Today’s video premiere features a live recording of Karl Larson performing Scott Wollschleger’s Gas Station Canon-Song on a recent recital at Spectrum in Brooklyn, New York.
The two-part solo recital series served as a preview for a forthcoming album of Wollschleger’s complete solo piano works to date recorded by Larson. Here’s what Wollschleger had to say about Gas Station Canon-Song:
Gas Station Canon-Song is about the purposeful act of finding beauty where convention insists it cannot exist. It’s about giving voice to the mystery found in the everyday spaces we encounter. The work is a mantra challenging us to see the negative spaces of everyday life—a parking lot, an old gas station, a strip mall, a crack in the sidewalk—as spaces for potential artistic inspiration. As we all grapple with our collective and individual anxiety, the deliberate search for beauty can provide solace.
Gas Station Canon-Song is the opening track of Bearthoven’s recent release on Cantaloupe Music, American Dream, which exclusively features my work. The piece’s main theme is one of the many “songs” that can be heard woven throughout the album’s eponymous piece. We’re happy to share the video of this special performance for the first time. We hope you enjoy it.
About Karl Larson
Brooklyn-based pianist Karl Larson is a specialist in the music of our time. Consistently presenting adventurous programs, Larson regularly performs a wide variety of newly commissioned works alongside selections from the modern canon. Recent performances of note include appearances at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, EMPAC, the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, and the Teatro General San Martín in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He frequently performs with his trio, Bearthoven, and has also recently appeared with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Ensemble Signal, and the American Composers Orchestra. Larson has released recordings on Cantaloupe Music, New Amsterdam Records, New Focus Recordings, and GALTTA Media. He holds a DMA in Contemporary Music Performance from Bowling Green State University.
About Scott Wollschleger
Scott Wollschleger (b. 1980)’s music has been highly praised for its arresting timbres and conceptual originality. His distinct musical language explores themes of art in dystopia, the conceptualization of silence, synesthesia, and creative repetition in form and has been described as “apocalyptic,” “distinctive and magnetic,” possessing a “hushed, cryptic beauty,” (The New Yorker, Alex Ross) and as “evocative” and “kaleidoscopic” (The New York Times). His debut album, Soft Aberration, was released on New Focus Recordings in 2017 and was named a Notable Recording of 2017 in The New Yorker. His most recent album, American Dream, written for Bearthoven, was released on Cantaloupe Music in 2019.
