GASP Records releases Neil Leonard "Mil Maneras" - EP featuring Oren Fader performing works for guitar and electronics

"Mr. Leonard creates a haunting, rhythmic, chantlike score, secular spiritual music for a New World. After leaving the gallery I kept hearing it, with delight, in my head, on the street, all afternoon."

Holland Cotter, New York Times, October 2013

GASP Records announces the release of Mil Maneras by composer/electronic musician Neil Leonard. This extraordinary EP features hypnotic grooves, ethereal electronic sounds and performances by virtuoso guitarist Oren Fader. The music draws on Leonard’s association with top-shelf artists including Marshall Allen, Joanne Brackeen, Don Byron, Richard Devine, Bill Frisell, Vijay Iyer, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Phill Niblock, Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner and Evan Ziporyn.

Mil Maneras showcases the work that Leonard developed when he broke with musical convention and began collaborating with visual artists thirty years ago. These pieces are known widely through exhibitions and performances at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum and Venice Biennale.

The title track Mil Maneras was created for a mixed media installation with artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons for the Dak’Art Biennial of Contemporary African Art where the sound was heard in an abandon textile factory. “The atmospheric beginning has no rhythm, melody or harmony, just clouds of ethereal sound that evoke the ghosts for workers past. The groove that follows alludes to the perpetual rhythm of the factory full of machines pulling in threads and spinning out fabric displaying striking Senegalese designs.”

Interiority is a highly evocative miniature suite created for a permanent installation on an Italian mountaintop. The work comprises a nocturnal experience in which visitors encounter a constellation of orbs that display video imagery, project electronic sound and reveal illuminated inscriptions. “The sound is inspired by paintings in the Etruscan necropolis in Tarquinia where frescos depict the afterlife as a vibrant and seductive continuation of our present existence. I created subtle and varied sonic textures to maintain the allure for the local population who will experience the piece for years to come."

Mil Maneras concludes with the blast-furnace strength performance by Oren Fader on Vitrales. “The piece combines the montunos and drumming of timba bands that I heard in Cuba with extended approaches to jazz composition introduced to me by George Russell. Parts of the piece were drafted using computer programs that I designed but the final version was made by hand, often with the guitar in my lap to feel how fingers dance.” Vitrales creates a mosaic of unique rhythms, intricate counterpoint and shimmering harmonies to create a new music for 21^st Century listeners.

Recording EP with Oren Fader

In December I will be recording an EP of guitar music with NY based guitar virtuoso Oren Fader.

Oren Fader's web site

Oren Fader is active as a performer of both traditional and contemporary classical guitar repertoire. Reviewing his solo New York City recital, Guitar Review magazine stated: "His scholarship, technique, and intelligent musicianship are plainly evident and the beauty of his tone is consistently compelling." As Nylon Review wrote in a recent online interview, Mr. Fader “seems to have his hand in just about everything interesting.”

He has performed hundreds of concerts in the United States, Europe, and Asia with a wide range of classical and new music groups, including the Met Chamber Ensemble, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York City Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mark Morris Dance Group, New World Symphony, Absolute Ensemble, Poetica Musica and Speculum Musicae. As a member of the award- winning new music ensembles Cygnus, Fireworks, and Glass Farm, he has premiered more than 100 solo and chamber works with classical and electric guitar, including compositions by Babbitt, Wuorinen, Machover, Biscardi, Currier, Naito, Pollock, and many others. Recent highlights include a performance of Boccherini "Fandango" Quintet with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the "Aranjuez" Concerto at Brooklyn College. Mr. Fader can be heard on over 20 commercial recordings and film; his work is featured in the classical guitar parts for the recent film Everything is Illuminated. Bridge Records recently released the Cygnus Ensemble's second CD, Gone for Foreign, and next fall the Anderson/Fader guitar duo will release a CD with music written for them, including works by Wuorinen, Lang, Rokeach, and Johnson. Mr. Fader’s latest solo recordings include Another's Fandango, featuring 500 years of guitar music, and First Flight, containing 10 premiere solos written for Mr. Fader by New York City composers. Guitar Review's recent review noted that his skill, “particularly his conductor-like understanding, is palpable on every track." Oren Fader is member of the Manhattan School of Music guitar and chamber music faculty.