Erik-Peter Mortensen

Please vote for my song "Caro Mea" for the "Voices of Opera" contest by East/West ending 5/19!

1st prize is some cash, but 2 runners up will get use of the Voices of Opera Library for one year!
For the contest, the song has to feature Voices of Opera prominently. I created a 4 part motet on the text "Caro Mea", but of course only on vowels, lol!

Right now the leader has 177 votes, but I only have 7, so I really need your help! Every vote counts and will keep me in the top 20 contention! :-)

Then I divided this into sections and created a downtempo R&B/Chillout Hybrid!
Please vote for me here!
link

You can also hear Caro Mea attached to this post!

Thanks for your vote! It should take you less than 30 seconds and would mean the world to me! 

:-)
EP

Please vote for my song "Caro Mea" for the "Voices of Opera" contest by East/West ending 5/19!

1st prize is some cash, but 2 runners up will get use of the Voices of Opera Library for one year!
For the contest, the song has to feature Voices of Opera prominently. I created a 4 part motet on the text "Caro Mea", but of course only on vowels, lol!

Then I divided this into sections and created a downtempo R&B/Chillout Hybrid!
Please vote for me here!
link…/voices-of-opera-demo-contest

You can also hear Caro Mea attached to this post!

Thanks for your vote! It should take you less than 30 seconds and would mean the world to me! 

:-)
EP

Please become a Patron of Erik-Peter Mortensen!
link

Dear friends, fans and supporters! I've just set up a new Patreon site and I’d like thank all of my patrons with this Special Offer, no matter how long you’ve been with me!

A New Year’s Day 2019 Public Shout Out for every Patron on my Facebook Fan and Twitter Pages!

Top 5 reason to become a Patron of Erik-Peter Mortensen:

1. Help me continue to freely share amazing new and increasingly better produced, compelling music with the world!
2. Help me pay collaborating musicians to create new recordings!
3. Help me pay collaborating musicians to create new live performances!
4. Enjoy exclusive music content of increasing volume, complexity, and exclusivity at each higher tier of support
5. Music is a universal language and has the power to calm the savage breast as the saying goes! Help promote world peace through the free distribution of non-violent, uplifting and emotional music that can deeply touch and unite the hearts of many different nations and cultures!

BONUS: The next 40 Patrons to subscribe at any level (starting at $3 monthly) will receive a FREE digital download of my 2018 Album “Venite Adoremus” featuring a cappella and instrumental songs for the seasons of Advent, Christmas, New Year’s and Epiphany in the style of Bach and the High Renaissance!

You can preview the album here: link

Here’s a copy of my electronic press kit: link

Bio

As a 4th generation musician Erik-Peter Mortensen (aka Erik or EP) started singing professionally since the age of 9, first at the Metropolitan & New York City Opera Children's Choruses, and then in many professional choirs through the present (most recently with the Schola of St. Agnes Church, in midtown Manhattan. Having naturally developed a passionate love for Early, Baroque, and Classical music, he wishes to make the beauty of these earlier styles appeal to much wider audiences, either through fusing it with other musical styles, creating new styles, or promulgating it through his own music scoring for films, video games, and other multimedia formats. EP holds a Music link. from Columbia University, NY and a Master Certificate for Orchestration for FIlm and TV from Berklee Music, MA.

While attending St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's High School in New York, he was a bass and founding member of its madrigal ensemble, The Not-Ready-for-Roylaty Singers (NRFRS), and performed in many concert programs and outside performances, developing a particular knowledge and passion for this style of singing. While subsequently enrolled at Columbia University, he founded the New York Madrigal Singers (NYMS) during his junior year. The ensemble performed dozens of times over the next 7 years, producing several CD's worth of recordings, and receiving two favorable reviews by Alan Kozin, music critic of The New York Times.

Also at Columbia, Erik-Peter studied "Renaissance Counterpoint" with David Rakowski, "Advanced Composition" with Jeff Nichols, and "Counterpoint in the style of link. Bach" with Severine Neff. Thus it's no coincidence that since his graduation in 1992 with a link. in music, Cum Laude, much of EP's orchestral and instrumental compositional styles have been greatly influenced by Bach, while his choral works remain greatly influenced by the High Renaissance masters. In 2015, he completed his "Master Certificate for Orchestration for Film & TV" at link, the online extension of Berklee College of Music with a 4.0 GPA.

Not only a performer, composer and conductor, Erik-Peter is also a professional audio engineer, and has created his own production company called "Papagena Productions" (in tribute to one of his favorite Mozart opera characters from "The Magic Flute"), of which "Cathedral Records" is its main independent label. The mission of Cathedral is to produce and release a broad range of old, new and hybrid works with a Classical Music influence.

