Aljoša Simjanovski

Across the chromatic universe

/Piano Concert - close-up/

On the cover of Ornette Coleman's album Free Jazz (1960), which is considered one of the most important events in the music avant-garde of the past century, is a reproduction of the painting White Light by the famous American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollok. In a certain way Pollok anticipated the parallel between Jazz and abstract painting, which is the subject and theoretic decree of that which we shall try to examine and elaborate in the following paragraphs.

The history of jazz music - the part of the so called intuitive initial stage corresponds with the appearance of abstract painting at the beginning of the last century. In his famous tractate "The Spiritual in Art" Kandinsky promotes the method of disfiguration as the basis for penetrating into the essence of objects - the subject of art sensation. "I have an object before me - a tree, but I'm trying to paint it dictated not by what I see", appealingly eccentrically postulates Kandinsky. "I ignore the leaves, the branches and the stem, and I penetrate into the essence. The result "The First Abstract Watercolor" (1907), the moment is important and dignified. The first abstract painting, an introduction to the new era of unlimited visions and art resources, where the form is treated as a verb and not as a noun, is an attempt to discover that unbelievably emotional layer of modern sensibility which is beneath the surface. In aspects of time and methodology, these artistic trends correspond to the appearance of the new music wave. Intuitive jazz, which first appeared as a backstage music, before the official shows, a usual warm up for talented musicians of the American scene and was treated as a kind of entertainment was soon noticed by the sophisticated, intellectual and aesthetic circles. In this music they felt the power of the artistic predisposition and raise it on the pedestal of modern art which will mark the past century.

As the abstract painting forms as a result of disfiguration, modern jazz de-throning the harmonic progression and directs itself towards the center, the hidden intensity of the melodic, and opens up a wide and literally unbound space of music imagination, an expression of modern sensibility.

Across The Chromatic Universe - Piano Concert - Close-up is a project of the 21^st century. The extraordinary Beatles songs marked the second half of the past century and in conditions of global media boom, they enriched the epithet of cultural and historic heritage. The unforgettable melodies of Michelle, Across the Universe, Strawberry Fields Forever, Lucy in the Sky, Eleanor Rigby, When I'm 64 and Yesterday have experienced hundreds of versions and modifications. The project Across the Chromatic Universe is an attempt to penetrate into the depth, beneath these perfect musical forms, to discover the inner intensity and emotions, which are "imprisoned" in the labyrinths of the harmonic progression and to present them in a piano upper-structure, while moving them through the vast spaces of the chromatic universe.

A live coverage in close-up of a distinguished Macedonian artist, multi-screen projections is the second element of this dynamic happening. Close-up, because it's one of the most important structural decree of his cinematography expression, which also appears and is constituted at the same time as the abstract painting and music. And just like Picasso and Braque de-compose when painting portraits, in the Across the Chromatic Universe project the portrait, close-up of the artist, the painter is the object of artistic decomposition and transmission into multi-screen projections.

The first edition of this event took place on 20^th May 2002 in the Museum of Skopje. Piano type - Bosendorfer Imperial, musical performance - Aljosha Simjanovski, object of live coverage - Miroslav Masin. We hope that you will enjoy the future of this project of the exciting and vast spaces of the Chromatic Universe.