News

The Sampler – A Prophecy Fulfilled

Harry Mendell Inventor of the Sampler

The following remark is from the inventor of the sampler, a technology that digitizes recorded sound. It’s in reference to my #TowerMusic:
“I also would like to thank you for making music with it in the way I intended. It is an honor to meet you. Best, Harry“
Harry Mendell and I connected in Spring 2021 after I read an article in which he took the time to contact the reporter a few days AFTER his interview to add that Tower Music is “Exactly what I had in mind. It is still hard for me to understand why first of all it took so long to happen,” he writes, “and why there is not more music made from interesting non-instrumental sounds.” Read the whole article here: https://thepenngazette.com/synthesizing-music-and-science/
Yes, I am very proud of this.

A review of Suite Poughkeepsie

I just came across a mention of Suite Poughkeepsie from December 2006 in the online arts journal ARISTOS, entitled  “The Joys of Light Music” by Jesse F. Knight. I’ve also learned that Jesse passed away in 2008. I found this quote from him in a tribute to his life:  “Without exception,” Jesse said, explaining his devotion to light music, “it is entirely lacking in despair [and] life affirming.”

 

Well said, Jesse. Thanks from this side of the veil.

 

Of Suite Poughkeepsie he writes:

Joseph Bertolozzi is another accomplished composer of light music. Like many others in the field, he writes in other forms as well. Choral, chamber, solo piano, and liturgical music are prominent in his repertoire, not to mention stage scores. His light music fare includes “Suite Poughkeepsie“– an evocation, he has said, “of characteristic local scenes, impressions of [his] own experiences growing up [in Poughkeepsie, N. Y.], things which will be familiar to its present inhabitants.” At the other end of the musical spectrum are two of Bertolozzi’s more serious works: The Contemplation of Bravery, for solo French horn and strings–characterized by him as “introspective, meditative”–and An Age Will Come (commissioned in 1992 for the Columbus Quincentennial). These inspiring contemporary compositions may be heard in their entirety on the composer’s website [more on all three]. (Listen also to the United States Military Academy Band’s version of The Contemplation of Bravery.)

Jesse F. Knight (1946-2008)