EUDIMORPHODON 

EUDIMORPHODON, is an early pterosaur AND a new duo with Dan Plonsey (saxophones) and Matthew Welch (bagpipes). Featuring compositions and improvisations by both for this unique combination of reeds, Plonsey and Welch dig deep into their love for odd creatures and characters to summon forth wild sonic beasts of imagination.

The EUDIMORPHODON “studies” are pieces that bring compositional form to a system of dimorphic harmony, a term I use that bridges bitonality and hexachordal harmony, designed to mold pitch structure that facilitates the old, modal bagpipes (principal line) into a new, chromatic instrumental world. Their titles pull from early pterosaurs (and their skeletal musical ideas). Think of them as extinct fossils to reanimate. Performing with Dan, one of my creative music heroes, has been a dream come true! Sharing two mentors, Martin Bresnick and Anthony Braxton, no wonder our music came together so well! - Matthew Welch

The pterosaurs were not, in fact, ancestors of modern birds -- dinosaurs were: in particular, the T. Rex and velociraptor. But that is neither here nor there. The role of birds and birdsong in the development of modern music cannot be overstated. Obviously the song: the irregular, jagged rhythms; the microtonal variations in pitch; the composite melodies of flocks e.g., of blackbirds at sunset. The music that Matt and I make is -- out of the four elements -- of the air. In "Naturally, the Egg" we play a modal melody twice, first in canon, and later, after improvisation, in a loose heterophonic unison, like a flock of two. The song of the soaring, swooping Eudimorphodon could not have been more eery and thrilling than that of bagpipes and saxophone together. - Dan Plonsey

Artwork for EUDIMORPHODON by Jonathan Johansen