Edmund Barton Bullock: The Return to New York Recital

Bart and Monty working on The Awakening of Humanity oratorio

A North Carolina-born composing and performing artist returns from his home in France to once again triumph on a New York City stage.  “Bart” Bullock is my dear friend and the composer of The Awakening of Humanity, my oratorio libretto.  Bart is in the U.S. during January and February (2014) to give university recitals and master classes and to return to New York City where he enjoyed his early career successes.

If you are in the New York City area, I urge you to reserve your seat for an evening of great piano music when Bart plays Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and three of his own unique compositions.

Here are the date and venue details along with the program and program notes:

 The E. Barton Bullock Piano Recital

Monday, February 10, 2014  8:00 PM

Klavierhaus Recital Hall

211 W. 58th Street  NYC

For reservations, please contact Nicholas Russotto, Recital Hall Manager, at nicholas@klavierhaus.com.  Although tickets may be available at the door, reservations are recommended due to limited seating.

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Children’s Corner, for piano solo                        Achille-Claude DEBUSSY

I.    Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum

II.   Jimbo’s Lullaby

III.  Serenade for the Doll

IV.  The Snow is Dancing

V.   The Little Shepherd

VI.  Golliwog’s Cake-walk

Three Tango Fantasies, for piano solo          Edmund Barton BULLOCK

I.    Allegro, molto ritmico e appasionata

II.  Canción d’amor

III. Allegro appassionato

– I N T E R M I S S I O N –

Prélude Elégiaque, for piano solo                     Edmund Barton BULLOCK

Excerpt from the Oratorio Le Cortége de Saint Lucie                                 

 Three Nocturnes, for piano solo                         Edmund Barton BULLOCK

I.     Andante, tempo rubato

II.    Ben moderato e espressivo  “September 11, 2001”

III.  Tranquillo, con molto tenerezza

Prelude in B Minor, Opus 32, No. 10                        Sergei RACHMANINOFF

Prelude en G Major, Opus 32, No. 5

Moment musical in E Minor, Opus 16, No. 4

PROGRAM NOTES

Under the auspices of the La Gesse Foundation, over a period of 6 years, pianist and composer Edmund Barton Bullock performed regularly in the Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, including an evening of his works for chamber music in 2002, as well as 2 world premiers. During this period, he met Sujatri Reisinger, Vice-President of Klavierhaus, and a musical friendship ensued. Reisinger ultimately loaned a Hamburg Steinway D for a memorable concert of Bullock’s works in the Weill Recital Hall.

Bullock is honored to be invited to perform on Monday, February 10, 2014 in Klavierhaus’s intimately beautiful recital hall on renowned Greek pianist Gina Bachauer’s restored circa 1910 Steinway D, an instrument of exceptional technical and tonal qualities.

Through the influence of renowned French pianist Daniel Ericourt, who performed Debussy’s piano works in legendary performances in Carnegie Hall, Bullock, a native of North Carolina, went to Paris to study with Paris Conservatory professor Pierre Sancan in 1978, after finishing his undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He began a love affair with France which continues to this day, after prizes from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Musique de Paris towards the Licence d’Enseignement and the prestigious Licence de Concert, and private studies with French pianist Thérèse Dussaut and Russian pianist Yevgeni Malinin, once director of  Moscow’s ‘Tchaikovsky’ Conservatory.

In the 1990s Bullock began a parallel career as a composer, working with Dr. Robert Sirota, Director of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and Guillaume Connesson, French composer. Many chamber music and piano works were created and performed during this period in the U.S., Canada, and in Europe. After a major commission for his Appalachian Concerto for Piano and Orchestra from private sources, Bullock embarked on a new journey of the creation of works for large ensembles, including the commissioned work A Spanish Concertina for Bandoneon and Wind Ensemble, premiered with renowned Argentinean bandoneonist Daniel Binelli and the Appalachian Wind Ensemble in 2005, based on the piano work Three Tango Fantasies, which will be interpreted on the Klavierhaus program.

In honor of Daniel Ericourt’s connection with Claude Debussy, Bullock will begin the February 10^th program with Debussy’s Children’s Corner suite. Ericourt was the first pianist to record all of Debussy’s piano works, and even performed on a recital in his youth in which Debussy also performed and was close friends with Debussy’s daughter “Chouchou” to whom this work was dedicated.

