NOVAE
PATRICK KEARNEY

 

​“Patrick Kearney offers a spectacular musical tour de force of his instrument, playing a repertoire hat affirms him as a spokesman for the contemporary voice of the guitar, and a journeyman of its future.”

 

John Griffiths

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It was time for change. After my last recording project, Impressions: Works by Manuel Maria Ponce, which focused on the works written during his time studying the French impressionistic aesthetic, I felt a need for a completely different musical world – I mean really different. So I dove head first into the world of metal. It wasn’t difficult, for as a young teenager I was already a huge fan of progressive rock, and by extension, progressive metal. A little later, all the other sub-genres of metal came into my field of gravity. Of course, what immediately caught my ear were the sheer overextensions of virtuosity. Whether it be in the crazy guitar riffs and solos or the powerful blast beats on the drums, this has always fuelled me in ways that classical music hadn’t.

While brainstorming with my good friend Harry Stafylakis, we came up with the idea of creating new works that would encompass this musical direction. And so were born Hyperion, (by H. Stafylakis) and Sagittarius A*, (by P. Kearney). I then took it upon myself to research other published guitar works that would clearly denote these similar tendencies. I found many. But those that I selected created a sort of narrative (think: concept album) that interlocks the program together and creates a connective thread from start to finish. That narrative is as follows: 1) mysterious discovery of the unknown; 2) unexplainable science (some might say magic) with romantic delusions of grandeur; 3) reverence-love-conflict-acceptance; 4) an aching yearning for the past and future (circle of time); and 5) the acquiescence of finality.
I also want to talk about the three guitars that I used: a 2012 Kamil Jaderny; a 2001 Simon Marty; and a 2014 Jean Rompré. These guitars were part of my collection at the time and were used for very specific reasons of expression. This, in my humble opinion, was extremely well-captured by recording engineer Adam Pietrykowski. Take a critical listen and judge for yourself.

Sagittarius A* is the NASA designation for the location of the super-massive black hole found at the center of our beautifully powerful galaxy. I hope you enjoy being drawn into its black hole as much as I did.

Patrick Kearney, Montreal, August 28, 2019