Musical Style

Representing the experimental (he would call it 'multi-dimensional'!) end of the spectrum, Erik-Peter's masterful compositions, songs and recordings are typified by a hybrid writing style which combines Medieval and Renaissance modal synthesis with Baroque and Classical counterpoint and harmonic language, all suffused with Romantic passion, in order to create pieces of symphonic & sweeping orchestral impact.

If you imagine the epic film scores of composer John Williams, you're on the right track to imagining Erik-Peter's music-- however, to get all the way there, you also need to imagine all of the above becoming fused with bouncy pop, rock, folk, world and dance grooves and traditions.

Erik-Peter, or EP, is equally at home with each of these techniques and styles. His wide-ranging music shows us that he is just as capable of creating a strictly Baroque fugue on subjects as varied as the melodies of 'Mr. Softee' and 'Hey Jude', as he is in combining the varied stylistic elements of rock, Gregorian Chant, and classic Hollywood (with the occasional touch of flamenco guitar) as he has done in some of his more recent creations, such as his popular song 'Hero's Quest' and the film-score worthy 'Dragon Song'.

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long delay since my last newsletter - this is my 5th newsletter but I'll keep it super brief!

I was trying to release a Christmas Album with my colleague Audrey Fernandez-Fraser but it will have to wait a few more weeks lol! I had hoped to have a newsletter on it, but I'll make the announcement later.

In the meantime, I'm so honored to be the featured artist this week on Reverbnation! If you haven't visited me there in a while (or even if you have) please check out some of my music both new and old and add to your playlist favorites! There are some duplicates there from NM1, but also many other tracks not here yet. :-)

Thanks and much love! :-)

EP

link

Dear friends and influencers!

This is my 4th newsletter, Thanksgiving edition, and in a fairly brief time on NM1 you have shown incredible support for my music!

Here are some highlights since the 3rd newsletter:

I’ve added 10 new songs since the last issue, and thanks your amazing support, 9 of them have moved up drastically in the charts to join my other primarily classically influenced tracks in the NY classical charts - and my songs have SWEPT NY classical chart positions 1-25! Three tracks have swept 1-3 for global classical charts and 18 tracks are in the top 30! Seventeen songs are in the top 50 in NY charts for all genres. :-)

Here are the track names and chart positions for NY Classical - if you haven’t heard one of these, I’d be honored if you gave it a listen!

1. Fugue in C#-O Say Can you See-Electric Guitar Ensemble *
2. Fugue in G#-My Country Tis of Thee-Harpsichord Mix *
3. The Cockroach Hunt *
4. Jupiter and Europa
5. Fugue in bm-Gilligan’s Island-Guitar Quartet
6. Blue Skies
7. Divertimento in E
8. Hero’s Quest
9. Verleih uns Frieden
10. Forged by Fire *
11. Fugue in cim-The Munsters-Harpsichord Mix *
12. A New Road *
13. Tancredi Mourning at the Tomb of Clorinda
14. Ingrediente Domino
15. Fughetta on a Theme by Harry Potter
16. Journey of the Spirit
17. Journey at Dawn *
18. Magnificat Octavi Toni
19. Techno’cally Baroq’en
20. Transformation Adagio
21. Dragon Song
22. Crusade of the Battledragons
23. Nico’s Waltz
24. A Stroll in the Garden with Amadeus
25. Concerto in C for Harpsichord-Allegro

Some of my non-classical music has also hit the charts in a big way!

We Sing for You *
(#1 in NY, US and Global Charts for A Capella)

Whispers in the Night *
(# 1 in NY, #10 in US and #19 in Global Charts for Singer/Songwriter)

Я вас любил-I Loved You Once-EDM from Russia
(#1 in NY, and #2 in US and Global Charts for World)

Ave Verum Corpus-EDM/Renaissance/World Mix
(# 1 in NY, #2 in US and #3 in Global Charts for Singer/Songwriter)

Here’s some info on my newly posted songs!

Three fugues from my “Bach to the Future” concept album

Fugue in C#-O Say Can you See-Electric Guitar Ensemble
Fugue in G#-My Country Tis of Thee-Harpsichord Mix
Fugue in cim-The Munsters-Harpsichord Mix

These 3 DEMO’s are a part of my evolving Bach to the Future Collection!

