Eric Pan

it’s always a good time for play













Campfire Sparks Newsletter 🏕️


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plus scenes from life as a touring/recording artist —
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News + Blog

Photo of Travel Poems CD Trilogy pack, in a garden

31 August 2024 ༶ CD Trilogy begins to ship

The first round of CDs have just gone out, and I couldn't be more proud and excited for everyone to hold these gorgeous objects in their hands.

Outside covers hand-painted by Krys Unverzagt, inside treasure-map track listings hand-illustrated by Klara Čmejrková.

Order yours today and read behind-the-scenes in Campfire Sparks.

Illustrated graphic of grand piano with text that reads: Piano Liberation Workshop by Eric Pan

27 Aug 2024 ༶ Collabs with Josephine Pia Wild

Josephine Pia Wild is the world's first handpan pop artist, and her debut EP is out! Titled Multiple, the EP features songs in both French and English. It was a blast working on lyrics and arranging together — you can read about the process (new to me!) in Campfire Sparks Issue 21 and Issue 22 — and stream Multiple on your music platform of choice.

Proof of Travel Poems CD #3 design

13 Aug 2024 ༶ Travel Poems, off to the printers . . .

All 3 CDs will be printed with the fantastic folks at Birnam CD in Scotland. Pre-order the triple-pack now!

13 Aug 2024 ༶ The Air Is Made Of Music

This Oct 2–6, join us for The Air Is Made Of Music (a.k.a. TAIMOM): A multi-sensory group exhibition and release show for the release of Travel Poems . Chapter 3 . There is no path back.

Follow the instagram account and sign up for the taimom.com newsletter.

The phenomenal collaborating artists include Hugo Faz, Carolina Boettner, Magdalena Paz, Colin Aherne, Camille Jackson, and will take place at The Ballery in Berlin. Curation by Mahzabin Haque 🩵 💙 Can't wait!

Photo of Plitvice Lakes, Croatia

29 Jul 2024 ༶ Issue 20 of Campfire Sparks is out!

“Along the Wildflower Parade" includes an all-new music adventure; recommendations on music, poetry, film; and top-secret music for paid subscribers.

Photo of a Keybird mini-piano, named Monsieur Magpie, outside in the park.

22 Jul 2024 ༶ Outdoor Open Studio Busking begins

To get ready for recording my next album, The Tributary, I've been taking a piano on the road and playing open shows for the public.

If you're in Berlin and would like to join, sign up to the Instagram group where I announce when and where I'll be.

Photo of motion-blurred spiral lights with text overlaid, reading "19. In the Desert, Curious", a teaser image for Eric Pan's art newsletter, Campfire Sparks.

15 Jul 2024 ༶ Paid subscriptions for Campfire Sparks

Tons of goodies in Issue # 19 of the newsletter! I'm increasing publication to every 2 weeks, and the introduction of a paid tier. Contributors get:

• Secret music
• Discounts on merch + Limited-editions + 1/1 Gifts
• Exclusive access to new releases up to 1 year in advance

This issue also includes a brand-new music adventure; recommendations on music, books, philosophy; my open music studio featuring art installation and mini-piano, publication in Olafur Arnalds's OPIA Magazine inaugural issue, and more.

15 May 2024 ༶ Proof of Play / Open Studio

Every day since Feb 29 I've been publishing work-in-progress music, scored to a photo I took “on this day" in a previous year — I'm updating all social platforms with the videos and here's YouTube.

Each entry features what I worked on, a soundtrack for the day, and a new title for the music.

B/W Photo and Title for Foot of the Carpathians, a Music Photo Roman

11 Apr 2024  ༶  Two quick desserts 🍧🍨

On April 23rd, the award-winning Foot of the Carpathians will screen at Sputnik Kino in Berlin (Germany).  It's the music video for track 6 on the first LP of Travel Poems! Stream here, and also if you're in town, come to the screening which will be quite the event (tix).

Two: After selling out its 10-seat cohort, Piano Liberation Workshop is now underway, with a stellar group of students who've already blown my socks off with their imaginative improvisations. So proud of you all 💙🩵

Illustrated graphic of grand piano with text that reads: Piano Liberation Workshop by Eric Pan

20 Feb 2024 ༶ Start improvising on piano immediately — and compose a collection of brand-new music over 35 days!

Announcing the Piano Liberation Workshop, the fastest (and most fun) way I've found to teach piano improv. I'm bringing my expertise teaching one-on-one lessons for over a decade, to this cohort-based course. First workshop begins March 29: sign up here (update: sold out, but join the mailing list for Cohort 2 with 10-day options as well).

