RZEWSKI, FREDERIC - Speaking Rzewski: Performed by Stephane Ginsburgh

"Released in Sub Rosa's Unclassical series. "This album is the result of years of work and friendship with the composer. It started with 'De Profundis', a piece which has had a deep impact on me as a musician and a person, and ended with it. Frederic attended many of my performances of the piece, the last one during our last public concert together in early 2020 in Brussels. In the meantime, he wrote 'Dear Diary' (2014) and 'America: A Poem' (2020) for me which were both premiered at Ars Musica festival. I am very happy to present these pieces to you on this new and special album coming out on Sub Rosa." --Stephane Ginsburgh Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021): Frederic Rzewski was born in Westfield, Massachusetts in 1938. He initially studied piano with Charles Mackey in Springfield and went on to study composition with Walter Piston (orchestration) and Randall Thompson at Harvard University and with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt at Princeton University, where he also took courses in philosophy and Greek. A Fulbright-Scholarship enabled him to study with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence in 1960-61. His musical collaboration with Dallapiccola marked the beginning of his career as a pianist for contemporary piano music. His friendship with Christian Wolff and David Behrman and his acquaintance with John Cage and David Tudor influenced his development, both as a composer and as a pianist. During the 1960s, Rzewski taught and took part in the first performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Klavierstück X" (1962) and "Plus Minus" (1964). From 1977 to 2003, he was a professor for composition at the Conservatoire Royal in Liège, Belgium. He also taught at various other universities, among them Yale University, the California Institute of the Arts and the Berlin University of the Arts. Rzewski founded the live electronics ensemble Musica Elettronica Viva with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum in Rome in 1966. After his return to New York in the early 1970s, his politically outspoken compositions probably made it difficult for him to obtain a long-term teaching position in the US. Frederic Rzewski lived and worked in Brussels. He left us on June 24, 2021 in his Italian home in Montiano. Stephane Ginsburgh (1969): A tireless surveyor of the repertoire but also explorer of new combinations including voice, percussion, performance or electronics, Stephane Ginsburgh performs as a soloist in many international festivals such as Ars Musica (Brussels), Quincena Musical (San Sebastian), ZKM Imatronic (Karksruhe), Agora (Paris), Bach Academie Brugge, Ultima Oslo, Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse, Gaida (Vilnius), Warsaw Autumn, Klara Festival (Brussels), Festival Forum (Moscow), and Musica Strasbourg. He has collaborated with many contemporary composers such as Frederic Rzewski, James Tenney, Philippe Boesmans, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Stefan Prins or Matthew Shlomowitz as well as with choreographers such as Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (Rosas) and visual artists such as Peter Downsbrough and Kurt Ralske." - Sub Rosa .