William Bland: Village Maverick American Primitive & Inventors of Genius Weekend

Kevin Gorman, praised for his “passion, technical facility and explosive tonality,” (Fanfare Magazine) is a champion of the piano music of maverick composer, poet, painter William Bland. He has performed and recorded Bland's epic cycle of piano sonatas for Bridge Records to great acclaim.

Greenwich Village maverick composer, painter, and poet William Bland is an American original whose huge three-tiered production is emerging to wider public recognition. Pianist Kevin Gorman has devoted himself to performing Bland’s cycle of 24 large-scale sonatas in each of the major and minor keys, perhaps taking their cue from Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues. Composed over 16 years, the cycle encompasses an extraordinarily wide range of cultural influences, merging the simple and the complex, the popular and the classical, the romantic and the modernist.

Gorman performs Sonata No. 6, subtitled Bestiary - con amore, opening with a brutal Bear Dance, followed by the gliding Song of the Great Hawk. Then a slinky Panther leads to an all-out Dragon, with its finale, a soothing Regard on Edward Hicks’ painting The Peaceable Kingdom. To close the recital, Gorman tackles Bland’s wild Fantasy on Gottschalk’s Souvenir de Puerto Rico, Marche des Gibaros.

The performance is complemented by an exhibit of paintings by William Bland, aka C. Damon Carter, Bland’s birth name.

The concert is part of The Village Trip’s American Primitive and Inventors of Genius Weekend.