Amy Antin

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Amy Antin (* 3. November 1955 in New York as Amy Eisenberg ) is a singer in the range between folk and jazz , songwriter and painter of abstract paintings.

Life

Amy Antin grew up as the middle of three siblings in Long Island . It was shaped early on by an artistic family environment; so she played the piano , later also the guitar . After the completion of the "East Meadow High School," she attended from 1973 to 1974, the State University of New York in Purchase to Humanities and Fine Arts to study. After a short stay in Mexico City , she took courses in Latin American and Spanish literature at New York University . After mastering the languages ​​Spanish, Portuguese and French, an initial study visit to Paris followed . After completing her bachelor's degree , Antin lived there for four years, where she enrolled at the Conservatoire Rachmaninoff to study classical singing. Back in New York, she began her Master of the Arts degree in Brazilian and Portuguese literature in 1982 . In 1985 she married Jacques Antin and visited his home country France several times with him. The following year she finished her dissertation on the French structuralist Roland Barthes and received a doctorate in philosophy ( Ph.D. ). She then taught Brazilian literature, Spanish and Portuguese at New York University . After the divorce from her husband in 1990, Amy Antin accepted the invitation of some friends to come to Cologne to get to know the local music scene. The stay, initially planned for several months, became a permanent one; she has lived and worked in Cologne since then.

music

As the organizer of the "Amy Antin's Room" series, which took place monthly in the Stadtgarten from 1998 to 2002 , she organized performances with musicians from Cologne and the surrounding area. Numerous concerts with different line-ups finally made her known throughout Germany. Since 2001 until today there has been an annual benefit concert called “Amy Antin's Room for Peace” in favor of “Aladdins children eV” for children in Afghanistan, Alzheimer Selbsthilfe eV , medica mondiale , “Kinderhilfe Cambodscha” and other organizations. From 2011 to 2012 she also moderated concerts organized by Werner Meyer with his label "Meyer Records" in the Theater der Keller . From 2004 to 2012 Amy Antin gave several successful live concerts with bassist Bernd Keul , drummer Philipp Imdahl and as a special guest Hendrik Soll . Since then she has accompanied Josef Piek from Purple Schulz on the electric guitar . Amy Antin not only writes lyrics - there are now more than 300 for other artists and almost 300 for her own interpretations - but also composes and sings. She uses an acoustic guitar for the instrumentation of her pieces. Her oeuvre includes two musicals , but also commissioned works such as the lyrics to the title melody for GZSZ (which landed in the German charts ) or to Young at Heart by the "Porcaro Brothers", which FIFA made the official song for the Champions League in 1997. Final was chosen. Amy Antin, along with others, Joni Mitchell , Laura Nyro , Rickie Lee Jones and Leonard Cohen served as musical role models .

Discography

  • 1997: Ain't cut to Measure
  • 2000: Pretty Little Girl
  • 2007: Heart of Clay
  • 2012: Amy Antin - Just for the Record

Reviews

After two introverted albums called Ain't cut to Measure and Pretty Little Girl , Heart of Clay came out in 2007 . While Antin used to only be heard with her own guitar accompaniment, she now plays with well-known Cologne musicians in the ensemble. "Everything that was too much, regardless of whether it was solo or teamwork, was cut out," says Amy, and the one and a half year work with producer Josef Piek on every intro or outro has paid off: the musicians take a lot back to achieve a “chamber music” delicacy. They accompanied Bernd Keul, Paul Harriman and Claus Fischer on bass ; Bert Smaak , Stefan Krachten , Guido Jöris and Alex Vesper on drums ; Roland Peil on the percussions , Pit Lenz on the harmonica , Hendrik Soll on the piano, harmonium and fender; Werner Neumann on acoustic guitar, Hans-Peter Salentin on trumpet and Wolfgang Fuhr on saxophone . Sabine van Baaren sang the backup vocals with Josef Piek, who also took over guitars and keyboards and was responsible for the entire programming. Antin's songs are all about growing up, childhood memories and the repeated attempt to want to be happy.

With Just for the Record a kind of vocal jazz album was released. Antin expressly emphasizes that this is not a "classic" jazz album. The guitar, usually their main instrument, was dispensed with. They accompany Steve Klink on piano, Sascha Delbrouck on bass and Roland Höppner on drums. Some songs that Antin has had in the repertoire for a long time can be found here. This CD / LP is therefore also a kind of inventory, a testimony to a certain period in which the pieces were created. Antin names Dorothy Parkers poems or short stories and Billie Holiday as important influences for the lyrics of her new album . Musical borrowings can be found in Stephen Foster , the 60s Motown sound and Chico Buarque from Brazil.

painting

In painting, Antin uses different tools such as paintbrushes, sponges, rollers and brushes. She uses acrylic paints , which she draws either neat or diluted with water as a finely nuanced veil over other layers of paint. In this way she achieves a painterly diversity that condenses into night blackness, but still lets light shine out of the depth of the picture in transparently painted areas. In some places you can still see the structure of the wooden panels used as picture carriers . Although she dispenses with the construction of a classical perspective , an imaginary spatiality is created that is created solely by the different density of the pigments and the effect of warm and cold shades. In addition to soft colored surfaces, there are also scratches that penetrate the layer of paint like “injuries” and disturb the apparent calmness of the image, as do spirited swings or lines. Sometimes black, scriptural lines or spots run through the layers of paint, reminiscent of Jackson Pollock . Other paintings with their delicate, neon-like glow evoke associations with the French impressionism of Odilon Redon or Claude Monet . Flat abstractions indicate Antin's preference for color field painting by the American Mark Rothko , to whom she dedicated three songs called “The Rothko Cycle”. She was strongly influenced by abstract expressionist artists such as Agnes Martin or Richard Diebenkorn . Her long-standing artistic companion is the professor of painting and graphics at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, Hans Peter Adamski . Her work also benefited from the painter and art critic Monika von Starck , who spoke at all of her exhibitions in recent years. Amy Antin has already had exhibitions at home and abroad, including in Paris, where the self-confessed Francophile American lived before she settled in Cologne.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 2012: Just for the Record in Cologne
  • 2011: Turtle group exhibition in Paris
  • 2010: East Meadow, New York in Cologne
  • 2009: Moving silence in Cologne

Fonts

  • Barthes / Ivo: On the Margins of Genre. (= Dissertation at New York University, New York 1986).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ... Amy Antin, née Eisenberg .... ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rheinlaender.de
  2. ↑ Amy Antin biography. on calufo.de. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  3. ↑ a b c d An American in Cologne. on my south city. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  4. ↑ a b c Story of a Metamorphosis: Amy Antin - Singer / Songwriter / Painter. In: Stadt MAGAZIN Köln-Süd. Volume 23, April / May 2012, pp. 6–7. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
  5. ↑ Amy Antin "Heart of Clay". on herzogrecords.com. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  6. ↑ Amy Antin. on Gaesteliste.de. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  7. ^ About the work. on Amy Antin Music & Paintings. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  8. ^ Artwork and Exhibitions. on Amy Antin Music & Paintings. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
  9. ^ The artist as a critic. on blog posting. Retrieved February 21, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Antin, Amy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eisenberg, Amy (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer, songwriter and painter
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd November 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH new York