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Paleolithic Caves of Europe Influence New Album of Electroacoustic Music From Composer Craig Safan
For Immediate Release
Contact: Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
516-586-3433 or jamesarts@att.net
(June 9, 2015—New York NY) The ancient caves of Southern France and Northern Spain served as the inspiration for Rough Magic, a new album of electroacoustic music gathered and composed by Craig Safan. Perseverance Records will release the album digitally and on CD on July 7, 2015.
“For many years I have wanted to take my love of Paleolithic art and ancient myth and translate it into a musical form. Rough Magic is the final outcome,” said Safan, who was influenced by the caves he initially toured in the 1970s. “I was fascinated by some really interesting studies on music and what the music of primitive man might have been like. As a composer, everything speaks to me musically. So the concept of basing a piece of music on the cave art I’d experienced in my youth inevitably gelled.”
After visiting these caves with his field recorders, “I took all the sounds that I had gathered on my visit to the caves, and I took a lot of samples from other weird instruments I’ve collected over the years, plus my own huge library of sound effects, and I loaded them into computers so that I could play them on a keyboard using different music software programs,” Safan said.
Safan added, “All the reverbs used for the music was modeled using the echoes I recorded in specific caves. Voices, footsteps, breaths, rocks, handclaps, whistles, and even stalactites being struck; all were turned into the various instruments I used performing the music.”
“Being a pictorial composer I tend to see music in visual terms - what used to be called ‘programmatic music’,” described Safan. “Each piece in Rough Magic is based on a specific scenario and in that way the work is somewhat like a ballet built on thirteen scenes. The titles, which include Make the Sun Dance, Where Light in Darkness Lies and Astonish and Transform, allude to these stories but not in an overly detailed way, leaving much to the listener's imagination.”
Craig Safan was a recipient of the Senior Music Award from Brandeis University, where he studied with Harold Shapero in the school’s electronic music studio, and with Alvin Lucier in electronic music and conceptual sound pictures. A Watson Foundation Fellowship allowed him to study electronic music in London with Peter Zinovieff and others. He conducted his music this past June at California’s Redondo Performing Arts Center with the Golden State Pops Orchestra.
He has also composed the music for over thirty feature films including Mr. Wrong, Stand and Deliver, Major Payne, Nightmare on Elm Street IV, Remo Williams, and The Last Starfighter. For the small screen, Safan is best known for his work as the composer for the series Cheers for which he was awarded eight ASCAP Top TV awards, as well as for his music for Life Goes On, which earned Safan an EMMY® nomination. His website is http://www.craigsafan.com/.
Visit Perseverance Records at http://www.perseverancerecords.com/.
For more information contact Jeffrey James Arts Consulting at 516-586-3433 or jamesarts@att.net or Beth Krakower, Krakower Poling PR, 323-800-2570, Beth@KrakowerPolingPR.com, or @KrakowerPoling on Twitter
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Contact: Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
516-586-3433 or jamesarts@att.net
(June 9, 2015—New York NY) The ancient caves of Southern France and Northern Spain served as the inspiration for Rough Magic, a new album of electroacoustic music gathered and composed by Craig Safan. Perseverance Records will release the album digitally and on CD on July 7, 2015.
“For many years I have wanted to take my love of Paleolithic art and ancient myth and translate it into a musical form. Rough Magic is the final outcome,” said Safan, who was influenced by the caves he initially toured in the 1970s. “I was fascinated by some really interesting studies on music and what the music of primitive man might have been like. As a composer, everything speaks to me musically. So the concept of basing a piece of music on the cave art I’d experienced in my youth inevitably gelled.”
After visiting these caves with his field recorders, “I took all the sounds that I had gathered on my visit to the caves, and I took a lot of samples from other weird instruments I’ve collected over the years, plus my own huge library of sound effects, and I loaded them into computers so that I could play them on a keyboard using different music software programs,” Safan said.
Safan added, “All the reverbs used for the music was modeled using the echoes I recorded in specific caves. Voices, footsteps, breaths, rocks, handclaps, whistles, and even stalactites being struck; all were turned into the various instruments I used performing the music.”
“Being a pictorial composer I tend to see music in visual terms - what used to be called ‘programmatic music’,” described Safan. “Each piece in Rough Magic is based on a specific scenario and in that way the work is somewhat like a ballet built on thirteen scenes. The titles, which include Make the Sun Dance, Where Light in Darkness Lies and Astonish and Transform, allude to these stories but not in an overly detailed way, leaving much to the listener's imagination.”
Craig Safan was a recipient of the Senior Music Award from Brandeis University, where he studied with Harold Shapero in the school’s electronic music studio, and with Alvin Lucier in electronic music and conceptual sound pictures. A Watson Foundation Fellowship allowed him to study electronic music in London with Peter Zinovieff and others. He conducted his music this past June at California’s Redondo Performing Arts Center with the Golden State Pops Orchestra.
He has also composed the music for over thirty feature films including Mr. Wrong, Stand and Deliver, Major Payne, Nightmare on Elm Street IV, Remo Williams, and The Last Starfighter. For the small screen, Safan is best known for his work as the composer for the series Cheers for which he was awarded eight ASCAP Top TV awards, as well as for his music for Life Goes On, which earned Safan an EMMY® nomination. His website is http://www.craigsafan.com/.
Visit Perseverance Records at http://www.perseverancerecords.com/.
For more information contact Jeffrey James Arts Consulting at 516-586-3433 or jamesarts@att.net or Beth Krakower, Krakower Poling PR, 323-800-2570, Beth@KrakowerPolingPR.com, or @KrakowerPoling on Twitter
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