ARRIVAL - LIVE QUARTET AT SUSQUEHANNA STUDIO

A live version of “Arrival”, the first movement of Cathedral. Visit the Listen page to stream & download for free. Use this link to choose your preferred music service. Gracious thanks to Folk Radio UK for hosting the premiere of this music. Read the article here.

Certain spaces contain the various energies of previous occupants, where stories are to be revealed simply by entering and being receptive. Susquehanna Studio is the home, workplace, and painting studio of my dear friend Robert Stark. Located in the Endless Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, his place is both a beacon and a sanctuary. For forty years and counting, the Art Exchange at Susquehanna Studio has been host to countless artists of every discipline and medium.

I have been blessed with the ability to spend large blocks of time there, reflecting and creating. Falling asleep and waking to the sound of the Fiddle Lake Creek which once powered the mill, absorbing the presence of Robert and Elizabeth’s work, feeling the energetic imprint of all the laborers and artists who have worked there. It is sacred space, its rustic architecture embedded by decades of fostering process.

I am thankful for the opportunity to have documented the music in the old mill, suspended above the creek. I spent many lone hours creating sounds there, and longing to fill the space with more than a solitary sound.  I am grateful for the talent and tenacity of the ensemble who joined me for this session: Julian Rogai, Asia Mieleszko, and Patrick McGee, as well as audio-engineer Sean Hamilton and film-maker Daniel James Papa. We spent an autumn afternoon recording an interpretation of “Arrival”, the first movement of Cathedral, which is in itself an exercise in interior/exterior spaces.

Although we tracked for several hours, the recording here is the actual first take of the day. The magic is always in the first couple of takes, but since we were filming as well, our director wanted to get all of the necessary angles and shots.  The creek is heard on the recording, ushering us along as we played under the northern wash of the skylight, the sound of water rushing to power the long-gone water wheel, but turning gears of other sorts nonetheless.