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Flexible Musician

Dan Lippel won't be defined by one genre

October 10, 2006

Describing Dan Lippel as a someone who plays contemporary might not be accurate- Although he can be found happily performing the music of modern masters such as Mario Davidovsky and Elliott Carter, his musical plate is filled with many other intriguing dishes: A quartet “blurring the line between jazz, rock, and classical music” (Flexible Music), a 30-member chamber ensemble “dedicated to advancing the music of our time” (ICE), and an “an energetic, charismatic, in-your-face” tango group (Zvi Migdal), to name just a few. This versatility sets Dan apart from others, and his unique take on music has earned him performances on the elite stages of Harvard, the New York City Classical Guitar Society, Cleveland Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory.

This fall, Dan will release a CD of chamber music premieres on Focus Recordings. I began our interview with a question about his latest project.

Urban Guitar: You have a new CD coming out, this time a disc of chamber music. You have a formidable career as a soloist- Do you prefer one over the other?

Dan Lippel: I wouldn't say that I prefer solo playing over chamber playing or vice versa, though right now, my career seems to be more filled with chamber music. The biggest difference between the two relates to where the energy is coming from. In solo playing, you are entirely responsible for creating the energy of the performance, but that also means that if you are feeling introspective one night, you can play more inwardly, or extroverted another day, you can do that. In chamber music, you don't really have that choice, which is liberating because you are sharing other people's energy, but can also be frustrating if you aren't really feeling the way the other people in the group are feeling. For instance, maybe you really want to go for something one night, and try a tempo that is on the edge because you are feeling great, but someone in the group is really hesitant because they are feeling shaky with their part. So the direct connection between what you are feeling and what you end up playing has to be moderated because of the other people involved.

Then there are the more concrete differences- the chamber repertoire opens things up to a much broader range of composers and styles, and also roles that the guitar can play. I find that the guitar's place in chamber music allows us a little more expressive freedom in terms of single line playing, whereas in solo music there is often the burden of creating a contrapuntal texture which is great but maybe can get in the way of really singing a line at times.

Urban Guitar: What kind of ensembles will be featured on this CD? Anything unusual or unexpected?

Dan Lippel: The instrumentation of the music on this upcoming CD is pretty varied. There are two pieces for my new music quartet, Flexible Music, which is an ensemble of saxophone, piano, percussion, and guitar that we formed in 2002. We were inspired by Louis Andriessen's Hout for the same instrumentation, which actually has been getting tons of performances in New York over the last few years. But other than Hout, as you can imagine, there isn't a hell of a lot of music for this combo.

So much of what is going in New York new music right now has to do with capturing the energy of other styles of music, and Flexible Music probably fits within that trend. I think on top of that, we've been really careful to try and merge that sort of amped up sensibility with music that still has a really strong sense of construction and design, and of course, this is ultimately why working with really good composers is so important. So we set out to commission new works, and have gotten about twelve really great pieces so far, with several more on the way this year. The instrumentation of the group tends to inspire composers to write a certain kind of dynamic, highly rhythmic music, which is cool, because it's sort of shaped the sound of the ensemble into something that exists in the margins between styles.

Also on the CD is a song cycle for guitar and soprano, a piece for alto flute, guitar, and vibraphone that I recorded with percussionist Jeff Irving who I have a duo with, and a piece for flute and guitar.

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