solo by Daniel Levin

Daniel Levin - cello

The art of improvisation allows, in theory, an infinite number of spontaneous possibilities – directions, methods, gestures, responses – but remains dependent upon the nature of the context. The less restrictive the environment in which the improviser functions, the less likely elements of a style, or recognizable details of form, or common solutions to instrumental strategies, will emerge.

As a performing artist, cellist Daniel Levin has an eloquent platform of experiences, from jazz-informed ensembles to duo and trio collaborations of variously determined or intuitive processes, but he defines working solo as a special category, one which has inspired a symmetry of contemplation and experimentation, a search for the extremes of identity, a commitment to the expansion and reorganization of sound as an expression of freedom.

Freedom, in this music, means adopting a non-idiomatic, non-referential format, choosing to negotiate the path not (yet) taken, putting one’s trust in an articulate intuition. Improvisational content, then, becomes the formal statement as it occurs, which I hear as a “lyrical abstraction,” to borrow art critic Dore Ashton’s phrase from a visual context – lyrical not as a predisposition of song in a literal sense, but in a metaphorical poetic usage, as a narrative in the immediacy of the moment, neither memory nor mimesis, rather a continuity of gestures illuminating motivation as movement (the drama of getting from here to there, and what happens along the way) and measured by the consequences of intensity and craft.

The abstract nature of these improvisations derive in large part from the continually shifting emphasis upon the cello’s tactile qualities – the weight and density of tones, degrees of timbre and texture, percussive attacks, exaggerated dynamics, the colors of alien sounds – the object being “to invest the air with forms” (Hugh Kenner’s description of abstract expressionist process) that align into an alternative (that is, singularly personal), urgent and equally vulnerable, view of musical reality.

“You are lost the instant you know what the result will be.” Juan Gris’ cautionary comment on the creative artist’s struggle with process and perception touches upon such personal responsibility and sensitivity to the complexities of truth. Music as authentic and unorthodox as this offers a transformational experience; improvisation composes its own identity in the breadth and being of its form.
-Art Lange, Chicago, July 2024

"One of the instrument’s most brilliant contemporary practitioners” (The Wire), he has developed his own distinctive voice as a cellist, improviser, and composer. Ed Hazell noted upon release of Levin’s first record as a leader, “Cellist Daniel Levin is a major new voice on his instrument and in improvised music.”

daniel-levin.com