Winkelman

Over five albums as a leader, New York pianist Ben Winkelman has been developing his concept for the piano trio, seeking to strike an elusive balance between composition and improvisation, planning and spontaneity, the intellectual and the intuitive, all with his steadily working group. His featuring of the three instruments, not only as soloists, but as if they were a small orchestra, gave them each integral parts in the compositions expanding the overall voice of the trio. For 'Balance,' his sixth recording, Winkelman went into Sear Sound in New York with drummer Obed Calvaire and bassist Matt Penman, artists he highly respected but had yet to perform with, to add new energy and joyful unforeseen outcomes as they explore his ongoing interests in Afro-Cuban, gospel and classical music, but filtered through their collective jazz perspective.

Pianist Ben Winkelman’s sixth album as a leader, Heartbeat, features jazz heavyweights Gilad Hekselman, Matt Penman and Obed Calvaire, and comprises nine originals, four played by piano trio, five by quartet with guitar.

Over five albums as a leader, New York pianist Ben Winkelman has been developing his concept for the piano trio, seeking to strike an elusive balance between composition and improvisation, planning and spontaneity, the intellectual and the intuitive, all with his steadily working group. His featuring of the three instruments, not only as soloists, but as if they were a small orchestra, gave them each integral parts in the compositions expanding the overall voice of the trio. For 'Balance,' his sixth recording, Winkelman went into Sear Sound in New York with drummer Obed Calvaire and bassist Matt Penman, artists he highly respected but had yet to perform with, to add new energy and joyful unforeseen outcomes as they explore his ongoing interests in Afro-Cuban, gospel and classical music, but filtered through their collective jazz perspective.

Forty years have passed since Gidon Kremer created a little musical oasis in the Austrian town of Lockenhaus in 1981. The violinist’s open-minded attitude has left its mark on this event, which has become a must in the concert calendar, and the cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, who took up the torch in 2012, continues the same philosophy. For this fortieth anniversary, he has decided to call on composers who have come to Lockenhaus or had works performed there in the past ten years.

• Includes contributions from the late Ralph Metzner, Chris Bache, Whitley Strieber, Jeffrey Kripal, Angela Voss, Bill Richards, Chris Timmermann, Michael Winkelman, Luis Eduardo Luna, Anton Bilton, Bernard Carr, Daniel Pinchbeck, Dennis McKenna, Ede Frecska, and David Luke
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