Word: kushnick
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...into any single stylistic category, avoids the affectations of contemporary idioms, and consciously builds new music from the essential structures of the old. This is exactly what happened last Monday night at the School of Contemporary Musicwhen 25-year-old Cambridge singer Jeannie Lieberman was accompanied by composer/pianist Bruce Kushnick and guitarist Richard Johnson in a program spanning the gamut of contemporary music-from the surreal to the absurd, from a capella and dulcimer to electric...
...Kushnick's varied styles, integrated with intricate, often poetic lyrics, evoke a spectrum of emotional responses from the listener. Kushnick says, "Sounds come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and the function of the composer is to put them all together and balance them in order to evoke some response from the listener." In technical terms, he says he deals with the expectations produced by structural formulas ("styles"), always modifying them by meddling with cadences, modulations, harmony and rhythm...
...Just as Kushnick experiments with sounds and perceptions, Jeannie Lieberman sees herself as "a psychic emotional jiggler" who asks herself "deep root questions," and expects the listener to do the same. She uses her voice as an instrument, experimenting to discover the right texture, color and feel. The rising glissando in the second verse of "Velvet Sportcoat" abruptly alters the mood set by the song's first verse, and underscores the words: Haze like juice spilled slowly formless/Scent of citrus in my ears." In one of Johnson's compositions, "Instrumental," Lieberman makes bird like sounds that are almost primal...
Jeannie Lieberman, Bruce Kushnick, and Richard Johnson-School of Centemporary Music...