“Love” a tragic etude

“In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted…”
Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream

The Method

Usually when I write for theater I begin making the script’s main theme. I read it a couple of times, write down the emotions I get and research all the relevant aspects. A few ideas arrive to my head.

In Love, the main theme evokes a light, carefree mood of innocence. For months it went this way => F-B#-C#-B-G in a 5×8 over F# Major.

Once I got the main theme done I write the main characters’ music and recreate the scenes I found strongest. These steps have helped me cover a big part of the play in relatively short time, even though the rehearsals tend to be a surprise to the composition.

The Concept

For one of the characters I used the main melody, now with an aggressive and more determined point of view. Mutating the main theme helps giving consistency to the play and linking emotions among scenes. Military Chief 1.mp3

I also wanted to link the music of each character to its representation of power so I could easily decouple them. Military Chief 2.mp3

In Love the image of the play would be far more realistic than I thought on each reading (Three Soldiers.mp3 – The Reunion.mp3), so I left the written sketches as they were- rough and in some way more tangible. At rehearsals I began working with textures; I began experimenting with sticks inside the piano which increased the tension and emotional contrast of the text.

Love, musically and spontaneously, turned into an etude in the second season after not finding a counterbass and having to adapt the score to solo piano.

The Demo

Main Theme

Love.mp3

The Shows

June 9-11,  2005.
Centro Cultural Corp Group.
CCS, Venezuela

April 28-30, 2006.
Columbia University (Schapiro Theatre)
605 West 115th Street (between Broadway and Riverside)
New York, USA

November 27- December 16, 2006.
Kraine Theater. (LaMaMa E.T.C., in its Annex Theatre at 74A East 4th Street.)
New York, USA.

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A Review

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Cast and Crew

Love was conceived and directed by Juan Souki
Aryeh Lappin, K.K. Maggie, Kate LoConti, Melinda Helfrich, Isaac Woofter & William Fenderson / Jeremy Bobb & Gil Bar-Sela

Score by Xavier Losada
Piano: Xavier Losada / Thomas Channel
Stop-motion: Alejandro Armas
Graphic Design: Alex Wright
Video Design: Luber Mujica.
Lighting Design: Bryan Keller
Costume Design: Amelia Dombrowski

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Love is probably the play that has given me the most emotion, depletion, introspection, development and at certain moments even frustration - A great experience.

 

Fateless - acantilado

“Still, even the imagination is not completely unbounded, or at least is unbounded only within limits, I have found.”
Imre Kertész, Fateless

The book

Imre Kertész - Fateless
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2002

The Song

 

After a minute, between fate and illusion, emerges the obstinatto, a melody that reminds of me sitting on stage at the piano, just about longing.

Immediately after, the piano and percussion begin to tell the truth, a reality that seems to hit but you don’t understand, you live.

Later on anguish’ textures shows up. I’ll never forget the image of soles pasted to the skin. Feet and wood made one. The uncertainty is there, always accompanying.

When in the theme I start to wander, to look back and think in destiny I call immersed the day-to-day life, the freedom and the fateless. With them goes otherness, a path that we feel but don’t predict.

The beginning… heroic and enigmatic as the end.

Sin Destino.mp3

 

434 a Short Film

“Composing is giving meaning to that stream of sounds that penetrates the world we live in”
Toru Takemitsu

 

Map + Previews

1.- Begins: Hotel entrance + Character Introduction + Room arrival => Unawareness

2.- Encounter: Pool + Her + Conquer => Decision + Motion

3.- Solitude: Awakening + Room + Window => Weirdness

4.- Action: Loneliness + Elevator + Stairs => Tension

5.- Commotion: Loneliness + Leaving stairs + Hallway + Room => Despair + Distress

6.- Introspection: Loneliness + Room => Resignation + Anguish

7(2).- Encounter: Final impression.

 

8(7).- Credits

 

434

Written, Produced & Directed by Javier Pérez-Karam & Leonard Zelig

Music & Sound Design: Xavier Losada

Director of Photography: Javier Pérez-Karam

 

Cast

Him: Leonard Zelig

Her: Tarina Rodríguez

Man: Javier Pérez-Karam

 

Foleys: Gabriel Álvarez & Ricardo Martínez

Graphic Design: Miguel Heberle

Edited by PérezKaram Post

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434 - Showing in 2008 - NYC, USA.

La Muerte de Empédocles - acantilado

…tries to decipher certain mysteries that did not glimpse at their moment.

