Pure

BEAM

BEAM!- the name of this nine-piece band is a statement in itself, because they really do light things up. And that’s exactly what renowned composer and saxophonist Stephan Mattner’s concept is all about. Based in Cologne, he has gathered eight of the Rhine-Ruhr jazz scene’s most prominent musicians around himself. Together, they create their own new music, borrowing from jazz, pop, heavy, minimal, modern and film music, which they present here for the first time on Pure. Founded by Stephan Mattner in July 2014, the BEAM! Ensemble follows a color-synasthetic approach. Synesthesia basically means a connection between two or more physically separate areas of perception. In this case, music and color. Mattner is referring here to none other than Aristotle, who had already put forward the claim that harmony between colors is similar to that between sounds. Over the following centuries, scholars have taken up this thesis again and again in order to support it with their own studies. Isaac Newton was first able to establish a relationship between the colors within a spectrum and the notes of a scale, based on mathematical calculations. It was in accordance with this assumption that the Russian pianist and composer Alexander Scriabin orientated himself for his symphonic poem “Prometheus” for choir, orchestra, and color organ. For example, it is documented that he assigned the color red to the note C, that G represented the color orange-pink, and D yellow. In the score for his “Prometheus,” Scriabin added two-part lighting to be used in parallel with the music. Each piece of the complete compositional cycle written by Mattner for Pure is assigned a color. BEAM! Represents the theme of light in its varying degrees, because the wavelength or spectral composition of a light beam has a significant impact on our perception of its color.

Price: $25.98

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