Bullock’s Three Nocturnes were composed during 2001, and the second nocturne: Ben Moderato e espressivo “September 11, 2001” is a musical “witness” of the tragic “911” event, whose spiritual energy attempts to begin the collective humanity healing process.

Bullock is currently working on 2 oratorio projects—on the American side, The Awakening of Humanity, based on librettist Monty Joynes’s libretto, and in France, Le Cortège de Lucie, based on the libretto of Franco-Belgian poet and philosopher Bernard Van Brugghe. On the request of the author, Bullock created a transcription for piano solo of the Prélude Elégiague, originally composed for violin, cello, harp and piano, which also be performed on the program.

In honor of Yevgeni Malinin, also a very important mentor on Bullock’s path to becoming a concert pianist, three Rachmaninoff pieces will close this unique February 10^th recital at Klavierhaus.

Visit Bart’s website.

To hear Bart performing his Three Tango Fantasies, click here.  

Super Night at the Super Bowl

Joe Namath

The National Football League’s Super Bowl is the most famous annual event in the United States.  Forget the game itself. If you were not a player, coach, or owner, it is the party that you will remember most if you were there.  Mostly, it’s the rich and the famous who enjoy the prime events outside the stadium, but during Super Bowl XII, I know somebody from the working class who can relate the inside story of its glamour and excitement.

In January 1978 my beautiful future wife Pat was the Administrative

New Orleans Hilton in the late 70s

Assistant to the General Manager of the New Orleans Hilton, and she personally handled arrangements for VIPs who visited the hotel.  Barron Hilton, the head of the Hilton Hotels chain, was famous for hosting Super Bowl parties in the game host cities.  For Pat and her New Orleans Hilton colleagues, it was a particularly exciting time to host their boss and his friends, and she stayed extremely busy seeing to the details of their transportation and accommodation needs.  Her rewards for a job well done were an invitation to attend Barron Hilton’s private dinner party in the Hilton Ballroom and to be given tickets to that night’s CBS live televised entertainment gala “Super Night at the Super Bowl” at the New Orleans Theatre of Performing Arts.

John Denver

Pat’s seats for the “Super Night at the Super Bowl” television special were first-row mezzanine with just about five seats in her row.  Much to her surprise, when the lights dimmed, she saw John Denver and his entourage of four men enter the mezzanine as they walked past her and sat two rows behind.  For some reason the small row of seats behind her was empty, so she knew that Denver was sitting directly behind her.  She has always been, and still is, an avid John Denver fan, and so it took a great deal of restraint to concentrate on the show instead of her music idol.

The gala show hosts were Joe Namath, Andy Williams, and Paul Williams.  More than a dozen guest stars appearing on the program included Peter Falk, Pete Fountain, Vicki Lawrence, Henry Mancini, and comedians Foster Brooks, Norm Crosby, Minnie Pearl, Mel Tillis and Stiller & Meara.  It was a great show with appeal to the widest possible television audience.

The program from Super Night at the Super Bowl 1978

Barron Hilton’s guest list for his after-show Super Bowl party included celebrities from movies, television, and sports, and so there was a gaggle of press photographers and onlookers at the entrance to the Hilton Ballroom to capture their entrances.  That night Pat had her blonde hair done up in great style, and she was wearing a silver fox evening jacket over a long formal dress.  I will mention here that after becoming an advocate for animal rights, she now refuses to wear it.  But that night when the photographers saw her approach, and people in the corridor began applauding, they immediately assumed that such a beautiful woman had to be a movie star, and they rushed her as if she had been Elizabeth Taylor.  It was a memorable moment for a working class gal.

Monty and Pat a few years later in 1983

Inside the ballroom, Pat and her escort sat at a reserved table that had a real NFL football ornamented as a centerpiece along with Denver Bronco favors.  Before the evening was over, a man representing John Denver, who sat at a nearby table, told her that the star would like to have her table’s centerpiece.  A bit flustered, Pat assented only to regret later that she had not insisted on personally delivering the football to Denver.  He and his entourage soon departed the party. That same night Billy Carter, brother to President Jimmy Carter, autographed a can of Billy Beer for Pat.  She still has it for the little that it is now worth.

The next day the actual Super Bowl game was played in the Louisiana Superdome.  The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Denver Broncos by the score of 27 to 10.  Pat didn’t see the game; she was too busy at the hotel serving the needs of the VIPs.