About the Album
The album "Pier To Infinity” was recorded ‘Live’ and consist eight compositions. Three instrumental pieces and five compositions for poems. In addition, there are five opening pieces, solo for each player, created by the musicians themselves.
The influences I experienced throughout my musical journey, the traditions I delved into and the places where I studied, created diverse pieces that interweaves elements from different styles such as traditional Mediterranean music, Turkish maqam, jazz, Israeli music and progressive rock.
Still, the sections have been carefully selected and there is added value in listening to the entire album as one work, dealing mostly with contrast and polarity.
The music as well as the poems on the album touch and give expression to the edges in our lives, in our personalities.
Individual versus society, desire for solitude versus desire for unification, hope versus desperation, confidence versus undermining and insanity, excitement and longing versus destruction and withering, fear of the unknown and longing for it.
Thanks
I am grateful to all who accompanied me on this journey from its inception to its realisation. To all the teachers, musicians, friends and close family who gave me support and inspiration for the music that make up this album.
Special thank to everyone who took part in the musical and visual creation of the album.
It is a great honour and pleasure to share and being helped by dear friends, family and amazing musicians whom each in their own way, were a significant and integral part of the creative process, believed in my vision and gave it a form in their own personal way.
Apart from your playing and talent, you have brought with you a lot of joy, dedication, good intention, attention and patience.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Credits
Compositions, Production & Music
Meir Gassenbauer
Arrangements
Meir Gassenbauer, Michael Linik
Ney, Voice
Meir Gassenbauer
Piano
Michael Linik
Double Bass
Gal Maestro
Drums
David Dagmi
Oud (7,8), Accordion (11), Strings (12)
Yarden Erez
Voices (13)
Suf & Noach
Poems (4,8,12,13)
Gavriel Yagel
Translation
Marta & Mordechai Hakak
Recording, Editing and Mixing
Shahar Kaufman, Onyx Studio
Mastering
Yoram Vazan
Drawings
Ychai Gassenbauer
Design & Calligraphy
Harel Menachem
Bio
Photo: Ariel Van Straten
Meir Gassenbauer is a multi disciplinary music creator, performer and composer. His musical journey started with studying and performing classical music on piano. Later on, by exploring the Ottoman music and the traditional music of Anatolia, he continued to expand his musical skills with the guidance of best music teachers in Israel, Turkey and Greece, focusing on playing Turkish ney and oud. In 2018 he completed a bachelor degree in music teaching and music performance at Codarts university of arts, world music department in Rotterdam.
In 2017, while living in The Netherlands, he performed one of his compositions in VPRO Vrije Geluiden, a music TV program made by the Dutch public broadcast organisation VPRO. Meir was selected as part of Labyrinth’s musical workshop orchestra ‘Mitos’ 2019, a transcultural project created by the musician and artistic director Ross Daly in Crete, Greece. In this project he had the opportunity to accompany some of the foremost virtuosos of modal music coming from different music traditions such as Ross Daly, Kelly Thoma, Efren Lopez, Hooshang Farahani, Theodora Athanasiou, Yurdal Tokcan, Goksel Baktagir, Peppe Frana, Evgenios Voulgaris, Stelios Petrakis, Muhittin Kemal, Tigran Aleksanyan, Tzvetanka Varimezova, Ivan Varimezov, Arslan Hazreti, Zohar Fresco, Manos Achalinotopoulos, Christos Barbas, Giorgis Xylouris, Derya Turkan and more.
Now days, inspired by his background, he is actively performing original music with several projects in Israel and Europe.
"Pier to Infinity" is his debut album.