An Award-Winning Master of Genre-Busting Music, Composer-Pianist-Vocalist Peter Saltzman Has Produced Everything From Whimsical One-Minute songs to Brilliant Improvisations to Complex but Accessible Orchestral Scores.
“Imaginative…brilliant”—Chicago Tribune
Check out the music. Check out the podcast. And don’t forget to read the blogs!
Intro to Peter Saltzman
Don’t know where to start? Click for a quick intro to the art of Peter Saltzman…
Three Sides of A Musical Coin
In this highly accessible solo piano program, I creatively blend three musical traditions—classical, jazz, and pop—into one. Combining my own compositions and well-known works by composers like J.S. Bach, John Coltrane, and John Lennon with stories about the music that elucidate the creative process, the program is entertaining and educational.
The video below comes from the premiere on November 11, 2023 as a part of the Project 88 Concert Series in Berwyn, IL.
THE PROGRAM:
Act 1:
1 Overture to Act 1 (Aggressively)
2 Blues in Satie
3 Seven Gear Blues
4 Cinematic Scene #1
5 I am the walrus
6 Brooklyn, 1986, Night
7 ‘Round Midnight
8 13 Variables on a Theme by Trade (Giant Steps)
Act 2:
9 Improvised Overture To Act 2 (Pop Counterpoint)
10 Prelude & Feud in C
11 Improvisation on Bach Prelude and Fugue #1
12 Sound of Silence
13 Rondo Blues in G
Welcome to 2099!
Below is the trailer for my TV show, 2099, best viewed on a large screen with decent speakers or headphones.
Musically Novel
I’ve moved most of my writing to Substack…
Substack, as you may know, is the latest hot platform for writers and while it is far from perfect, it’s a good place for me to park my two primary writing projects (besides the TV show, which doesn’t belong there at all): Blues, Preludes & Feuds and Music For Its Own Sake. I could say more, but why not head over there and see what it’s about…
Provocative Podcast
Improvisations on the Ledge is a podcast about what’s really going on inside the music. For both serious listeners and serious musicians.
S3-E4: Themes Alive—Musical Structure from One Note!
The moment a theme is stated, it wants to do something. What? Like all lifeforms, it wants to replicate, mutate, transform…become something. That something is musical structure. How we get from a single note to a theme (motif), to a full-blown musical structure (song,...
“Improvisations on The Ledge is a must for musicians, composers, music fans, artists, and indeed anyone with an interest in and appreciation for organic music and creative expression in their purest forms.”
— Rebecca Cullen, Stereo Stickman
Deep Music
Jazz? Classical? Pop? Avant-Garde? No, just great music.
All together. Like it’s meant to be!
Featured Album
One Minute Songs Still Trying to Add Up To An Hour
No Time Like the... When I began time-releasing this album of one-minute songs in 2018, I proposed to get it done in a year. Boy was I wrong! 60 0ne-minute songs may seem doable in a year's time—and in fact I completed the writing in primary production for all of them...
Featured Track
“Just Plain Genius”
Imaginary Dialogues, Part 1: Keith Jarrett
The Musicians in My Head This track comes from an album is "in the works." I'm still culling through several tracks to not only see what fits, but what fits together collectively. In the meantime... This is to be the first in an ongoing series of "Imaginary Dialogs" albums. The imaginary dialogs are with particular artists who influenced me along the way. All the tracks here are free improvisations, but free with the caveat that I had Keith Jarrett in mind on some level.
“A Genius Musical Craftsman”
Painted Piano?
Introducing Piano Sketches
Watch and listen as painter Jeremy Harrison and pianist Peter Saltzman perform duets—across art forms!
A Pop Arty Abstraction
This trippy Jeremy Harrison painting, improvised on Peter Saltzman’s solo piano improvisation Poppy Asymmetric Bounce, perfectly captures the color and whimsy of the music.
Featured Piano Sketch
Dark Morning, Take 1
Jeremy tries to create painterly space in time as he uses his Buddha board to follow Peter’s slow-moving piano ostinato.
And Read About the Concept