Guy Livingston: Don't Panic! 60 Seconds for Piano (2001)

"Ensembles that play only new music are plentiful these days, but soloists who play recitals devoted entirely to newly commissioned works are scarce enough to seem heroic or eccentric, or perhaps a bit of both. Guy Livingston, an American pianist who lives in Paris, has assembled a program of recent works that may be quirky enough to appeal to listeners who have doubts about modern musical language"
Don't Panic! 60 Seconds for Piano (WER 66492)
Guy Livingston: piano, percussion, tape effects

Guy Livingston opened Solo Flights/ Keyboard Summit with Don't Panic: 60 seconds for piano, an incomparable one-man show culled from the pianist's collection of 1-minute works, on 14 February 2003. This is the brilliant new performance created by American pianist Guy Livingston to showcase the endless possibilities of contemporary music. Many of the pieces are amplified or for piano and tape. They use new techniques and range from modern-classical works through virtuosic-serialism to unsettling performance-art. All are premieres written for Livingston. Livingston presents the pieces in sets of 4 or 5 at a time, punctuated by anecdotes about the composers and the genesis of these works. The framework is theatrically exciting and musically innovative: Although one minute seems like an unbelievably short time, it actually offers the composers a good deal of scope. An entire atmosphere can be established (or destroyed) in 60 seconds. The program offers a wide-ranging sampler of new music styles from the most traditional classical up to cutting-edge avant-garde.

Tracklist
Dan Warburton (Manchester): Speed Study 1
Jonathan Katz (Tokyo): WENDIGO
Daniel Landau (Den Haag): Losing it again
Carl Faia (Paris): What if I just said …
Roger Kleier (New York): Step out of the Car
Donal Fox (Boston): The Scream
James Baiye (Regina): Database of Desire
Roberto Andreoni (Milano): “scendi un minuto”
Brian Escriv (Toronto): Mason and Dixon
Annie Gosfield (Brooklyn): Brooklyn, October 5, 1941
Paul Beaudoin (Allston): re: dance (PNMR)
Marek Zebrowski (Los Angeles): Ex tempore
Louis Andriessen (Amsterdam): not [an] anfang
Christopher Culpo (Paris): Spangles
Isak Goldschneider (‘s-Gravenhage): 42 Second Piano
Richard Brooks (Brooklyn): Conflict of Interest
Danielle Baas (Bruxelles): Joke
Charles Shadle (Medford): Cowboy Song
Sophie de Wit (Los Angeles): Who asked you?
Pepe-Tonino Caravaggio (San Diego): EIGHT 8
T.J. Anderson (Chapel Hill): Watermelon Revisited
Paul von Hippel (Columbus): Kodaly Music Box
Eilon Aviram (Ein-Harod Meuhad): NA’OU’RA (the Wedding Dance)
Jonathan Norton (Menlo Park): 59” of Piano
Alan Frederick Shockley (Richmond): cold springs branch, 10 p.m.
Moritz Eggert (München): Hämmerklavier XI
Derek Bermel (New Rochelle): MEDITATION
Tuyet A. Tran (New York): Tonal Imagery
Fritz Lauer (Halifax): Slusha, for C.E.
William Bolcom (Ann Arbor): A 60-second Ballet (for chickens)
Joshua Cody (New York City): Two-Chord Warp
Joanna Bailie (Amsterdam): GIRO 1
Martial Robert (Nantes): 1’ de Tonio Kröger (op. 10)
Patricia Elizabeth Martinez (Buenos Aires): Absolutis-s
Riccardo Vaglini (Pisa): PASSATEMPO
Gene Pritsker (New York): im afraid you might ask for a fragment of my soul
Newt Hinton (Vilnius): Nakano-ku (à S.D.)
Ketty Nez (San Francisco): Moondrunk
Patrick Cahallan (Dublin): xxx.rhapsody
Yoichi Togawa (Osaka): prelude 1
Barbara Engel (Cambridge): Punch and Judy’s Waltz
Joseph Rovan (Tallahassee): Miro Sketch: Mostly Yellow
Frederick Frahm (La Conner): Sonata Moirai
Victor Ekimovsky (Moscow): Jenseits des Guten und des Bösen
Alper Maral (Istanbul): Verschiebung
Stéphane Leach (Paris): Piano Piece for Guy
Ketzel Cotel (New York): piece for paws
Vanessa Lann (Den Haag): DD (Double D)
Walter Haven (Keene): Minute Rice
Giovanni Mancuso (Venezia): Saltarello for Guy
Sergio Pallante (Messina): Polis
D. Andrew Stewart (Toronto): réveil
Elliott Sharp (Manhattan): Snaps
Robert Eidschun (Rochester): Specks
Lionel Sainsbury (Chadlington): Prelude
Richard Carrick (San Diego): Slowness
Walter Sanchez (Lafayette): Thinking
Atsushi Yoshinaka (Tokyo): HARU NO YOI – Miyabi no Uta
Atanasio Khyrsh (München): Parce que je le vaux bien
Lansing D. McLoskey (Cambridge): Theft