Album cover for The Awakening (Live) concert

1 Dec 2023 ༶ New Album announcement — a free gift to all bandcamp supporters and newsletter subscribers ❄️ ☃️

One year ago, I began playing completely improvised live concerts not based on jazz standards or known patterns — a mode of musical exploration that came with ease … only when I was by myself.
[ read full story on twitter ]

Mobirise

5 Nov 2023 ༶ I’m excited to begin a very special new concert series. The first one is called Tributary #1 — Embarkation, and I’ll be unveiling some new approaches to solo piano for the first time. In addition, we’ll experiment with the concert series format, based on an idea of journeying together, with the audience, as a collective.

Screenshot of photo of Eric Pan and Twitter post about reflections on the past year

1 Nov 2023 ༶ If you’re curious how Year Three of being an independent recording artist went, peep twitter / instagram / facebook for a tally of highlights and heartfelt thank yous 💜.

1 Oct 2023 ༶ Our Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea release+tour is a wrap! Video from the Taiwan segment (5 shows in total) is also out: here’s a clip of Chien Chien Lu’s solo on “Periscope Forest”, live from Yuppy Book Store in Taipei. With Refa Wang (bass) and Chuck Payne (drums) 🌿

4 Sep 2023 ༶ Presenting the official music video for “Twilight Far”, from the upcoming Travel Poems . Chapter 3 . There is no path back.

The year is 6063. What did art and music from 2023 look like?

Thank you to Falling Sea for production and Initiative Musik for funding 🧡

18 July 2023 ༶ Our “Oak Island” music photo roman is out! Happy with how this turned out: poetic and dream-like.

In February, “Oak Island” landed on the Spotify editorial playlist, “All New Jazz” alongside some true heavyweights. Thank you Sebastian Chiriboga (drums), Dean Torrey (bass), Falling Sea (film production), and Initiative Musik (grant funding).

4 June 2023 ༶ Footage from our release show at Pandora Art Gallery last October has now been put together into a thrilling trailer! Songs included: “Turtle on the Moon”, “On Old Delancey”, “Foot of the Carpathians”. Featuring Giacomo Tagliavia (bass) and Nir Sabag (drums) 🔮

26 April 2023 ༶ Introducing “Noguchi Beach”, the first music video from Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea ! 🌌 🌊

We worked with production house Falling Sea to put together a reverie-evoking journey through charcoal-turned-pastel landscapes, to score Eric Pan's improvisational track played on the Rhodes piano.

With many thanks to Initiative Musik GmbH for release- and film-funding assistance ☀️

Biography

“You’ve got a great player here.”
Ray Brown

Eric Pan builds multi-sensory playgrounds around music.

Mixing piano, photography, art installation, and immersive storytelling, Eric invites audiences to engage with songs and improvisation through physical exploration.
❧
Imagine going on a walk in the park. In the middle of a grassy field, you discover a colorful phone booth covered in fuzzy balls, built from century-old windows, one skylight propped open. As though you were visiting a gallery, the booth welcomes you to step inside, then be transported by music + found-sounds.

This is teleportation.

That’s one way into Travel Poems, Eric’s 2020 solo recording artist debut. The music originated in the rainforests of Costa Rica, a collection of song-postcards composed as gifts for people and places. The collection blossomed a recording tour on pianos across four continents, yielding a 30-track sonic kaleidoscope: solo, duo, and trio performances threaded through found-sound recordings also curated from around the world.

Live Travel Poems shows feature spoken stories woven into concerts. Collaborative improvisation, among virtuoso soloists, and in response to immersive storytelling, allows both listeners and performers to create sound-imagination spaces together.

In July 2021, Eric debuts Lullabies of the Pleiades — six concise solo piano pieces transcribed from indigenous Pleiadian songs, each as sung to a young loved one, local to the far constellation. This exoplanetary musicology project aims to amplify previously undocumented music and its connected folklore (with more research findings to come).

Since 2022, accelerating releases clarify Eric’s vision for music-centered art experiences: The Awakening (Live) introduced long-form improv to Eric’s process as well as to the global Open Metaverse; Music Postcards mix photography + writing with his unique compositional style; Proof of Play extends the format to an “open studio” ethos of showcasing daily work-in-progress.

In 2024, the final Travel Poems chapter released — as a 5-day, multi-sensory art exhibition and music festival called The Air Is Made Of Music, with a star-studded artist and musician line-up. All projects are documented, next to bite-sized text adventures (scored to new music), in Eric’s newsletter, Campfire Sparks.
❧
Born in Taiwan and reared on-the-go between Taipei, Boulder, and the American Southwest, Eric Pan found his musical footing with the discovery of jazz at the University of California, Santa Cruz. These studies propelled him onto stages with Jeff Hamilton and Roy Hargrove, plus over a decade’s tenure as New York City jazz pianist and composer. Pan’s compositions and improvisations reveal a relentless pursuit of simplicity, craft, and universality.

Rhythm




We already have a way to put emotions in glass bottles — actually more like packed into cannonballs, sizzling to the touch: I can make one with my soul and launch it directly to your soul, using no words at all, only pure feeling and fire. That's what music does.

