Gustav Hoyer’s The Gilded Age Album to be released January 1st!
Hosted By: Gustav Hoyer, Composer & Impresario
GUSTAV HOYER, COMPOSER, NEW ALBUM SET TO LAUNCH – THE GILDED AGE
New Year. New Music – The Gilded Age is set to launch on January 1 with a dedicated preview page!
Fort Collins, CO/Global – Colorado composer and impresario, Gustav Hoyer is releasing his new album, The Gilded Age, on January 1st, for a new year, new music launch.
The album is set to be released to CDBaby, iTunes, AmazonMusic, GooglePlay, and the majority of other digital music distributors. To sample the album with album notes, view teaser videos, and photos please visit: https://gustavhoyer.com/gilded-age/.
Composer and Impresario Gustav Hoyer has always felt a kinship to the philosophy of Steampunk and thus a connection to The Gilded Age. He uses his musical tools on this album to create little vignettes depicting scenes and the musical connection of days gone by.
For example, on his preview page, you will hear his Steampunk Serenade. This piece was composed for a concert for string ensemble that was conceived as a dialog between two composers, Dvorak and Hoyer. Hoyer explains, “I wrote this five-movement work to parallel the style and tone of Dvorak’s String Serenade. It became Steampunk Serenade because the act of writing a modern piece in the style of the later 1800s felt very much like a musical form of Steampunk aesthetics, which has whimsical and fantastical machines developed in a parallel universe wherein steam power is the mainstay instead of electricity as in our time.” The movements included are: A Steam-powered Machine, Slightly Tipsy, Over the Next Ridge, Sunset Glow in Prairie Grass, and Games of the Wind.
Toccata for Piano, started as a piece exploring the various performance techniques that pianists employ. “I wanted to create a piece that was fun to watch as well as hear. The opening involves the two hands right on top of each other in a percussive figure that emphasizes the percussive nature of the piano itself. There are lots of slightly odd harmonies and the piece moves from a very tight, hand-over-hand technique to one where the right hand is constantly jumping over the left hand to reach note lower on the keyboard. Additional techniques start to appear,” says Hoyer.
Lastly, Three Rags, a set, is a pianist’s homage to the master of ragtime, Scott Joplin. “I have always loved his music, and I thought the act of creating rags was a fitting complement to the Steampunk ethos of the serenade,” says Hoyer. Joplin’s most celebrated rags date from slightly after Dvorak 1890-1910. Each of these pieces features many of the gestures and harmonic techniques that Joplin employed throughout his work. The three rags: Jimmy’s Shimmy, Hard Luck, and Modern Times.
Pianist Benjamin Harding brings these piano pieces to life. “I have enjoyed collaborating with Benjamin. We also recorded these pieces for a Yamaha Disklavier project to be released soon,” says Hoyer.
The orchestral recordings were made possible by the Budapest Film Orchestra, conducted by Peter Pejtsik.
About the Composer:
Gustav Hoyer was born in Denver, CO in 1972. He began his musical pursuits in high school by studying music theory, piano, and violin. He pursued degrees in composition and has written music for a wide variety of ensembles, media, and settings. His recorded music has been heard in film, on radio, and in performance around the world. He continues to create new music that draws on the tools of classical vocabulary to create musical narratives that are modern in their contemplations. He was the founder and Artistic Director for the Los Angeles-based Orchestra Unleashed, and is currently serving as the Artistic Director of NoCo Artists. As a conductor he has performed over 20 new compositions by composers from around the world.
Hoyer has been writing modern music in the classical vocabulary for most of his life. His compositions have been recorded and heard in concerts around the world, but his passion is for something more transcendent: leading audiences to encounters of unexpected beauty in an age of overstimulation.
Audiences in California and Colorado are already acquainted with Hoyer’s unique approach to immersive, multi-faceted musical encounters. His recent collaboration with Fort Collins-based Classical Revolution packed a reduced orchestra inside a planetarium for an interstellar musical journey. Anachronism, a special one-night event, featured a string orchestra and an interactive, steampunk-themed set. A collaboration with Canyon Concert Ballet and Prost Brewery produced Ballet, Bach & Beer performed in an art gallery.
In 2018, Hoyer debuted The Salon Sessions, a highly curated series of house concerts featuring original music, craft cocktails, and thematic art installations. The event series marked the initial release of Hoyer’s new album, Witness. Hosted by local Colorado residents, each Salon Sessions concert promises to be an intimate experience harkening back to the way classical music was originally presented. Learn more at https://gustavhoyer.com
About Pianist, Benjamin Harding:
Benjamin Harding is the Dean of the School of Music at Cairn University in Langhorne, PA and Director of Worship Ministries at Riverstone Church in Yardley, PA. He also teaches piano and other music courses at Cairn. His journey in education brought him to Cairn University where he studied piano, leading him to pursue a Masters degree and Professional Studies certificate in Piano Performance from Manhattan School of Music, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from the University of Maryland, College Park. His primary piano teachers include Juanita Spragg, Carol O’Neil, Samuel Hsu, Nina Svetlanova, and Bradford Gowen. After years of committed study and practice, Harding continues to explore music in many genres. Learn more at https://www.benjaminhardingmusic.com/
About the Budapest Film Orchestra, conducted by Peter Pejtsik
With more than 20 years of experience in professional studio work, the Budapest Film Orchestra and Choir has developed exceptional skills in interpreting many different styles of music. Modern recording and synchronization techniques are a longtime standard. The orchestra has proven to be very flexible in meeting of any deadline. CLmusic offers to organize any additional requirements of their partners such as providing local music arrangers & orchestrators, special ethnic soloists, jazzy brass sections, music copyists etc. Learn more at: https://www.budapestfilmorchestra.com/ and https://www.pejtsik.com.
