WATCH AND SHARE “SAID HE TO THEE” HERE
NEW SOLO PIANO LP, OMA, OUT MARCH 6, 2020 VIA COMMON NOISE/OUTSIDE MUSIC
PRE-ORDER OMA HERE
TOUR DATES BEGINS MARCH 11, 2020
"Fans of Chilly Gonzales, Alexandra Stréliski and Jean-Michel Blais should watch for Oma...A prolific session pianist for over a decade, Grunwald is finally ready to unveil his own solo piano compositions..."Wood Meets Water", "Age" and now "Determination of the Crossing" stand apart from the musical wallpaper of so much contemporary piano pop, and display compositional rigour, respect for the listener's intellect, and a rare melodic gift." - CBC Music
"From the album comes “Determination of the Crossing”, a beautiful and driven piece inspired by the likes of Phillip Glass, and Steve Reich. Grunwald’s ability to craft songs that evoke melancholy and excitement simultaneously comes through on the new single. Building off a repetitive, scattered motif, “Determination” eventually slips into a gentle verse similar to the delicate sound of Debussy, before returning to the song’s staccato’d foundation." - Dusty Organ on "Determination Of The Crossing"
"The composition begins with briskly repetitive motifs, then, two minutes in, slows down to a gently meditative state, then speeds up again to a conclusion. The influence of minimalist masters Philip Glass and Steve Reich is audible here." - FYI Music News on "Determination Of The Crossing"
Photo Credit : Jen Squires // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Later this week, R Grunwald will release his debut solo piano LP, Oma, via Common Noise / Outside Music, and next week he’ll head out on tour throughout Canada supporting the record. Full dates can be found below. Today, the Toronto keyboardist for Jill Barber and Donovan Woods shares the new video for LP track “Said He To Thee”.
“This song is a composition that came out while searching for strategies to cope with writer’s block,” says Grunwald. “During my Banff residency I found myself struggling to come up with new ideas and so I took some of my favourite piano music and analyzed it harmonically. The piece that struck me the most was the “3rd Gymnopedie” by Erik Satie. I loved the darkness of the main harmonic movement in the piece. I also love how the middle section or bridge that lifts the mood and makes the listener feel hopeful for a moment. ‘Said He To Thee’ is my take on this piece. The video was created by Kyle Laurin and it combines a filming technique involving coloured inks and dyes with raw footage that I shot of my Oma and her home back in January of 2019.”
WATCH AND SHARE “SAID HE TO THEE” HERE
A session player for hundreds of musicians, the Toronto keyboardist has been faithful to two different singer-songwriters, jazz/pop chanteuse Jill Barber and songwriter Donovan Woods, for the better part of a decade. He’s played with New York City’s Three Famed Cantors, and scored film and TV shows including the award-winning Yid Life Crisis (“It’s basically Curb Your Enthusiasm, but set in Montreal and in Yiddish,” he says.)
Now he’s ready to step onto the public stage with his own music—alone. But there’s one person who will be with him every night he performs, though she won’t be there physically. His 96-year-old grandmother, who has lived in Chile after fleeing her native Poland in 1946, is the primary inspiration for Grunwald’s first solo album. It’s called Oma — which is the German word for ‘grandmother’.
Grunwald started piano lessons in Canada when he was 6. His teacher was a strict Russian woman whose edicts frustrated the boy enough that one day he leaned back on his piano stool, anchored his feet on the keyboard and announced, “I quit!” His mother started gathering their things. The teacher admonished her for caving in to the petulant child. That Christmas season, when Grunwald’s family went to Chile to visit his paternal grandparents, his Oma was concerned that the youngster was giving up so easily. So she gathered family and friends for a day of piano music, including a four-hand duet with Grunwald’s uncle. The boy was smitten. On the plane ride home, he told his mother he wanted to play again.
WATCH AND SHARE “DETERMINATION OF THE CROSSING” HERE
Decades later, Grunwald found himself at the Banff Centre for Creative Arts, nestled in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta. He was there in January 2017 to compose music for solo piano, inspired by ambient music he’d been making with friends. He’d already recorded one piece, “Fountain”, for a 2016 compilation called Slow Music Vol. 1 (featuring Christine Bougie, Sarah Slean, Felicity Williams and others). Whenever he would get stuck, he would think about his grandmother and the music she loved: Chopin, Lizst, Satie, “a lot of late classical and early Romantic composers,” he says. “That music is really deep inside of me because of her.”
WATCH AND SHARE “WOOD MEETS WATER” HERE
Grunwald was also inspired by a wave of solo piano music in recent years, including favourites of his like Nils Frahm, Chilly Gonzales, and Max Richter. “I would never have considered doing this project five years ago,” he says. “Who’s going to listen to solo piano? Especially the kind of music I write, which is very slow and cerebral and takes a lot of attention.” He admits, though, that there is now a glut in the genre, and he hopes to stand apart. “When I look under the category ‘solo piano’ on streaming services, I go through the list, and 90% of it sounds exactly the same: arpeggios, not very melodic. What’s different about my music is that it’s intensely focused on melody. It’s not pop music, but it has something to latch on to. I’m a session guy, so the one thing I know more than anything is that melody is king, and you shouldn’t get in the way of that.”
His family’s history was on his mind while he was composing, but there’s a whole other history he was in touch with while recording. The grand piano on which the album was recorded now sits at Toronto studio Union Sound Company, but for years was located at the city’s legendary Montreal Bistro, where many live recordings were made; everyone from Oscar Peterson to Diana Krall played at some point. “People know this piano; it’s famous,” says Grunwald. “There was actually an album made where they got all the top Canadian jazz pianists of the ’90s to perform on it as a tribute to the instrument itself.”
PRE-ORDER OMA HERE
This isn’t jazz, though. Grunwald refers to the compositions on Oma as “extended minimalism.” He explains, “It’s taking from the tradition of Philip Glass and Steve Reich, but in all that music the motifs are short and develop through repetition. I wanted to expand that, using motifs that form complete melodies, and have those evolve through different textures or harmony.” The album’s creation was also extended: two years between composition and mastering of the final recording, and almost another year before the album was ready to release. No need to rush slow music.
OMA TRACKLIST
01 Wood Meets Water
02 Determination Of The Crossing
03 The Gate
04 Age
05 Fountain
06 Fountain Var 1
07 Said He To Thee
08 Emily
TOUR DATES
March 11 - The Bassment, Saskatoon, SK
March 13 - King Eddy, Calgary, AB
March 17 - Central Library, Halifax, NS
March 28 - NAC 4th stage, Ottawa, ON (International Piano Day)
March 31 - Café Resonance, Montreal, QC
April 2 - Heliconian Hall, Toronto, ON