Noah K

Template:SHORTDESC:American composer, musician and producer

Noah K
K in Brooklyn, 2015
Background information
Born	(1984-09-11) September 11, 1984 Santa Monica, CA
Genres	Avant-garde dream pop experimental classical jazz
Occupation(s)	Composer Musician Producer
Instruments	Saxophone, keyboards
Years active	2008-present
Labels	HatHut, Underwolf
Website	www.noahkmusic.com

Noah Kaplan (born September 11, 1984) also known as Noah K, is an American composer, saxophonist, and producer.

Early life and education

K grew up in Topanga Canyon, CA. During high school he performed jazz professionally throughout Los Angeles. In 2002, he composed and performed music on the ABC television series Once and Again. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with prominent musicians Joe Maneri and Jerry Bergonzi. He was Maneri's last student. After graduating, K moved to Brooklyn, NY and would travel monthly to Framingham, MA to continue lessons in composition, theory and improvisation with Maneri until Maneri's death in 2009. K received an M.F.A. in Music Composition from Princeton University in 2015 where his advisor was Steven Mackey. He has had additional studies in composition with Paul Lansky and Louis Andriessen. Among K's awards include the Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellowship from the Princeton University Graduate School, a fellowship from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's Edward T. Cone Institute, and a composition fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center.

Career

Dollshot

K co-leads the dream pop band Dollshot for which he writes music and performs. The band's eponymous debut album was released in 2011 and features arrangements of songs by Arnold Schoenberg, Francis Poulenc and Charles Ives as well as original songs by Noah K and Wes Matthews. Dollshot's second album, Lalande will be released in January 2019. A music video for the title track single, directed by Matt Mahurin, premiered on WNYC's Soundcheck in July 2017. A video for the album's second single, "Swan Gone", directed by Pablo Delcan, premiered on BlackBook in October 2018.

With Giacomo Merega

One of the musicians in Dollshot is electric bassist Giacomo Merega, whom Noah K met when they were students in Boston. Their first recording together, The Light and Other Things, was made in 2006; the band was a free improvisation trio that included David Tronzo on guitar. The pair also played on Watch the Walls Instead, another set of freely improvised performances, this time in trio, quartet, and quintet formats. They both also played on trumpeter Joe Moffett's Ad Faunum; and were co-leaders with Moffett on another album – Crows and Motives – a set of improvised pieces that "arose between recording three-voice extracts from one of Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez’ settings of L’homme armé."

Noah Kaplan Quartet

Merega is also a member of the Noah Kaplan Quartet. Their debut album Descendants was released on Hathut Records in 2011. It was followed by Cluster Swerve in 2017. In its four-star review of the album, DownBeat magazine stated, "From track to track there is a consistent sense of rumination, where every intervallic brushstroke feels like the work of a painter meticulously applying and manipulating his medium to the canvas." K has recorded or performed with Joe Morris, Anthony Coleman, Mauro Pagani, Peter Erskine, Alan Pasqua, Rinde Eckert, Jason Nazary, Mike Pride, Tyshawn Sorey, Mat Maneri and Joe Maneri among others.

Collaboration with Hampton Fancher

K began working with writer Hampton Fancher in 2010 when they collaborated on the spoken word cantata Rat Lunch. They performed this work and other theatrical pieces in New York City between 2010 and 2012. In 2016 they began collaborating on an opera, Salvation, for which Fancher wrote the story and libretto. The dvd release of Michael Almereyda's documentary of Fancher, Escapes (2017), includes a video portrait of Fancher shot by K.

Other

K is the editor of the English edition of Ivan Wyschnegradsky's Manual of Quarter-Tone Harmony. He is a co-founder of Underwolf Records and produces for the label.

Playing style

As a member of his quartet, he has played in a style influenced by the microtonal approach of Maneri. A reviewer of their first album described his playing: "Kaplan's shifting pitches give his flowing lines, sliding across and between notes, even more vocal inflections than a regular hornman might impart, but he tends to be less speech-like in his phrasing and more likely to evoke animal similes in his flexible expressiveness, ranging from pained braying to exuberant crows." More generally, as an improviser, he "is devoted to quarter-tone improvisation and its integration into his music as a structural principle".

Personal life

K is married to vocalist Rosie K.

Discography

Year	Title	Artist	Genre	Label
2019 (forthcoming)	Lalande	Dollshot	Dream pop	Underwolf
2017	Cluster Swerve	Noah Kaplan Quartet	Jazz	HatHut
2014	Crows and Motives	Noah Kaplan, Giacomo Merega, Joe Moffett	Jazz	Underwolf
2012	Animal Culture	Joe Moffett, Noah Kaplan, Giacomo Merega, Jacob William, Luther Gray	Jazz	Not Two Records
2012	Rat Lunch	Hampton Fancher & Noah K	Alternative	Underwolf
2012	Watch The Walls Instead	Giacomo Merega, Marco Cappelli, Noah Kaplan with Anthony Coleman and Mauro Pagani	Jazz	Underwolf
2011	Descendants	Noah Kaplan Quartet	Jazz	HatHut
2011	Dollshot	Dollshot	Dream pop/indie pop	Underwolf
2008	The Light and Other Things	Giacomo Merega, David Tronzo, Noah Kaplan	Jazz	Creative Nation Music

Bibliography

• Wyschnegradsky, Ivan; Noah Kaplan (editor); Rosalie Kaplan (translator). Manual of Quarter-Tone Harmony. Underwolf Editions: New York 2017, ISBN 0692883746 Search this book on ..

External links

• Official website
• Noah K on IMDb
• Notes From Underground article by Noah K and Rosie K (New Music Box)
• Jazz Session Interview with Noah Kaplan

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