The Books

After recording Escritorio and soon to start the production of embas‘ Suburbia, I began to work with 4 books published by biblioteca del acantilado

Resting - Attila Bartis

Fateless - Imre Kertész

Death of Empedocles - Frederich Hölderlin

Inferno - August Strindberg

The result was a 8 theme EP (each theme is presented mastered and remastered) were I placed my interpretation of each tale. The title: acantilado

Death of Empedocles

La muerte de Empédocles.mp3

Empédocles is surrounded by his disciples, is being loved and rejected. We can hear him advanced to his time, thoughtful on reflection… always trying to generate it. We can follow him climbing Mount Etna, between ideas and nature, until his final speech and departure.

He dies alone and immortalizes himself in solitude.

The Phrase

“¡Olvido!…¡Oh, como una vela venturosa

me desprendo de la costa, y la ola de la vida

por sí sola me deja!”

Friedrich Hölderlin.

As a part of the composition exercise, on each theme of acantilado I putted a phrase that obstinately joins the rest. Here, it can be easily identified. It represents the people assimilation, over adaptation, to Empedocles’ ideas.

In the theme our main character is never understood.

Toru’s Garden - La Uña, El Martillo & The Impossible Thoughts

“…many compositional ideas came to me from old Japanese gardens… I love gardens. They do not reject people. There one can walk freely, pause to view the entire garden, or gaze at a single tree. Plants, rocks, and sand show changes, constant changes.”
Toru Takemitsu

The Theme

Toru’s Garden.mp3

The Concept

Toru Takemitsu developed the idea of interpreting garden strolls through compositions. He assigned different rolls to each group of the orchestra while the piano walks and observes.

Departing from essays like Mirror and Egg and a composition exercise commissioned by Gerry Weil, I placed a touched walker stood in the middle of a garden which is slowly changing.

The theme develops between the “passer-by” (F), represented by the main piano, and the garden - piano and guitar. Among them is a piano-tuner, the time (C), who approaches, dripping, little by little.

As he observes, analyzes and assimilates, he mutates. The perception of time is always changing.

With the passing of events, the garden, the time and we become one.

The Little Prince

Based on Saint-Exupery’s novel and under the direction of Verónica Osorio, this show was presented by Skena in June and October 2006 in the theater of the Champagnat School, CCS

The Music, The Drawings & The Book

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The Little Prince “I jumped to my feet, completely thunderstruck. I blinked my eyes hard. I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most extraordinary small person, who stood there examining me with great seriousness.” The Little Prince.mp3

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The Baobabs “I do not much like to take the tone of a moralist. But the danger of the baobabs is so little understood, and such considerable risks would be run by anyone who might get lost on an asteroid, that for once I am breaking through my reserve. ‘Children,’ I say plainly, ‘watch out for the baobabs!’” Baobabs.mp3

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The Serpent “When the little prince arrived on the Earth, he was very much surprised not to see any people. He was beginning to be afraid he had come to the wrong planet, when a coil of gold, the color of the moonlight, flashed across the sand.” Serpent.mp3

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The Rose “Then one morning, exactly at sunrise, she suddenly showed herself.” The Rose.mp3

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…The Fox

“It has done me good,” said the fox, “because of the color of the wheat fields.”

The Fox.mp3

Quotes & Drawings are extracted from the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Show

Verónica Osorio: Adaptation & Direction

Original Score by Xavier Losada

Carmen Viloria: Piano

Set Design: Carlos Agell

Costume Design: María Esperanza Videtta

Black Theater Design: Gustavo Ferrero

Production: Prakriti Maduro, Alexandra Solórzano y Armando Álvarez

Amalamar - Chulius & The Filarmónicos

Piano commissioned by Julio Briceño (Los Amigos Invisibles) for the theme Amalamar, which is part of his solo project: Chulius & The Filarmónicos - MF* Radio

The Piano Arrangements

1/2

Atmosphere Begins - Hits 1 & 2

Backward Melody - Real Piano Entrance

2/2

Back Piano - Fall

Solo

The Song

Amalamar

The Credits

Julio Briceño: Vox, Guitar,

Programming, Bass, Keyboard.

Xavier Losada: Piano.

Iván Higa: Percussion

Erik Aldrey: Additional Programming.

Amalamar was composed and produced by Julio Briceño

Amalamar is part of the Album

MF* Radio

by

Chulius & The Filarmónicos