"US Ear Features Burton Beerman" (US Ear Radio Interview/Ed Herrmann), February, 1988
There is a remarkable clarity in the way he carries out the logic of his materials and he
has an excellent ear for sound color.....in both pieces the composer displays an acute
sensitivity to the differences between live sound and electronic sound and the music
contains extraordinary moments when the sound seems to belong to both worlds.
.....The Village Voice
has an excellent ear for sound color.....in both pieces the composer displays an acute
sensitivity to the differences between live sound and electronic sound and the music
contains extraordinary moments when the sound seems to belong to both worlds.
.....The Village Voice
“Burton Beerman’s Morning Calls—originally called Mourning Calls—is a fine and original clarinet concerto, Richard Stoltzman and the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, delivering a virtuoso performance conducted by George Manahan. Attractive and dramatically scored…..Unlike many of his contemporaries, Beerman ends this short work before running out of invention to sustain it.”
.....Michael Fine of ANDaNTE, Fanfare Magazine
.....Michael Fine of ANDaNTE, Fanfare Magazine
Having drawn something of a blank with most of Shadows, I was pleased to make immediate contact with Jane Brockman’s Ningana, the first track on this recording, and the rest of the album is also entertaining. Messrs Beerman and Errante write in the booklet of their enjoyment in creating the album and that’s evident from what you hear, whether played by them on clarinet or created by the respective composers electronically. Even Thea Musgrave is in more approachable vein than usual here in Narcissus.
............musicweb international
ALPHA brought a splendid virtuoso performance from solo dancer Celesta.
.....The Cleveland Plain Dealer
SENSATIONS is one of the more attractive and accessible compositions in this style.
.....The Instrumentalist
Stunning for its pinpoint sparklers of sound was Beerman's POLYGRAPH VI.
.....The Milwaukee Journal
.....The Cleveland Plain Dealer
SENSATIONS is one of the more attractive and accessible compositions in this style.
.....The Instrumentalist
Stunning for its pinpoint sparklers of sound was Beerman's POLYGRAPH VI.
.....The Milwaukee Journal
Mother Musing's Flight Patterns by Ronald Pellegrino added the element of the Electric Arts Duo consisting of clarinetist Burton Beerman and dancer Celesta Haraszti. The interaction of the dancer with the video and the clarinetist was interesting not only musically, but visually as well.…….IAWM Journal, February 1994, pp. 28-29.
Jonathan Kramer's RENASCENCE for clarinet, tape delay system and pre-recorded tape
created a magnificent tapestry in the stunning performance of Burton Beerman.
.....Perspectives of New Music
Bernard Holland of The New York Times, declares of Burton Beerman’s A Still, Small Voice for interactive video, cello , dancer and KYMA: “ The most interesting, and by far the most elaborate, display of experimentation… a multimedia field day of opportunities. Madeleine Shapiro on screen and interactive cello, geared to response were Mr. Beerman’s computer-generated sounds: an entertaining vocabulary of explosions, industrial shrieks and whistles and mimicked human voices. Commenting on all these were projections of images with real-time evocative and intricate movements of dancer Celesta Haraszti.
Beerman's POLYGRAPH V for flute and tape.....was noteworthy both for the smooth
integration of disparate sonic elements and for the emotive force of seemingly abstract
musical materials.
.....Musical America
The use of taped sounds in the CONCERTO I by Beerman shows just how musical and
human electronic contributions can be to performance especially on record.
.....The New Records
The CONCERTO I for Saxophone and Taped Instruments by Burton Beerman.....
live soloists plays against pre-recorded acoustical instrumental sounds processed
electronically. The work is more Cage-like.....the electronic part is less
homogenized, less predictable; it carries elements of musique concrete and is
timbrally more diverse.....the live saxophone line has multiphonics and other
effects, but is no less melodic for it. A very good work.
.....Fanfare
Burton Beerman's newest multimedia work, ILLUSIONS, strikes right at the heart, and
comes close to hitting a jugular.......Musically the smooth melding of disparate
elements was pleasing. There was some computer processing of sound, but it blended
wonderfully with the live percussion and human voice, making the match with Beerman's
clarinet believable. And Haraszti's choreography, at times writhing and anguished, at
times wildly abandoned as if Isadora were reincarnated and running about the stage
freed from societal constrictions, had more depth and development to it.....The
Beermans seem often to charge ahead into the psychic/sensual interface, but they
leave clues, like bread crumbs, along the trail.
