Dave Soldier is a composer/performer, and a scientist in his day job as Dave Sulzer, Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Pharmacology at Columbia University Medical School. While these occupations rarely intersect, they do so on these two new CDs. They further indicate a transition from a decade of musical projects working with animals, children, and non-musicians to a return to work with professional virtuosos.
The Thai Elephant Orchestra stems in part from Soldier's interest in animal behavior. He co-founded the group in 2000 together with elephant conservationist Richard Lair, who has lived in northern Thailand for over thirty years, working for the past 20 with the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. Soldier and Lair built giant instruments for the elephants who then learned to improvise quickly, and sometimes play the music spontaneously.
This new and literally ultimate CD, Water Music, celebrates the elephant's love of water with 14 elephants improvising together on over 20 specially made instruments in an hour of music. There are no overdubs, no editing except to remove human noises, and this is precisely what the elephants played in real time. There is no human participation except for a traditional Thai animist prayer for the elephant spirit, sung by master mahout Boonyang live with the orchestra, and a few minor rainstick sounds. Soldier says: "As this CD, our third, will be essentially impossible to improve upon, it will be the last recording released."
A video of some of the live performances by the Thai Elephant Orchestra can be seen at http://davesoldier.com/thaiorch.html.
In The Complete Victrola Sessions, Soldier imagines that a turn-of-the-century Russian violin virtuoso's lost recordings have been rediscovered. The music, which was created alongside the film, might be called a Gothic Opera-Without-Words for violin and piano. Inspired by the work of early 20th century masters of both classical and jazz music, the music is beautiful and haunting.
In the accompanying DVD, Winsome Brown's film The Violinist (2011, 44 min) is a 16 mm black and white experimental gothic narrative shot by renowned avant-garde filmmaker Jennifer Reeves with a Bolex camera. It tells the story of Russian violin virtuoso Rebecca Chernyakov (Rebecca Cherry) who arrives in New York in 1913 and quickly falls in love with a dangerous demimondain (Ken Roht), who introduces her to the speakeasies, opium dens, and dark places of the City. Rebecca's experiences with opium intertwine with her obsession for the stranger until she cannot separate one passion from the other, leading her inexorably to addiction, a terrible fall from grace, and personal and artistic cataclysm.
Virtuoso violinist Rebecca Cherry both stars and plays all the violin music in the film and CD; LA celebrity Ken Roht plays the Stranger who lures her towards destruction; Soldier appears as her teacher Leopold Auer; and George Steel, General Manager and Artistic Director of New York City Opera, plays the role of her pianist. The film also features cameos from many luminaries from the worlds of television, film, theatre, and dance.
The film can be observed as a streaming version for the Media, and the pieces heard, at the secret website? http://
davesoldier.com/Violinist.html.
BIOS:
DAVE SOLDIER is a musician and a scientist in his day job as a Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Pharmacology at Columbia University Medical School. Appropriately for The Complete Victrola Sessions, Soldier's work in neuroscience includes study of brain mechanisms of drug addiction, and for Water Music, to mechanisms of learning. Soldier co-runs the monthly Entertaining Science series at the Cornelia Street Café, and leads the Brainwave Music Project with Brad Garton. On June 11, 2011, St. Peter's Church will feature premieres of his book of organ music, Organum, his book of piano music, Hockets & Inventions, and song cycle, Dean Swift's Satyrs for the Very Very Young. Soldier recently released CDs as a member of the cult punk Delta band, The Kropotkins, and as a member of legendary jazz drummer's William Hooker Trio. His label, Mulatta Records, which is releasing these two CDs, will shortly also release an astonishing new orchestra work, Spontaneous River, by jazz violinist Jason Hwang.
WINSOME BROWN is a writer, director, and Obie-award winning performer. "The Violinist" is her second collaboration with noted avant-garde filmmaker Jennifer Reeves, who served as director of photography. Brown is currently directing the Performance Concert of "The Violinist" with consulting director Jay Scheib. She received an Obie award for her performance in Heather Woodbury's "Tale of 2Cities: An American Joyride on Multiple Tracks" (2007). As a film actor, Winsome has performed in "Heights" (Merchant Ivory, dir. Chris Terrio), the B-movie "Nightfall" with David Carradine, "Shadows Choose Their Horrors" (2005, dir. Jennifer Reeves, New York Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival) which she also co-wrote, and "On-Line" (2001, Sundance, Berlin Film Festival). TV credits include "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "For Your Love." Selected stage credits: "Taking Sides" (Odyssey Theatre, LA), "Welcome to Winsomeland" (Tamarind Theatre, LA), American Living Room Series (HERE), Blueprint Series (Ontological-Hysteric Theatre), and Monologues in Stereo (Issue Project Room and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice). Her one-woman show, "Fits & Starts" played in New York, Los Angeles, and Hyderabad, India. Upcoming projects include a role in Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn's "The Master Builder."
