Planispheres
MIKE BLOCK
Release Date: December 3, 2021
Each of these tracks is like an individual star system, distant and self-contained in the void. At the same time, they are related and composed of the same underlying materials.
This album is an attempt to recognize and identify them, hence the title, Planispheres, and will guide you on a journey of discovery and exploration. This album features field recordings from a series of fully-improvised live performances at a warehouse in Brooklyn, NY. Each track on the album was a separate performance, each presented for just one listener. The singular audience's influence on the emerging music felt significant in the moment, despite being hard to quantify. My desire as performer was to improvise freely, with only a few seconds of premeditation as the audience member entered the room, so that each of us could discover the music for the first time, together. The unusually reverberant acoustics of the extremely large open spaces also served as an additional character for me to sonically interact with, and I found myself testing both the limits of what the room would send back to me when I played forcefully, as well as the limits of intimacy I could share with the nearby listener at my softest.
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Planispheres
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TRACK LIST
Alpha Centauri
Sirius
Pollux
Proxima Centauri
Cygnus X-1
Sea of Tranquillity
Arcturus
Small Steps
ABOUT MIKE BLOCK:
Photo Credit: Anita Zvonar
Mike Block is a pioneering cello player, singer, composer, and educator, hailed by Yo- Yo Ma as the "ideal musician of the 21st-Century". Passionate about cross-cultural collaboration through music, Mike is committed to inspiring individuals and connecting communities. At home in a wide range of musical styles, through a multi-genre approach to composition, performance and education, he seeks to inspire audiences and empower musicians to find joy in the full world of music. Acclaimed by the NY Times for his "vital rich-hued solo playing", Block's solo performances offer a rich mixture of core classical repertoire with original compositions. Mike is member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble (SRE), having joined in 2005 while a student at The Juilliard School. Touring extensively throughout the world with SRE, he has been featured as cello and vocal soloist, contributed arrangements and compositions, and earned a Grammy Award in 2017 for their album, Sing Me Home. As an innovator, Mike is among the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap in order to stand and move while playing. With The Block Strap, Mike was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall. The NY Times characterized the performance as, "Breathless ... Half dance, half dare." As an educator, Mike is passionate about creativity and collaboration, and is the founding director of Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop, and the Mike Block String Camp.
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