.....Blade
Here we have bright, uplifting program by two enterprising clarinetists who are
clearly on the hunt for beautiful sounds, not the usual dour, ascetic avant-garde
rhetoric.....Beerman's participation.....the best being a concerto-like carousel
of whirling,ghost-like orchestral electronics called WIND WHISPERS, SOUNDS AND
SHOUTS. Don't let the whiff of academia in the liner credits put you off. There
is whimsy, pomposity, drama, intergalactic space music and plenty of attractive
lyrical solo work here, making this one of the most enjoyable avant-garde wind
discs to come my way in a long time.
.....WindPlayer
If there is any hope for contemporary music, it is because of albums like this. Here
is a group of recent works that are neither self-consciously modern, in an academic,
atonal way, nor condescendingly melodic in the tired, minimalist fashion......Burton
Beerman's music is more intrinsically electronic. In MASKS he uses a synthesized
wordless chorus as a backdrop to echoing cascades of clarinet sound. MOONDANCE
draws on primal rhythmic impulses, featuring jazzy riffing against an electronic
patter of drums. The last work on the program, WIND WHISPERS, SOUNDS AND
SHOUTS, is a pleasing hodgepodge of expertly assembled effects, as the name suggests.
.....Fanfare
Burton Beerman performs his 1990 composition MASKS which combines virtuosic writing
for the clarinet and MIDI-triggering of sampled sounds. The composition vacillates
between tightly structured sections where motives are explored (as in the opening's
descending minor seventh Eb-F) and more rhapsodic segments which have an
improvisatory quality.....MOONDANCE, composed and performed by Burton Beerman, is a
crafty display of the clarinet's interaction via MIDI with numerous sound modules
which represent a small, yet timbrally-varied ensemble. This work exhibits a
rhapsodic quality (like his composition MASKS) while expressing hints of influences
from the worlds of jazz and ethnic dance music......The third composition by Beerman,
WIND WHISPERS, SOUNDS AND SHOUTS is a technological tour de force exploiting a
number of sound modules controlled by the clarinetist using a Pitch-to-MIDI converter
and a MIDI sequencer. Of the seven works on the CD, this one best exemplifies an
effective and elaborate integration of music technology with live performance.
.....Living Music
With two exceptions all of the pitch material is generated by the single player,
something at times difficult to believe..... Beerman is featured here in three
original works. MASKS explores small pitch cells which are built into large
structures by the use of multi-timbral effects. The contrasts between these cells as
they are layered creates textural and contrapuntal interest. MOONDANCE exhibits a
rhythmic, episodic style that seems to imply color and movement. this is
characteristic of much of Beerman's music, juxtaposing fragments of Eastern sounding
raga with jazz idioms. WIND WHISPERS, SOUND AND SHOUTS explores sequenced
sounds added to the processed clarinet solo. A repeated pattern derived from the
sequenced ostinato drives the piece. The imitative effects are layered so thickly that
it makes picking out the clarinet line a challenge.
.....The Clarinet
The lone dance piece for this year's festival was MEDITATIONS(1994) for electric
clarinet and dancer by Burton Beerman with choreography by Celesta Haraszti.....An
interactive piece, with computer routines written in C by the composer, this piece
was impressive in conception and masterful in execution. I would like to call special
attention to the wonderfully evocative choreography of Ms. Haraszti and the beautiful
shadow play of the two dancers, particularly in a sensual duet involving the use of
long scrim like material. Beerman and Haraszti, who tour as the Electric Arts Duo,
have created a work of dreamlike images and elegant, luminous motion, both musically
and visually.
.....Journal Seamus
created a magnificent tapestry in the stunning performance of Burton Beerman.
.....Perspectives of New Music
Bernard Holland of The New York Times, declares of Burton Beerman’s A Still, Small Voice for interactive video, cello , dancer and KYMA: “ The most interesting, and by far the most elaborate, display of experimentation… a multimedia field day of opportunities. Madeleine Shapiro on screen and interactive cello, geared to response were Mr. Beerman’s computer-generated sounds: an entertaining vocabulary of explosions, industrial shrieks and whistles and mimicked human voices. Commenting on all these were projections of images with real-time evocative and intricate movements of dancer Celesta Haraszti.
Beerman's POLYGRAPH V for flute and tape.....was noteworthy both for the smooth
integration of disparate sonic elements and for the emotive force of seemingly abstract
musical materials.
.....Musical America
The use of taped sounds in the CONCERTO I by Beerman shows just how musical and
human electronic contributions can be to performance especially on record.
