November Variations is the first collaborative improvisation project from composer/clarinetist Stuart Bogie and composer/organist Buck McDaniel.
Conceived of as a series of five concerts presented each morning at 9am at Church of our Saviour on Park Avenue in Manhattan November 11 – 15, 2024, the concerts were recorded capturing one of a kind musical performances.
These recordings expand on the essence of Bogie’s recent improvised recording projects, such as Morningside (with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem) and Patient Music (with Josh Kaufman and Sam Cohen), where improvised rhapsodic clarinet melodies meet improvised ambient drones.
For November Variations, McDaniel’s organ work provides a dynamic canvas at a huge scale for Bogie’s soulful improvisations, creating a reflective and immersive soundscape amid the hustle of Manhattan mornings.
Bogie reflects, “the entire sanctuary becomes part of the sound—like being inside the belly of the organ,” says Bogie. “When I play with chordal instruments, I try to immerse myself in their resonance, and here, the listener and I inhabit that space together.”
Listen
About the Artists
Composer and performer Stuart Bogie was born in Evanston, Illinois. He studied for 6 Years with Gary Onstad and at the Music Center of the North Shore before attending Interlochen Art Academy and the University of Michigan where he studied with Debra Chodacki. He is the recipient of a Meet the Composer grant and he composed the score for the Oscar nominated documentary How To Survive a Plague, featuring performances by the Kronos Quartet. He has written for film, television, commercials, and the stage. He has released 9 albums as a leader.
During the pandemic lock-down, Bogie performed a daily series of improvised solo clarinet pieces using the accompaniment drone tracks sent to him by over 50 different collaborators including Arcade Fire, Richard Reed Parry, Colin Stetson, Sam Cohen, Josh Kaufman, Peter Murray, E Dan, Craig Finn, Ryan Sawyer, Dave Harrington, Yuka Honda, and James Murphy. Began in the second week of lock-down, the series ran for over 150 days consecutively and has been collected into four volumes, with more volumes in the works. An LP, Morningside, presenting 2 of the pieces made with James Murphy was released on October 27 on DFA records. This music is featured in a worldwide exhibition of photographs by Gregory Crewsden, and can be heard in the documentary accompanying the exhibit. In July of 2023 Bogie premiered Morningside at Les Recontres d’Arles, livescoring the documentary by Harper Glantz.
In 2022 Bogie released The Prophets in the City, an album of music composed for Brass and Percussion between 2019 and 2021, featuring the drumming of friend and collaborator Joe Russo. Relix wrote “The music is a study in contrasts: at once aggressive and patient, instrumental yet lyrical. It is also simultaneously structured and free-wheeling, equally jubilant and foreboding.” The 10 piece ensemble debuted live at the Winter Jazzfest, NYC, in January of 2020 then re-emerged post-lockdown for a rousing performance at The Newport Jazz Festival (2021) which Jazztimes called “Mesmerizing waves of harmony and rhythm overlapped each other, like a mashup of Fela Kuti, Sun Ra, and King Crimson—with (more) tuba! And (sometimes) multiple flutes! An energized frontman, Bogie went from conducting the band to conducting its listeners…”.
Bogie led the collaborative group Superhuman Happiness (2008-2018) through 5 original albums of music over 10 years. The group became known for their extended improvisations of dance music, and the various musical games they would employ to develop their collective creativity and mine for fresh collaborative compositional ideas.
As a member of the group Antibalas (2001-2012), Bogie wrote the piece “Indictment,” which The Village Voice called “…a fantastic Bush-era protest song, lithe and lethal” as well as the piece “Beaten Metal” which Pitchfork named a top 100 song of 2007 and noted “quick splashes of colorful sound and some slowly building drama, ‘Beaten Metal’ sounds brazen, rhythmic, and powerful – like Edgar Varese coming of age after hip-hop.”
Buck McDaniel, born in 1994, is a project-based artist who writes orchestral music, works for the stage, chamber music, and sacred music. Originally from Columbia, Mississippi, his influences range from the American Minimalist tradition and music of the Roman Catholicism of his childhood in the Deep South. In 2023, his choral works spurred a collaboration with recording artist Sam Smith presented on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, and his chamber work Memory Ground (2021) for the Desdemona Ensemble was presented by The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Violinist Natalie Frakes presented his work Detroit Cycles (2016) for The Moth Radio Hour, and his Virginia Canticles (2021) for organ were commissioned by Grace Church in Keswick, Virginia.
In 2022, McDaniel curated a four-week festival with scholars Eric Thomas and Carla Roland of experimental liturgies focusing on Queer identity at The General Theological Seminary. This collaboration resulted in two works: The Chelsea Preludes (2022) for cellist Julia Henderson and harpist Sonia Bize, subsequently presented on WQXR and the Brooklyn Art Haus and Grace Church in Providence, Rhode Island, and The Heart of the Matter (2024), presented at Capitol Pride 2024 in Washington, D.C. Additionally, General Seminary commissioned his setting of the Anglican evening canticles, First Service (2023), commemorating 135th Anniversary of the consecration of the Memorial Chapel of the Good Shepherd. Earlier this year, he performed Holy Saturday (2024), a collaboration with performance artist Neal Medlyn in the Chapel, presented by The Kitchen. In addition to his roles at General, McDaniel serves as Director of Music at the Church of Our Saviour and Chapel of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary in the Archdiocese of New York.
His works for the stage include Fire on the Water (2019), a multi-media collaboration with producer Jacob Kirkwood and director Raymond Bobgan for Cleveland Public Theatre and Stranger in the Garden (2022), a one-act adaptation of Edith Wharton’s ‘Afterward’ for organ & narrator with actress Caitlin Caruso-Dobbs that premiered at The Actors’ Chapel in New York City. His works for organ have been championed internationally by artists Todd Wilson (Belfast Pipeworks Festival), James McVinnie (Lincoln Cathedral), Nicolas Haigh (Saint Thomas Church, 5th Avenue), and Derrick Meador (Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Shreveport).
A frequent collaborator with Kirkwood, McDaniel composed the sound installation Landscape Piece (2019) for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and the studio works Patterns on Dufy (2019) with saxophonist Noa Even and Difference & Repetition (2018). Other collaborations include Marefka Sketches (2018, Rev. 2023) for violist Carry Frey (Gold Bolus Recordings), an arrangement of Nico Muhly’s Bright Mass with Canons (2014) for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Muhly Variations (2012) for the Argot Trio (Centaur Records), and both concert and studio arrangements with Mourning [A] BLKstar, Elvis Depressedly, and ITEM.
He lives in New York City.
Booking
Artists: Stuart Bogie & Buck McDaniel
Audio Samples: Short Piano & Clarinet Improvisations
November Variations – Friday (Longform Organ & Clarinet Improvisation)
Instrumentation: Clarinet & Piano and/or Organ & Piano
Duration: 50 minutes
Tech/Backline: Grand Piano, sound reinforcement for piano & clarinet. Monitors if available, but can be presented completely acoustic.
Inquiries: fritz(at)pastfutureconsultants(dot)com