Grids by Aart Strootman

My solo works are often laboratories for new ideas, in which I try and develop techniques for later use in other pieces – everything in the best tradition of speculative music for solo instruments. In these solo works, the specific sound of the instrument is actually a by-product. It is much more about the thought behind the notes.

Also in my works for electric guitar: these are actually small machines that I put to work out of curiousity, to see where they lead me to. The processes that I use in these Grids (the name is not chosen by chance) help me to keep things simple and to make music that is very direct. Over the years they have proved fruitful: I have used many of those ideas in my larger works, be it less strictly.

The electric guitar is my favorite instrument – I can always imagine a concrete sound in all of those ideas abstraction. Moreover, the electric guitar is extremely versatile: with its effects, it can produce colors and complex sounds like a chameleon, while it will always remain that simple plank with strings.

And then there is Aart Strootman. In recent years he has performed a number of my works – sometimes as a soloist, sometimes as part of an ensemble. The works that I have written for his instrument are not always easy pieces. Aart either invents new playing techniques for them and he even builds new instruments for them.

The music of Anthony Fiumara betrays a longing for immediacy, for powerful expression that has listeners by the short hairs straight away. The essence of his work lies in what Fiumara calls 'the skin or the sound’. An important pillar is the repetitive nature of Fiumara’s work, whereas the larger shape is buttressed by contrasts, or the blueprint of a rock song.

anthonyfiumara.com