.....The New Records
The CONCERTO I for Saxophone and Taped Instruments by Burton Beerman.....
live soloists plays against pre-recorded acoustical instrumental sounds processed
electronically. The work is more Cage-like.....the electronic part is less
homogenized, less predictable; it carries elements of musique concrete and is
timbrally more diverse.....the live saxophone line has multiphonics and other
effects, but is no less melodic for it. A very good work.
.....Fanfare
Burton Beerman's newest multimedia work, ILLUSIONS, strikes right at the heart, and
comes close to hitting a jugular.......Musically the smooth melding of disparate
elements was pleasing. There was some computer processing of sound, but it blended
wonderfully with the live percussion and human voice, making the match with Beerman's
clarinet believable. And Haraszti's choreography, at times writhing and anguished, at
times wildly abandoned as if Isadora were reincarnated and running about the stage
freed from societal constrictions, had more depth and development to it.....The
Beermans seem often to charge ahead into the psychic/sensual interface, but they
leave clues, like bread crumbs, along the trail.
.....Blade
Here we have bright, uplifting program by two enterprising clarinetists who are
clearly on the hunt for beautiful sounds, not the usual dour, ascetic avant-garde
rhetoric.....Beerman's participation.....the best being a concerto-like carousel
of whirling,ghost-like orchestral electronics called WIND WHISPERS, SOUNDS AND
SHOUTS. Don't let the whiff of academia in the liner credits put you off. There
is whimsy, pomposity, drama, intergalactic space music and plenty of attractive
lyrical solo work here, making this one of the most enjoyable avant-garde wind
discs to come my way in a long time.
.....WindPlayer
If there is any hope for contemporary music, it is because of albums like this. Here
is a group of recent works that are neither self-consciously modern, in an academic,
atonal way, nor condescendingly melodic in the tired, minimalist fashion......Burton
Beerman's music is more intrinsically electronic. In MASKS he uses a synthesized
wordless chorus as a backdrop to echoing cascades of clarinet sound. MOONDANCE
draws on primal rhythmic impulses, featuring jazzy riffing against an electronic
patter of drums. The last work on the program, WIND WHISPERS, SOUNDS AND
SHOUTS, is a pleasing hodgepodge of expertly assembled effects, as the name suggests.
.....Fanfare
Burton Beerman performs his 1990 composition MASKS which combines virtuosic writing
for the clarinet and MIDI-triggering of sampled sounds. The composition vacillates
between tightly structured sections where motives are explored (as in the opening's
descending minor seventh Eb-F) and more rhapsodic segments which have an
improvisatory quality.....MOONDANCE, composed and performed by Burton Beerman, is a
crafty display of the clarinet's interaction via MIDI with numerous sound modules
which represent a small, yet timbrally-varied ensemble. This work exhibits a
rhapsodic quality (like his composition MASKS) while expressing hints of influences
from the worlds of jazz and ethnic dance music......The third composition by Beerman,
WIND WHISPERS, SOUNDS AND SHOUTS is a technological tour de force exploiting a
number of sound modules controlled by the clarinetist using a Pitch-to-MIDI converter
and a MIDI sequencer. Of the seven works on the CD, this one best exemplifies an
effective and elaborate integration of music technology with live performance.
.....Living Music
With two exceptions all of the pitch material is generated by the single player,
something at times difficult to believe..... Beerman is featured here in three
original works. MASKS explores small pitch cells which are built into large
structures by the use of multi-timbral effects. The contrasts between these cells as
they are layered creates textural and contrapuntal interest. MOONDANCE exhibits a
rhythmic, episodic style that seems to imply color and movement. this is
characteristic of much of Beerman's music, juxtaposing fragments of Eastern sounding
raga with jazz idioms. WIND WHISPERS, SOUND AND SHOUTS explores sequenced
sounds added to the processed clarinet solo. A repeated pattern derived from the
sequenced ostinato drives the piece. The imitative effects are layered so thickly that
it makes picking out the clarinet line a challenge.
.....The Clarinet
The lone dance piece for this year's festival was MEDITATIONS(1994) for electric
clarinet and dancer by Burton Beerman with choreography by Celesta Haraszti.....An
interactive piece, with computer routines written in C by the composer, this piece
was impressive in conception and masterful in execution. I would like to call special
attention to the wonderfully evocative choreography of Ms. Haraszti and the beautiful
shadow play of the two dancers, particularly in a sensual duet involving the use of
long scrim like material. Beerman and Haraszti, who tour as the Electric Arts Duo,
have created a work of dreamlike images and elegant, luminous motion, both musically
and visually.
.....Journal Seamus