Lubomyr Melnyk's appearance at the final Northwest edition of Substrata was a rapturous cascade of dynamic tonalities, timbres and performance physicality. Producing some of the most bewilderingly gorgeous emanations I've heard originate from an acoustic instrument, of any kind. His is a music similar to the long-form Indian Ragas of LaMonte Young or Terry Riley, while embracing the density of Charlemagne Palestine and wedded with a repetitive patterned dichotomy of minimalism vs maximalism heard in Steve Reich or Philip Glass. Through marathon performances bending those forms to the service of tonal, harmonious, beauty, the composer's perspective from the piano bench seen him, "Lightning-fast Pianist Lubomyr Melnyk: 'When I Play I Turn into an Eagle Flying'". Returning for his fourth occasion in Seattle, Typonexus Globalist Series presents two nights hosted at their Nuclear Recital series and Chapel Performance Space, featuring music from this "Enigmatic Ukrainian-born Pianist, Who Looks like Rasputin's Doppelgänger". Melnyk has recently come to find company with a set of contemporary, younger composers on the British Erased Tapes label. While the 70 year old Ukrainian pianist is an outlier demographically, his aggressively modern chamber music has found shared company with the neoclassical experimentation of his label mates, Nils Frahm, Peter Broderick, and Ólafur Arnalds. As presented live for the BBC, Melnyk's self-pioneered Continuous Music approach makes for a fascinating read and lends some insight into the performance and it's technique, first represented on his 1978 release "KMH: Piano Music in a Continuous Mode". From the Wayward Music Series: "Ukrainian composer and pianist Lubomyr Melnyk is the pioneer of Continuous Music - a piano technique he has developed since the 1970s that use extremely rapid notes to create a rich, pulsating tapestry of sound. The technique of mastering his complex patterns and speeds makes for the kinetic athleticism seen in Melnyk's unparalleled performances. Inspired by the minimal, phase and pattern musics of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Terry Riley, yet frustrated by the ecstatic detachment from reality they can encourage, Melnyk created Continuous Music. A form based in the innovations of the minimalist composers but with its roots more deeply planted in harmony; overtones blend or clash according to the dominant harmonic directives."
