Tahsili Consort II
Journals & Journeys 1998
The music of Tahsili Consort is both journal and journey.
It is a record of daily experiences, impressions, thoughts, feelings, sneaking into sound and structure when no one is paying attention.
It is also a going away, sometimes to familiar places, sometimes to strange new places. And, usually, there is a return to home, or at least to someplace more familiar.
Torianas Tahsilianas is dedicated to my daughter Tory, who sat in with the group now and then on percussion.
Tahsili Consort invites you to share these journals and join us on these journeys. The price is right and the security is light.
REVIEW by Sharon Schuman, Founding Artistic Director & Violinist, Chamber Music Amici
On Tahsili Consort II - Journals & Journeys you’ll hear the soul of a romantic, the playfulness of an over-grown kid, and the rhythmic drive of a jazz king. You’ll also find the sounds of more instruments than you can count, the occasional bird, and a traffic cop.
Here’s my track by track preview:
Kosovo Suite
A dreamy waltz begins The Kosovo Suite. Jazzy riffs from xylophone and string bass pick up the pace and take you to a busy street corner. An urgent staccato resolves into a triplet dance, where Baroque meets drunken sailor. Two voices, one floating or scampering, the other in a relaxed amble, manage to end in sync. If chopsticks and a metronome got into an argument, which would win? A five-minute journey begins with militant drums and traffic noises, while a xylophone below slowly rebuilds a more normal life.
Journals 1-5
Ah, a piano! In Journals 1-5 widely disparate voices carry on a driving conversation. Aaron Copland seems to be sitting in the side-shadow of a rising, questioning voice. The answer lurks in the drop-like purity of simple octaves. Child’s play. If an instrument were a bird, it would leap from branch to branch. How many ways can two lines meet--walking, searching, together or apart?
Torianas Tahsilianas
Logo paints the briefest, jazziest cityscape of Torianas Tahsilianas. Prologue urges you to put on a top hat and white gloves. Travelogue begins fugue-like, then takes you to the land of xylophone, to the Middle East, back to jazz, to the non-metronomic metronome oblivious to rippling runs, and finally to the marching drums of a fast finish. If you haven’t felt like it already, Epilogue invites you to dance. Start with this cut.
Plaintiff
. . . changes pace with a rolling, rippling lament. Lush chords subside into one lone voice from Carmen, as we hear what it means not to give up.
Journeys 1-8
. . . hold a wealth of polyphonic voices. A high, hopeful piano calls out to drums. Snare, bass, and cymbal join in. Tap your toe, the table, the keyboard - but don’t stumble. Heck, just play one note! Don’t blink. Think North Beach, smoke, shades, and a walking bass. Sip your martini. Start in Africa and add layers of sound as you head to the Far East. What if we just lit out for all directions at once?
Kosovo Reprise
, , , ends where we began - in dream, the imagination, a mental last waltz that “gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a
name.” Except now we also hear in it echoes of distant street-corners, cafes, and hopes.
Joining Tahsili Consort on their musical Journals & Journeys are:
Tory Heldt Percussion
Beth Curdel Flute