In this episode of AHO Radio -- Spiritnaut Bill Protzmann interviews violist, composer, improviser, and educator Nick Revel. With Nick's permission, we've included his original music as rescored for the animated short film by Michaël Dudok de Wit: "Father and Daughter," alongside our conversation and commentary.
Thank you!
Show notes and time stamps follow Nick's bio.
Nick Revel is the founding violist of PUBLIQuartet, whose 2019 album Freedom and Faith was nominated for a GRAMMY™ Award for Best Chamber Music Performance and debuted at Number 4 on the Classical Billboard Charts. PUBLIQuartet served as string quartet in residence for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's “MetLiveArts” 2016/17 season and has been presented by the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Carolina Performing Arts, Washington Performing Arts, The National Gallery of Art, Carnegie Hall, the Joyce Theater, National Sawdust, Dizzy's Coca Cola Club, Detroit Jazz Festival, and the Newport Jazz Festival. He's collaborated with Benjamin Millepied and the LA Dance Project, Björk, Paquito D’Rivera, Billy Childs, JACK Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Jessie Montgomery, and tuba legend Bob Stewart.
As a composer, Nick's 2019 Carnegie Hall Play USA Commission The Fear was selected as a finalist in the 2020 Golden Hornets String Quartet Smackdown. In 2019 he released a self-produced and recorded full-length album and now electroacoustic solo show Letters to My Future Self (Centaur Records) of all original compositions, improvisations, and sound designs for viola. Nick's 2017 commission In DayDream for viola and guitar was premiered in Carnegie Hall on April 10, 2017, and was selected as a winner of Indiana State University's Music Now Call for scores in October 2018. For three consecutive years, Nick was commissioned to write pieces for mixed student ensembles at the Talent Education Suzuki School.
As an educator, Nick has traveled the United States giving improvisation workshops to orchestras and chamber groups. He is artistic and executive director of the Norwalk Youth Chamber Ensembles and is co-creator of the New York String Studio, located in Sunnyside, Queens with his wife Nora Krohn. In the summer of 2018, Nick created the scale and arpeggio play-along method, DragonScales, available for violin, viola, and cello, which can be found on iTunes and Amazon. He aspires to offer his students ergonomic instrumental techniques, mind-body awareness, discipline, problem-solving, organization, time management, and self-expression. Nick currently serves on the board of the Seabury Academy of Music and the Arts in Norwalk, CT.
Nick Revel's website (leave an anonymous note!)
Show Notes
The IMDB page for "Father and Daughter" - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279079/ Nick's re-score of the same animated short film:
Nick Revel: "A Dream Within a Dream" -
PUBLICQuartet (improvised): "Requiem for a Debate" from The Late Show With Steven Colbert Oct 20, 2016 -
Ableton Live - https://www.ableton.com/en/live/
Timeline
0:40 - Intro
2:09 - "A Dream Within a Dream" using Google "deep dream"
3:20 - Ableton Live and Nick's process
4:20 - Scores for Nick's compositions
5:58 - Show me how!
6:40 - The struggle of doing solo shows and trusting the technology
8:08 - PUBLIQuartet and the third Presidential debate of 2016
10:58 - What do you think of when you see a string quartet?
11:45 - "Father and Daughter" intro - how the re-score project came to be
17:10 - Copyright acknowledgments
17:40 - first movie segment
19:09 - Have you ever been left that profoundly?
24:49 - second movie segment
27:07 - The struggle within the movie represented musically
33:08 - final movie segment
37:52 - Magic starts to happen - swills, circles, and impossible strings
43:42 - Potential for more Nick Revel re-scores - a work of love
47:10 - For students: play your heart - PUBLIQuartet new album
49:43 - The adult and inner child
52:46 - Drop Nick a line
About Your Host
Over the course of more than 40 years of paying attention to how music works on us, Bill Protzmann has rediscovered the fundamental nature and purpose of music and accumulated a vast awareness of anthropology and sociology, as well as the effects of music, the arts, and information technology on human beings. Bill has experimented with what he has learned through performing concerts, giving lectures, facilitating workshops, and teaching classes. He first published on the powerful extensibility of music into the business realm in 2006 (here and abstract here). Ten years later, in 2016, he consolidated his work into the Musimorphic Quest. In this guided, gamified, experiential environment, participants discover and remember their innate connection to this ancient transformative technology. The National Council for Behavioral Healthcare recognized Bill in 2014 with an Inspiring Hope award for Artistic Expression, the industry equivalent of winning an Oscar.
In addition to individuals, Musimorphic programs support personal and professional development and wellness for businesses, NPOs and at-risk populations.
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