Serj Tankian (System Of A Down) has shared a new 24-minute modern classical composition titled “Disarming Time: A Modern Piano Concerto.” He said the following about that:
“When quarantine hit and all our projects and releases were cancelled, I started itching for a musical challenge. One night sitting in bed looking through different voice memos on the iPhone I realized I have this huge trove of short, special, unrealized musical ideas. Right then the thought of creating an epic piece utilizing them all made me smile. So I recorded them all and started arranging the instrumentation to create this incredibly unique musical experience. I mean, who the fuck listens to 24 minutes of music as one piece today? We’re about to find out :)”
In related news, an upcoming redux version of “Disarming Time: A Modern Piano Concerto” will also be used for Tankian's “Cool Gardens Poetry Suite” release. More information regarding that effort was shared in a press release:
“The release is a rich suite of four elegant cinematic works layered with intimate recital of prose from Tankian himself, taken from the pages of his first published book of poetry, ‘Cool Gardens.’ Tankian narrates 87 poems over the nearly 48 minutes of music, weaving his way through a bevy of topics ranging from humorous to sullen.
‘Cool Gardens Poetry Suite’ will also be accompanied with videos, this time at the hands of visual artist David Bradford, a previous collaborative partner on other Tankian projects. Bradford’s visuals quite literally animate pixelated paint onto digital canvas as viewers are caravanned across their screens via Tankian’s soundtrack and the gradual unveiling of his visual compliment.”
You can find a video for “Cinematic Piano Theme (With Poetry)” from the release below: