MIDEM 2010

We know we are still just getting going with the online stuff, but we are going to have to take a break for the next few weeks. White Tie Records is taking off tomorrow to Cannes, France for the 2010 MIDEM Conference. Unfortunately due to time, internet reliability, and luggage limitations, we will not be able to do any blogging/tweeting/Facebooking while we are there. But please enjoy the videos, samples, and information we have posted already!

If you don't know what MIDEM is, click to learn more!

Out of My Hands Concerts

In case your in these areas, we wanted to make you aware of a couple of Christopher O'Riley Out of My Hands concerts:

February 27, 2010: Boston, MA @ ICA -- Out Of My Hands -- Solo Recital
March 6, 2010: Albany, NY @ The Egg Out of My Hands -- Solo Recital

To se all of Christopher O'Riley's tour information, please visit www.christopheroriley.com!

Maestro Alex Gregory receives the L.A. Music Awards Career Achievement Award

We want to share with you some older but still exciting news about artist/inventor Maestro Alex Gregory with whom we released the 2004 album "Bach on Steroids." At the end of last year (2009), the Maestro received a "Career Achievement Award" from the L.A. Music Awards.

Also, check out the introductory video the L.A. Music Awards prepared and played before he received his award. Unfortunately we can't embed it here, but we are giving you the link to the video on YouTube. Find it Here!

Congratulations Alex!

Christopher O'Riley talks about "Out of My Hands"

We wanted to share with you a great article/interview with Christopher O'Riley about our album "Out of My Hands" from Newcity Music. However, we will only be posting an excerpt here with a link to the entire article. So please make sure to read on!

Hand to Hand: Christopher O’Riley gives pop some class

By Tom Lynch

So rarely does a musician truly bridge a gap between two entirely disparate forms of music that it seems likely any success in that regard would be met with confusion and skepticism. Classical pianist Christopher O’Riley has been doing it for years; his arrangements of Radiohead songs—performed entirely on a piano—have filled not one, but two records thus far, and he has dabbled with other artists’ work as well.

Raised in Evanston, O’Riley got his start in jazz, and moved on to classical once studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. A virtuoso pianist, O’Riley also hosts NPR’s classical radio program “From the Top.” It was on this program that he started fooling around with his Radiohead covers, playing them as time-fillers during breaks as supplements to pieces by Rachmaninoff and Debussy.

Admittedly, when I received O’Riley’s first pop-music record, “True Love Waits: Christopher O’Riley Plays Radiohead” (Sony), back in 2003, I scoffed and mocked it with rock-fan vigor. “Cashing in,” I’m sure I thought. After a week of staring at it I gave it a spin, and was blown away by its power...Click to continue reading at music.newcity.com

Christopher O'Riley Video - Exit Music for A Film

Just thought we would share:

Out of My Hands review

Check out this great review of Christopher O'Riley's release "Out of My Hands" from Michele Yamamoto in UnderTheRadar magazine's Fall 2009 issue:

Christopher O’Riley has been a public figure in the fusion (or confusion) of classical and popular styles of music. An able pianist, O’Riley has peformed eclectic programs, placing the impressionism of Debussy against the experimental folk of Nick Drake. He’s already released two albums adapting the music of Radiohead and one each that tackled Elliot Smith and Drake. Now, with this latest release, Out of My Hands, O’Riley presents his own arrangements of popular pieces from Cocteau Twins, Nirvana, Radiohead, The Smiths, Portishead, R.E.M. and more.

The first single off the album, a rendition of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box,” opens up faithfully enough. A quiet reproduction of the melody is about as overtly faithful as it gets, but O’Riley manages to retain the anxiety of the original. Both in dynamic song structure and in the harmonies that result from intricate layering of music ideas, “Heart-Shaped Box” is every bit as aggressive as the original. And with the final unresolved chord, O’Riley even allows the harmony to ring out for about 45 seconds, enabling the sound mass to eventually take on the timbre of feedback.

With Elliott Smith’s “New Disaster,” the piano emphasized the sparkle of Smith’s upper guitar lines and spins it all like a Debussy-an quasi-tonality. Radiohead’s “All I Need” displaces lines from the bass-heavy song across the keyboard, creating an entirely different space with virtually the same notes. Of course, he never forsakes the harmonic or melodic structures.

In his adaptations, culled from the originals and onto a single instrument, O’Riley utilizes scores of techniques to produce original interpretations without sacrificing the core of the original songs.