evan shinners on bach in 2011:
“where you might draw the line of what is bach, i draw it somewhere else. i use the music of bach to create a modern experience, a spectacle which resembles a classical music concert, but is, instead, about living in the current year. within the bach pieces i improvise, change notes, rescore, reharmonize – not out of disrespect for the composer, but to bring an air of unexpectedness and spontaneity that i feel the traditional classical music concert has lost. the music on the page is potential; my show is the finished product.
in this light, my debut recording , @bach, is an unedited recording of two live concerts of bach’s music. we hear the orchestra tuning, the sounds ofintermission, and there is no post production. the reason for this is not to highlight how well i play live but, rather, to capture as closely as possible the nature of the experience as it happened – to put the listener in the audienceand to document how bach sounded in the 2010s.
bach is never separate from the zeitgeist when i play him, and no two performances i give are alike. the sound of @bach will be different from the next record, as we will be in a new musical world: the next lady gaga album will be out, there will be new influences, i will be listening to different music on itunes. i will include all these sounds on each performance using bach as the catalyst to do so.
many of my concerts are given in venues not designed for classical music. i improvise and change notes, something most classical musicians are opposed to. i never think of what is considered correct, only of what is relevant. i practice bach playing along to rye rye or mia rapping. my ideal audience is a group of riotous people in the bronx or brooklyn begging for a memorable experience. and still, the music i prefer to play is bach. when you hear me play bach today in new york city, you should hear the taxis honking, the subways screeching, the brooklyn bridge looking elegant, the hudson river crashing, washington heights coming alive on a friday night, and washington square sounding ominously still. bach’s music is timeless — yet this does not mean we have to separate him from our current time.”
-es, oct.2011
