Tag Archives: virg dzurinko

Lindal and Dzurinko Present the Romantic/Modern Music of Sofia G.

In the pamphlet that accompanies the album The Hidden Music of Sofia G., from violinist Eva Lindal and pianist Virg Dzurinko, the account of the unusual provenance of this remarkable music begins like a short story from Thomas Mann: “In 2021, by sheer chance, Eva stumbled across two hand-written music scores for violin and piano hidden in an old violin case. Signed ‘Sofia G. 1935,’ the manuscripts included some unusual graphic symbols interspersed among conventional notation. The violin case also contained a leather identification tag that read ‘Sofia Ganeshian, Locarno, Switzerland.’” So began a multiyear project to fill out the biographical details of this previously unknown avant-garde composer and discover what other music of hers might be in hiding. The result is an album of mesmerizing music as soulful, fluid, and free as any you are likely to encounter.

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Seven Pianists Honor the Late Diane Moser on ‘For Diane’

Top: Satoko Fujii by Bryan Murray, Carol Liebowitz. Center: Dred Scott, Mara Rosenbloom by Sherry Rubel, Kazzrie Jaxen. Bottom: Virg Dzurinko, Ricardo Gallo

Diane Moser, who passed away last December, was a radiant member of the New York music scene. On For Diane, seven stunningly original pianists have contributed solo performances to honor her memory and legacy. Musically Speaking first encountered her very late in her life, but very happily, through her recording Birdsongs, and can attest to her remarkable qualities as a composer, performer, and gracious human being.

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Something for Everyone: Part 1

Ryan Messina and Virg Dzurinko
Leslie Pintchik
Florian Hoefner Trio: Nick Fraser, Hoefner, Andrew Downing. Photo by Bo Huang.

Various preoccupations have slowed my listening and reviewing, so to pick up some of the slack, “Something for Everyone” features short reviews of six groups, covering a wide range of styles and sensibilities. Featured artists in part 1 include the Virg Dzurinko/Ryan Messina duo, Leslie Pintchik trio, and Florian Hoefner trio.

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Four Masters of Improvisation: Crothers and Payne, Mann and Krachy

Connie Crothers and Bill Payne. Photo by Scott Friedlander.

Woody Mann and Charley Kratchy. Photo by Rod Franklin.

The late pianist Connie Crothers, who lives on the same trunk of the jazz tree as pianist Lennie Tristano, with whom she studied, has been the center of gravity for a number of impressive musicians who have flourished under her watch. Among those Crothers colleagues are clarinetist Bill Payne and saxophonist Charley Krachy, who appear on three albums reviewed here. Each of the albums features what drummer Carol Tristano, Lennie’s daughter, thought might well be described as organic improvisation. You might also call it spontaneous improvisation (but not free). The first two recordings are The Stone Set/Conversations, a double album that pairs Payne with Crothers. Released in 2011, it is still as fresh now as then. The second is Conversations, a brand-new release that pairs Krachy with renowned blues/jazz/Americana guitarist Woody Mann, who himself studied with Tristano. The albums couldn’t be more different, but the two duos share one thing: they live as comfortably and joyously in musical improvisation as dolphins do in the sea. Continue reading →

The Interlace Concerts, Part 2: Virg Dzurinko’s Instantaneous Coherence

Virg Dzurinko. Watercolor by Anne Watkins © 2008.

A number of listeners were so captivated by pianist Virg (rhymes with urge) Dzurinko’s solo album, Fun City (New Artists Records, 1999), that they wrote to the label asking how they could acquire the sheet music. They wanted to dive into the voluptuous shadows of “Swimming in the Dark,” float in the tender luminosity of “Another City,” with its final poignant dissonance. They wanted to see how she so completely transforms “Darn That Dream” over and over, and what makes her block chords go in two directions at once in “Quitting Time.” They needed to get a look at the map for the prickly “Traffic and Weather Together.”

Imagine their surprise—were Dzurinko to send it to them—when they discover that, except for the title at the top, the sheet music comprises blank page after blank page. That’s because every track—9 standards and 12 originals—is entirely improvised from beginning to end.

What’s telling in the requests for the sheet music is how coherent each of these tracks is in establishing feeling and narrative. For all their illuminated divagations, they sound as if they could have been written out or at least sketched out in advance. They’re complete and beautiful. But until she sat down at the piano, Dzurinko had no more idea than the man in the moon what was going to happen.

But happen it did. Continue reading →