Michael Robinson

The Forest

Cover art is hand silkscreened paper from Japan

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1. The Waterfall (1992) 10.20 (three movements)

meruvina: flute, clarinet, wind bells, shamisen, strings, xylophone, marimba, percussion

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2. Annunciation (1989) 5.08

meruvina: electric piano

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3. Fresh Leaves (1994) 3.04

meruvina: shamisen, trumpet, clarinet, violin, cello, clavichord

4. Dawn and Day (1990) 4.45

meruvina: clarinet, celesta, strings

5. Found Objects (1994) 4.58

meruvina: recorder, french horn, oboe, electric bass, trumpet, synthesizer, percussion

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6. The Forest (1994) 13.06 (four movements)

meruvina: acoustic bass, strings, synthesizers, violin, flute, clarinet, clavichord, electric piano, vibraphone, timpani, percussion

7. Green Palms (1990) 10.05

meruvina: synthesizers

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8. Purple Clouds (1989) 4.12

meruvina: organ, sho, electric bass, percussion

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Composed, Programmed, Mixed and Designed by Michael Robinson

Recorded and Mastered by Catharine Wood at Planetwood Studios

The opening music of The Waterfall was inspired by bird songs heard while walking in Beverly Hills. The second movement suggests the serenity of mist rising from a Hawaiian jungle pool underneath a waterfall. The concluding music sparkles like a school of tropical fish playing beneath the water of the pool. Annunciation was inspired by Michelangelo's painting of the same name viewed while visiting the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Italy. While my ancestry is Jewish, including my paternal grandfather being the President of his temple in Boston, and my great paternal grandfather a rabbi in Russia, my father decided not to raise his children with any religion. Together with radio stations in New York City, including WNYC, WKCR and WBAI, where I was interviewed together with giving live meruvina performances or playing taped recordings, I began giving live concerts at various churches in Manhattan, Maui and Los Angeles prior to my first album, Trembling Flowers. Chuches and radio programs were how my music was heard prior to releasing albums. It was Rev John Garcia Gensel, known as the Jazz Minister, a friend to Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Lee Konitz and myriad other jazz artists, who engendered my first meruvina concert when he kindly offered the magnificent Saint Peter's Church, originally founded in 1862, to me for free, simply passing voluntary donations from audience members to the church. Beginning in 1985 and continuing to 1993, I gave about twenty concerts there. I loved how this was a Lutheran church because of historic connections with Johann Sebastian Bach. In Manhattan, I also gave a concert at Washington Square Church in Greenwich Village. In Maui there were concerts at St. John's Episcopal Church, where I also performed a meruvina arrangement of a Bach Invention for a service, and St. Anthony of Padua Church. In Los Angeles concerts were held at Saint Augustine by-the-Sea, Village Church of Westwood Lutheran and University Presbyterian Church at UCLA. Fresh Leaves features exotically tuned instruments of wood and brass, along with plucked, bowed and struck string instruments. The tunings came about from the teachings of performer, composer and scholar Ali Jihad Racy, originally from Lebanon, who invited me to attend rehearsals of his Middle Eastern Ensemble at UCLA as a thank you gift after I let him know how absurd and erroneous a notice in a local paper was concerning his music performed by the Kronos Quartet. We had not met prior to my phoning his office at UCLA in support of his very fine composition. Racy's profound influence helped prepare me for lessons with Harihar Rao, the senior disciple of Ravi Shankar, who also taught Lalo Schifrin, Don Ellis, Brian Jones, Ed Shaughnessy, Robby Krieger and John Densmore among Westerners in addition to myriad Indians. Dawn and Day reflects how Pandit Jasraj, the leading Hindustani music vocalist of our time, known as the Sun of Music in India, would later describe to me different forms of human love expressed in music, including how gently, softly and slowly one touches a newborn child. Clarinet arabesques add our sense of wonderment for the miracle of birth. Found Objects is made with a wide range of instrumental sounds spread over two contrasting movements. The Forest is the last of ten multi-movement pieces I composed for the second Meruvina incarnation, a format originally inspired by Piano Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. Like the preceding works, it features a variety of instrumental timbres, textures, speeds, intensities and moods, brought together into an individual shape. Green Palms is a meditation composed while living in Kapalua, Maui. It was inspired by the palm trees growing around a nearby pool. Purple Clouds, the very first composition for the second Meruvina incarnation, was also composed in Kapalua, forever holds a special place in my heart for being my introduction to myriad instrumental timbres from myriad cultures, and soon facilitating my immersion into the ocean of raga. It employs the wild sound of the sho, along with evocative percussion, and the surprising entrance of a large church organ. The music on this recording was composed between 1989 and 1994. - Michael Robinson, December 1999, Lahaina. Additions made May 2024.