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Corsen Plays Corsen
Joseph Sickman Corsen

Randal Corsen

Corsen Plays Corsen

Price: € 12.95
Format: CD
Label: Fineline Legacy
UPC: 0608917240825
Catnr: FL 72408
Release date: 31 July 2006
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Label
Fineline Legacy
UPC
0608917240825
Catalogue number
FL 72408
Release date
31 July 2006
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
NL

About the album

The recording of a substantial number of compositions by Joseph sickman Corsen, a 19th century pianist and composer from Curaçao, is an event of historical significance for music lovers on the island of his birth. Indeed, it should be of interest to musicians in the entire Caribbean region and beyond. In this recording, the composer’s great-grandson, randal Corsen, performs his forebear’s music with the utmost respect and dedication, and the resulting CD is a most felicitous recognition of Corsen’s contribution to the musical heritage of the netherlands Antilles in general, and of Curaçao in particular.

It took three generations for this to come about, for Corsen’s primary legacy is not as a musician, but as the poet who awakened his community’s literary interest in the vernacular Papiamentu. Until recently it was not generally known that he had earned his living as an organist and bandmaster, teaching piano and violin, and writing articles about music. the poet’s musical identity was overshadowed by that of several other composers of salon dances, a genre that evolved on the island during the second half of the 19th century.

While these traditional Caribbean dances like waltzes, danzas, mazurkas and tumbas represent the most authentically Antillean music, neither Corsen nor his contemporaries were satisfied with writing only popular dance music. All wrote some “art” music besides, in which they competed not only with each other, but also with the music bequeathed them by composers such as schubert, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn. In such a daunting musical environment, a composer’s mettle is put to a severe test.

Besides the indefinable gift of creativity, a composer’s training, discipline and sensitivity will tell, and all indeed do so in both Corsen’s art-music and his salon-dances. one would listen in vain for poor voice leading; not a single parallel fifth will be heard. His writing is pianistically clever and idiomatic; his 3 harmonic structures interesting, his modulations smooth. All this is no small feat for a partly autodidactic composer living far away from the music capitals of the world in a small community,

Randal Corsen speelt de muziek van zijn overgrootvader
Dit album bevat pianowerken van de Curaçaose dichter en componist Joseph Sickman Corsen, uitgevoerd door zijn achterkleinzoon Randal Corsen.

Pianist, componist en arrangeur Randal Corsen is een van de belangrijkste muziekambassadeurs van Curaçao. Hij staat bekend om de originele manier waarop hij Antilliaanse en Latijns-Amerikaanse muziek combineert met jazz. Daarnaast componeerde Corsen op verzoek van de beroemde mezzosopraan Tania Kross de opera Katibu di Shon (slaaf van de meester), naar het boek van Carel de Haseth, die ook het libretto schreef.

Op 31 mei 2016 vond het concert van Corsens project Palm & Plaate, in samenwerking met het Metropole Orkest, plaats in het Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In dit project worden klassieke en populaire composities van de familie Palm en Rudy Plaate uitgevoerd.

Artist(s)

Randal Corsen

Pianist-composer-arranger Randal Corsen is renowned for his original approach in blending Antillean and Latin-American music with jazz. He is regarded as one of the most important music ambassadors from his island of birth Curaçao. Since moving to the Netherlands, he has gained much recognition for the distinctive way he blends Jazz with Classical, Caribbean and Latin American music. For his debut album ‘Evolushón’ (2004) he received the Edison Jazz Award (the Dutch equivalent to the Grammy’s). Randal performed on many important venues and festivals in the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Colombia, Belgium, Mexico, Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. In 2008 he performed at the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam, with the international line-up featured on his cd Armonia, (Hargrove, Colley,...
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Pianist-composer-arranger Randal Corsen is renowned for his original approach in blending Antillean and Latin-American music with jazz. He is regarded as one of the most important music ambassadors from his island of birth Curaçao. Since moving to the Netherlands, he has gained much recognition for the distinctive way he blends Jazz with Classical, Caribbean and Latin American music. For his debut album ‘Evolushón’ (2004) he received the Edison Jazz Award (the Dutch equivalent to the Grammy’s).
Randal performed on many important venues and festivals in the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Colombia, Belgium, Mexico, Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. In 2008 he performed at the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam, with the international line-up featured on his cd Armonia, (Hargrove, Colley, Saturnino) together with legendary Cuban drummer, Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez, who later invited Randal to join his group ‘Italuba’ in 2 concerts during the London Jazz festival. In 2010 Horacio Hernandez joined Randal once more to perform at the first edition of the Curaçao North Sea Jazz festival.
The past few years Randal has profiled himself mostly as a composer and arranger. He composed the opera ‘Katibu di Shon’ (Slave of Master), named after the book written by Carel de Haseth, who also wrote the libretto for the opera. This opera is an initiative of the famous mezzo-soprano Tania Kross, and will premiere in 2013 in The Netherlands.
Besides all this, Randal was also the musical director and arranger of the ‘Tribute to Doble R’ project of the Metropole Orchestra, in collaboration with IKO Foundation. The TV documentary about this project was shown on tv in the Netherlands and the former Dutch Antilles.

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