The Fugue subjects in this collection, as well as many countermelodies are based on very popular tunes from hymns, songs, nursery rhymes, and TV/Film themes. (I released the “O Say Can You See” and “My Country Tis of Thee”, both National Hymns specifically to coincide appropriately with Thanksgiving Weekend). As you can hear, these 4-5 part instrumentals completely transforms the melodies into a stylistically accurate Baroque fugue (hopefully) in the style of link. Bach!

There are three purposes of this collection:
1. To make you laugh, once you recognize the popular melody!
2. To illustrate to those less familiar with it what a fugue form is. By having a familiar melody as the fugue “subject”, it's much clearer to track how all the parts work together and you can hear each voice weaving in and out clearly.
3. Simply to be a great piece of music for the sake of its own beauty, a masterful fugue in the style of the inspiring Bach!

For any talented guitarists, instrumentalists or keyboardists who are reading this, I'd love to create the complete collection of my 24 fugues in many versions: as a guitar ensemble version, chamber ensemble, 2 organs and/or pianos, even electronica! I also see YouTube videos of these fugues split into 4 screens (one for each part being played) going viral!

If any musicians are interested in participating in this project please send me a direct message! I think we do can all the collaboration over the Internet and Dropbox these days!

We Sing for You
This a cappella crossover track was written for a short film I composed called “The Fall of Camelot”. It’s for the death scene of Queen Guenevier with Sir Lancelot weeping over her and carrying her body in a funeral procession.

Whispers in the Night
This track was written for my class at Berklee for Songwriting for Film and TV. We were given a scene from Grey’s Anatomy to score, where a drowning woman recalls all her memories and dreams, both fulfilled and unfulfilled.

The Cockroach Hunt
Also written for a Berklee class in Orchestration for Film and TV, the setting is a scene from “Raising Helen” where a group of friends begins a jolly gathering in Helen’s 1st NY apartment, only to be traumatized by a cockroach scurrying over her feet! Eventually the poor bug is chased and squashed by Helen’s 12 year old nephew - who used her Gucci Bag - a housewarming gift - as the murder weapon! You’ll notice this at the end of the track when the lively music comes to a crashing halt - and then a funeral like dirge is played to honor the deceased!

Forged by Fire
Also written at Berklee, this was an exercise in combining orchestral and electronic instruments to create a hybrid track. You may notice my lead is an electrified solo violin!

A New Road
Music and lyrics by me in the style of John Dowland for a girl I had a crush on! She had gone through a bad breakup and I was offering myself as a “New Road” lol!

Rise up, the morning breaks!
Our journey now prepare!
Haste, haste, the dark restores our vigor sweet.
Before us lie two paths that meet,
An ever-winding road of delight.
I entreat you lady fair!

All others bid farewell.
Bid them a kind adieu.
Each heart that longs for another heart divine,
To live a life far sweeter than wine,
Must travel with a soul most true,
And mine is one with you!

Our journey now begins,
The sun shines on our way,
The birds with their melodious voice now sing,
The flowers with their fragrant buds now spring,
Two hearts upon the course of love
Now swing in glorious sway!

Journey at Dawn
Written for Orchestration class at Berklee, this has the same vibe as my more meaty “Journey of the Spirit”. The opening melody was given to us as a requirement for inclusion. I started with tremolo strings and then developed the concept into a Baroque style Adagio and envisioned a group of Hobbits starting out on a long journey through the forest. :-)

My Garden of Joy
I must be a hopeless romantic as I wrote this for another girl I had a crush on, again in the style of Dowland! Didn’t get the girl so maybe I should have written a heavy metal track instead, lol. Maybe one day, someone will visit and stay in my garden! This song was just added so it’s too new to be on the charts. :-)

Fairest Larissa, yon beauteous light
Fills the dales and meadows with bliss and delight.
Each morn the birds do sing and chant 'mongst flow'ring trees,
No cares betide on Zephyr's gentle breeze.
Though for such beauty I have thirsted e'er,
'Tis lacking yet one precious treasure rare.
Wherefore art thou my cherished Muse?
Thou could'st yet my longing heart with hope infuse!

My heart prepareth a bastion for thee.
'Gainst the gale of life's rigor my care shall set thee free.
No grief shall prevail in my garden's sheltring love.
Joy's radiant rays will grace thee from above.
All other riches I but seek in vain.
'Tis life with thee my happiness shall gain.
Banish the clouds of lovelorn shade.
Pipe and dance within my sweet Ambrosian glade!

I plan to keep adding at least 1 or 2 tracks every week for your enjoyment and I'm always excited to receive feedback from you so I encourage you to send me a note on anything you'd like to talk about! I promise I'll do my best to respond to every message. :-). Expect to hear a lot more Christmas related music from me in the next issue or two!

God Bless and Happy Listening!

EP