Lawler + Fadoul - Clickable: The Art of Persuasion (2020)

Lawler + Fadoul (Zara Lawler, flute and Paul J. Fadoul, marimba) have performed in many of the United States’ most prestigious venues, including the Kennedy Center, Strathmore, Trinity Wall Street, and Vermont’s Yellow Barn Music School. Their Gronica Project is an ongoing program to increase the repertoire for their instrumentation both by commissioning new works from living composers and by creating their own arrangements of favorite works of the past. This CD is the culmination of the first years of the Gronica Project, which focused on preludes and fugues. (Lawler’s family coined the word gronica to describe a child’s main present at Christmas.) Dedicated and creative educators, Lawler + Fadoul are teaching artists for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC, and created Break it Down! for a week of Kinderkonzerts at the Kennedy Center in February 2013. They have worked as a duo since 2003.

Flutist Zara Lawler is known for innovative work
 that combines music, dance, theater, and poetry. In 2012 she staged the US première of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Il Cerchio Tagliato dei Suoni for 104 flutes at the Guggenheim Museum. She has performed her solo program, The Flute on its Feet, in venues across the US, with choreographer C. Neil Parsons. For many years, Lawler was flutist and Co-Artistic Director with Tales & Scales, touring the country performing works that integrated contemporary classical music with dance and theater, for children and family audiences. She studied at Juilliard with Carol Wincenc and Sam Baron.

Marimbist Paul Fadoul has performed solo and chamber music performances across North America and Spain, with such artists as Evan Ziporyn, Martin Bresnick, Robert van Sice, and the National Symphony Orchestra. He spends his summers in Newfoundland, where he composes, arranges and performs with the Canadian ensemble, Dark By Five. While touring with the educational ensemble Tales & Scales, he performed 200 shows annually, including solo performances with the Milwaukee, Buffalo, and Oregon symphonies. He graduated from the Yale School of Music and has taught at the Peabody Institute.

Prelude Cocktail: The Art of Collaboration notes by Gary Race

True collaboration may be a dying art. The prevalence of fast-paced and short-lived communication isn’t conducive to the development of significant collaborative relationships. True collaboration requires vast amounts of time: both focused time with clear goals and intense interaction; and open time to digest, reconsider, and redirect. It also takes contact—real physical contact—where all those things that cannot be communicated “virtually” (facial expressions, body language, subtleties of emotion) can be shared. The dynamics of successful collaboration develop only after repeated efforts. At times these efforts can be fruitless and even painful. Persistence is a prerequisite.

The collaborative efforts of Zara and Paul have developed over ten years and have covered a wide variety of engagements. I was involved in the earliest of these as an additional collaborator and stage director for the development and production of commissioned works composed for young audiences. In these unique music/theater works, Zara, Paul, and their colleagues performed both the musical and dramatic elements of the piece. It was a challenging format, but one that established a strong foundation for the creativity and patience required for their future projects.

On this, their debut CD, they not only present their well–honed performance collaborations, but also their significant contributions as arrangers. (You’ll have to ask them who did what!) Their strong commitment to increasing the body of work for their combined instruments has resulted in the creation of the Gronica Project, through which they have created all the arrangements and commissioned the two new works offered here. The arrangements are collaborations with the spirits of composers past (though no séances were involved), and the commissions represent a long history of collaboration with living composers. Katherine Hoover has been a significant musical influence in Zara’s life since the 1990s, and contributed works to Zara’s innovative music/movement project, E Pluribus Flutum. While students together at Yale, Paul performed works by Roshanne Etezady including a marimba solo she wrote for him. Additionally, clarinetist Christopher Grymes, who joins the duo on two selections by Shostakovich, has teamed with Zara in many other performances.

Below the surface of this recording (and several layers of soil) you will find the collaborative energies of several of the composers. Though Ira had little to do with George’s Three Preludes, the significance of the joint efforts of the Gershwin brothers is renowned. Less well-known is a “collaboration” between two composers whose birthdates are more than 200 years apart: Shostakovich was inspired to compose his 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87, by the 48 preludes and fugues in Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. Three of Bach’s prelude-fugue pairs form the historical “overture” to this expansive recording.

Dead or alive, these composers and musicians are a testament to the depth and variety of creative collaboration. In our world of high-speed communication, too often am I disappointed by artistic endeavors that suffer from a quick-fix approach. It is encouraging and inspiring to have worked with these two longstanding and accomplished collaborators. I invite you to enjoy the fruits of their labor and join me in celebrating their first recording.

Gary Race is a freelance teacher, performance coach, and stage director. He regularly collaborates with the Education Department of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Tracklist:

01. Zoom: III. Jingle Without Words (Arr. P. Fadoul)
02. Hedonic Treadmill 1 (Arr. Z. Lawler & P. Fadoul)
03. Want It. Need It. Have It. (Version for Flute & Marimba)
04. Hedonic Treadmill 2 (Arr. Z. Lawler & P. Fadoul)
05. Sense & Sensibility (After G.F. Handel)
06. Liars
07. Power Money Fame Sex
08. Hedonic Treadmill 3 (Arr. Z. Lawler & P. Fadoul)
09. Canyon Echoes: II. Serenade (Arr. Z. Lawler & P. Fadoul)
10. Lord, Blow the Moon Out Please (Arr. Z. Lawler & P. Fadoul)
11. Hedonic Treadmill 4 (Arr. Z. Lawler & P. Fadoul)
12. The Sweet Shop
13. Click. Tweet. Like. Repost.
14. Common Thread (Live)