COWBOY NOCTURNE: a concert on the Ashbery piano

Robert Savage, an extraordinarily gifted composer, died of AIDS in 1993 at the age of 42. John Ashbery’s collection April Galleons, written during the height of the AIDS epidemic, was published in 1987. Prior to this, Savage house sat for Ashbery and his partner David Kermani. When they asked the young composer if he would be willing to stay in the house while they were away traveling, he replied that he’d be happy to, but that there must be a piano for him to composer with, so Kermani tore a slip of paper from a flier at the local Shoprite and purchased the baby grand piano that can now be found in the The Flow Chart Foundation’s Flow Chart Space.

Robert Savage likely began work on several compositions during his stay at the “Ashbery House” that he continued to refine over the next several years. Two of these works, dedicated to Ashbery, were rediscovered by pianist Daniel Baer while doing research at the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection archives. Baer’s husband, writer and humanities educator Dylan Zavagno, has featured Savage’s gorgeous piano works—and the story of their connection to the Ashbery house—on his Queer Poem-a-Day daily poetry podcast and program series that runs each June.

Join the Flow Chart Foundation on Saturday, September 21st at 7pm for a very special event. Daniel Baer will present a recital of stunning works by Savage on the piano from the Ashbery House, featuring works composed on it and dedicated to John Ashbery, along other works by Savage, and a performance of one of Robert Schumann’s final works, the exceptionally beautiful and deeply meditative Gesäng der Frühe (“Songs of Morning”). We can’t help but point out the “Ashberian” connection of the translation of Schumann’s title between “morning” and “mourning.”

The recital will be preceded by a talk by Dylan Zavagno on Savage’s life and works, and his connection to Ashbery, including the reading of selected poems from April Galleons.

Program:

Introduction & Reading

Savage—

Cowboy Nocturne
Chaconne
[untitled]
AIDS Ward Scherzo
Dance of Avoidance
Robert Schumann—

Gesänge der Frühe

The New York Times has hailed Daniel Baer as a pianist who plays with “fluidity, warmth, and sparkle” who “achieved the often elusive…goal of putting virtuosity at the service of bigger ideas.” Daniel Baer is an active music educator and performing artist throughout the United States. He was the artist-pianist for the 2020-2021 LYNX Project, premiering new compositions for voice and piano and recording songs for an anthology celebrating four years of its autism advocacy series. He has also served as the Music Director for Queer Poem-a-Day, a poetry podcast for pride month hosted by the Deerfield Public Library. Daniel earned his Masters of Music from the Juilliard School and his Doctorate from the Eastman School of Music. He is currently the on faculty at Illinois State University and the Music Institute of Chicago where also he directs the Chamber Music Program.

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Robert Savage (1951-1993) was an American composer and pianist. Savage was born in Saudi Arabia to American parents. He moved to the United States as a teenager and received his Bachelor of Arts in music from Columbia University in 1975 where he studied with Jack Beeson. In subsequent years he studied privately with Ben Weber, Ned Rorem, David Diamond, John Corigliano, and David Del Tredici. Savage’s music was inspired by nature, poetry, his Buddhist practice, and his travels. He was an avid backpacker and hiked throughout Central and South America, and the United States. These trips introduced Savage to the indigenous music of the Americas. Savage was particularly interested in zydeco, a blues-influenced type of Cajun dance music popular in Louisiana. Savage studied and practiced Zen Buddhism and spent some time living at the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, New York. He wrote essays about his music and engagement with nature for the monastery’s paper, The Mountain Record. He also led a meditation group for people with AIDS at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City. He was the recipient of fellowships from the Wurlitzer Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Dorland Mountain Colony.

Dylan Zavagno is a writer and humanities educator and he works at the Deerfield Public Library as the Adult Services Coordinator. Dylan hosts award-winning conversations with authors, artists, and academics on the Deerfield Public Library Podcast and is the co-founder, in 2021, of Queer Poem-a-Day, a daily poetry podcast and program series that runs each June. In 2019, he led the program series The Fight to Integrate Deerfield: 60 Year Reflection, which won the prestigious John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award from the American Library Association. Dylan lives in Chicago with his husband, pianist Daniel Baer.