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The imagery of space and acrobatics of jet flight and the
technology of synthesizers have formed a marriage in music in the last 3
decades. John Serrie works with this imagery in planetarium soundtracks
and on his albums. A lot of synthesists talk about the imagery of space and
being at the controls of a starship as they compose, but Jonn Serrie is
probably one of the few who has a jet flight helmet sitting ominously in
the corner of his recording studio, blinking lights reflected in it's
faceless visor.
"That actually has a working pair of high quality stereo
headphones in it," says Serrie. "You can slip that helmet on and you get
some really high quality music while you are playing and all the lights are
blinking in here and you disappear into your own little world."
Serrie not only flies in his music, but he has a jet pilots
license as well. When I walked into his apartment several years ago, I was
confronted by the imagery that charges much of his music, space and jet
flight. On every surface were custom-built detailed models of the
Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars cruisers, an F-14 Tomcat and an F-18 Blue
Angel. The meticulous detail on these models is also found in serrie's many
albums of pristine, exotic space music, beginning in 1987 with AND THE
STARS GO WITH YOU and documented on a recent double disc collection,
CENTURY SEASONS.
Born in 1957 and growing up in New London, Connecticut, Jonn
Serrie comes from a military family and before his rebellious youth, that
was the direction he was headed. But he began playing piano at age seven
and became an organist in his church, an experience that brought him
directly to synthesizers. That led to a career as a planaterium composer,
creating soundtracks for the celestial images projected on domes around the
country.
Since then, Jonn has been converting these scores into music for
his own albums, including FLIGHTPATH and PLANETARY CHRONICLES Volume 1 and
2. In recent years, Jonn has been working with other musicians, including
Native flute player, Gary Stroutsos. Together they recorded the album,
HIDDEN WORLD. |
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