon.
Samsara Ocean
This piece was written in 2006 as an opening track for the album Daily Practice, conceived and recorded in collaboration with Lama Sonam Dorje (Lama Oleg). Samsara is traditionally referred to as an ocean of grief, an ocean of sorrow, an ocean of tears. In 2022, I made a solo piano version of Samsara Ocean.
Music for December
This composition was written in December 1993 (hence the title) for sampling keyboards. A few days later I met a film director Ivan Dykhovichny. He was looking for a composer for a new movie. We met, he listened to this piece, and said: "This will be the music for the movie". And it turned out that the title of the music became the title of the movie. Ivan and I were friends and collaborators for 16 years, until his death.
In 2022 I made a solo piano version of Music for December.
I am not going to write anything about the classical compositions included in this album. I doubt they need my words.
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About the artist
Composer and pianist Anton Batagov is one of the most influential and iconic figures in the world of new classics. His discography includes almost 60 albums. He plays on the world's most prestigious stages. His compositions have been performed and recorded by outstanding classical and rock musicians and orchestras. The philosophy of Batagov's projects eliminates any boundaries between "performance" and "composition" by viewing all existing musical practices—from ancient rituals to rock and pop culture and advanced computer technologies—as inseparable elements of his own practice.
Anton Batagov is one of the closest collaborators of Philip Glass, one of the key performers of his music. He has been touring internationally with Glass for almost a decade. His Glass albums – The complete Etudes, Prophecies (Batagov's piano arrangements of scenes from Einstein on the Beach and Koyaanisqatsi), music from The Hours and Distant figure (a composition written by Philip Glass for and premiered by Anton Batagov) – have received critical recognition, thousands of sales and millions of streams.
As a composer, Batagov has his own unique voice. The post-minimalist language of his compositions is rooted in the harmonic and rhythmic patterns of Russian church bells mixed with the spirit of Buddhist philosophy, the dynamic pulse of early Soviet avant-garde, and the unfading energy of progressive rock. Batagov is an author of several movie soundtracks and original music for numerous television channels.
From 1997 to 2009, Batagov stopped his concert activity to focus on recording and composition.
Since 2009 he has been performing a series of unique solo piano programs. His repertoire includes contemporary classics and great composers of the past. Along with the music of John Cage, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, Batagov performs Bach, Pachelbel, early English music, Mozart, Schubert, Debussy, and many others composers, as well as his own numerous piano compositions.
Mr. Batagov has performed at The Grand Hall of Moscow Conservatory and The Grand Hall of St.Petersburg Philharmonie, Moscow International House of Music and Zaryadye Hall, Walt Disney Hall (Los Angeles) and Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York), Jordan Hall (Boston) and Bing Concert Hall (Palo Alto, CA), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg), The Berliner Philharmonie and Philharmonie de Paris, Musiikkitalo (Helsinki) and Reduta Hall (Bratislava), Teatro Regio (Parma, Italy) and Palau de la Musica Catalana (Barcelona, Spain), and many other venues.
Brilliantly hypnotizing
(Los Angeles Times)
His performance transcends the material world.
(Crescendo magazine, Germany)
Anton Batagov is a mystic of the piano. Part shaman and part showman, beneath his fingers the keys of the keyboard reveal another world, another layer of spiritual energy, and another way of listening.
(Time out New York magazine)
Batagov shakes up our notion of what a solo piano recital can sound like.
(The Gathering Note, Seattle)