“My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, and circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Friendship”
Coming to Portland, Oregon ~ one night only ~ Monday evening, Feb. 24, 2020 ~ 7:30 to 9:00 pm ~ Miami-based multi-instrumentalist John Henry Dale, and Portland’s pianist-composer David Salminen, are teaming up to create a unique mind-expanding concert experience. ~ FREE ~ Featuring John Henry’s algorithmic Ableton music compositions – inspired by great chess matches ~ and David’s improvisations on grand piano – inspired by selected hexagrams from the I Ching. Location: Michelle’s Piano Company, 600 SE Stark Street, Portland, OR 97214. https://www.michellespiano.com/about/
…. algorithmic Ableton music compositions – inspired by great chess matches… audible patterns in strategy & intuition… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWiqiyt9jIs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3d2i-ceTnqJy9lYVTZ8nEBjjMNIrX1CBf_2Sy1tech6_v6jcW0hzkvKaY
David Salminen, pianist, in concert ~ Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019, 1:30 pm ~ at a new venue (for him): Michelle’s Piano Company ~ 600 SE Stark St. Portland, Oregon 97214 ~ admission free (donations welcome to cover costs and support the artist) ~ program: cosmic improvisations and toning with tones ~ email david@wholeworks.net for more info ~ more about the location: https://www.michellespiano.com/about/
April 7, 2018 ~ 3 pm to 430 pm (with an intermission) ~ Classic Pianos Recital Hall, 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, Oregon 97202 ~ phone (503) 546-5622 ~ Admission is free. Donations are welcome.
Salminen’s concerts, especially since his “cosmic series” began, with “Beyond Termination Shock” in 2005, but even before the “cosmic series” started, have been recognized by many for being “musical meditations”… opportunities to relax and let the mind roam free… This particular concert is inspired by the astronomical phenomenon known as the Cosmic Light Horizon, which refers to the limit as to how far back in time our telescopes can see into the history of the Universe, and begs the question, “What is beyond the Horizon?” as a kind of impossible query, like a Zen Koan. In honor of the late great physicist Stephen Hawking, this concert is dedicated to him and inspired by a statement he made in an interview on National Geographic’s StarTalk, “The boundary condition of the universe… is that it has no boundary.”
From critics and fans: “At David’s concerts, “We, the listeners, become the music.” ~ Cheryl Kolander, Aurora Silk. “contains the very spark of life” ~ Julia Sopalski, for The Anchorage Times. “Salminen uses his rather unconventional methods to create [music] bursting with life, feeling and spectral intensity.” ~ Metro Magazine, Anchorage, Alaska
For more information ~ see the website: https://davidsalminen.com/ ~ or email: david@wholeworks.net
Wm. Blake painting – Glad Day
Something I discovered while reading literary commentaries by A.R. Orage: “One of the exercises in the [right] use of imagination is that of the frequent shift from the personal to the universal, and vice versa.” How nice to see this particular idea presented so clearly! It jives with the context I’ve referenced for my personal/universal cosmic metaphor piano concerts for years & years. And it’s a useful shock indeed to find that others may actually understand what you are aiming for, in your work, better than you do!
It may well be that Western music’s “major scale” is a musical metaphor: do is the moment of commitment. re is establishing contact with the work you’re doing, the process. mi is when you start to feel the process taking on a life of its own. mi-fa is a crisis point, wherein you suffer some disillusionment with certain presumptions and expectations. sol is when the power returns… you’re more than halfway there! But also here is temptation, the temptation to “coast”. la is when you re-commit, on a deeper level, knowing that in following the process, you have a chance to enter into the truly creative – something unforeseeable. si-do is the transition to letting go of the “push” and just allowing the result to manifest itself! ~ David Salminen’s re-working of a very old tradition, inspired by J.G. Bennett’s explanation of Gurdjieff’s mysterious law of heptaparaparshinokh, found in Bennett’s book: “Talks on Beelzebub’s Tales”.
David’s next concert, in Portland, Oregon, on Oct. 28, 2017, 1 pm, is inspired by thinking about “The Relative Brightness of the Stars”. It will happen at the Recital Hall inside of Classic Pianos, 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, OR, USA 97202.
It turns out that stars, just like us humans, have life cycles… most stars can be found in what astronomers call “the main sequence”… but there are many outliers, as well. The stars are similar to us, or – as we are each and all made of star dust – we are similar to the stars. (No admission charge; donations to help cover expenses and support David’s efforts are welcome.) Please share this announcement with your friends as you see fit.
“The Call of the Cosmos” …come join me for the unveiling of new piano improvisations linking spontaneity with classical impulses… a relaxing tribute to multi-sensory imagination… learn how to listen to the Cosmos with X-ray vision!
David Salminen in concert, 3 pm Sunday, March 12, 2017 (Please remember that our clocks “spring forward” at 2 a.m. that Sunday morning.)
open to the public – supported by donations
CLASSIC PIANOS Recital Hall (503) 239-9969
3003 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, OR 97202
Website & map: http://portland.classicpianos.net/contact
for more information please email: david@wholeworks.net
NGC 6357 – located in our galaxy – about 5,500 light years from Earth – Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L. Townsley et al; Optical: UKIRT; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/cosmic-winter-wonderland.html
David Salminen 