These emotions can be any kind. Soothing, or painful and cathartic, or jubilant, for example. But the moment of creation, the act of communication, the catapult: these are movements, and they must buzz in their capacity to electrify.

Imagine a universe where we are connected by shimmering beams of light, everyone to everyone. One quirk about this universe is that the beams send emotions between us, one million per minute per pair, clearly and effortlessly. Joy is instantly contagious. A hurtful thought toward another is understood with compassion, seen alongside the place of sadness where it arose. Every feeling triggers infinite empathy, therefore boundless acceptance. (The beams send only the stuff of our souls, not our thoughts — so we still have privacy, interesting conversation, and the ability to prank each other silly.)

Now imagine we already live in this universe except, long ago, we somehow forgot where the beams disappeared off to. But we’ve always kept music with us, because it’s our best way to speak in the old way.

Eric

Albums

Cover painting for Travel Poems . Chapter 1 . Secret towns

Chapter 1
Secret towns
♬ Listen Now / Buy

Cover painting for Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea

Chapter 2
The night sea

Cover painting for Travel Poems . Chapter 3 . There is no path back

Chapter 3

Photo of 3-CD complete Travel Poems boxset, outer covers and inner treasure-map track listings.

Travel Poems
All 3 Chapters
Buy 3-CD pack / digital

Album cover of The Awakening (Live)

The Awakening (Live)

♬ Listen Now / Buy

Album cover for Recollections 8

Sonder House compilations
Recollections 8 + 9
(Streaming globally)

Album cover painting of Lullabies of the Pleiades by Eric Pan

Lullabies of the Pleiades

♬ Listen Now / Buy

Live

 

Mar 29 - Orania, Berlin
Dec 4 - KitKatClub, Berlin
Sep 18 - Zur Glücklichen Auster, Berlin
Jun 11 - Klunkerkranich, Berlin
May 20 - Twinpigs, Berlin
May 7 - Nirgendwo, Berlin
Mar 7 - Sir Savigny Hotel, Berlin
Mar 4 - Twinpigs, Berlin
Feb 23 - Rockwood Music Hall, New York, NY
Feb 1 - Rue-B, New York, NY
Dec 19 - Rockwood Music Hall, New York, NY
Sep 21 - Cultural Embassy, New York, NY
Oct 18 - Werkstatt Haus der Statistik, Berlin
Oct 16 - Hat Bar, Berlin
Aug 4 - Viessmann Collaboration Studio, Berlin
Jul 14 - Douglass Studios, Brooklyn, NY
Jun 12 - Delizia, New York, NY
May 12 - Brooklyn Grange Farm, Brooklyn, NY
Apr 27 - Rue-B, New York, NY
Apr 26 - Rue-B, New York, NY
Apr 24 - Delizia, New York, NY

 

Dec 24 - Pete's Candy Store, Brooklyn, NY
Dec 15 - Mable House Barnes Amphi., Atlanta, GA
Dec 14 - Speakeasy, Columbia, SC
Dec 13 - Fox Music House, Charleston, SC
Dec 12 - Levine Center for The Arts, Charlotte, NC
Dec 11 - Meymandi Concert Hall, Raleigh, NC
Dec 10 - Harrison Opera House, Norfolk, VA
Dec 8 - Emilio's, Richmond, VA
Dec 7 - Twins, Washington, DC
Dec 6 - Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, PA
Dec 4 - The Crossroads, New Brunswick, NJ
Nov 12 - Jamboree, Barcelona
Nov 11 - Jazzman, Barcelona
Nov 10 - Jazzman, Barcelona
Nov 2 - Moods Jazz Club, Zurich
Sep 29 - Hat Bar, Berlin
Oct 28 - T Berlin, Berlin
Oct 4 - T Berlin, Berlin
Aug 17 - Delizia, New York, NY
Aug 1 - Delizia, New York, NY

Press + Interviews

w/ Olafur Arnalds at Silent Green

Eric Pan’s “Music Postcard 24 . from fire’s reflections” is exhibited as part of Olafur Arnalds’s concert showcase at Silent Green, Berlin

For a Living Season 10 premiere

100-minute interview w/ Daniel Lazar on the For a Living podcast. We discuss music-making, jazz, mixing other art into the music experience, ongoing journeys of Travel Poems, what NFTs are all about, simply; we listen to tunes, toss around books and words, even throw in some bandstand gossip for the culture 🌊 I love Daniel’s attunement and erudition; it’s my favorite recorded discussion I’ve ever been a part of

Campfire Sparks launches

I never saw a newsletter of bite-sized adventures scored to original music, so I had to make one! Would love to welcome you on-board: check it out here 🛤️

Favorite album of 2022

Travel Poems . Chapter 2 . The night sea is selected as one of John Kehl's (of Song Surfing) favorite albums of 2022

Ted Gioia feature

My Thelonious Monk + Frederic Chopin mash-up (or is it a Frankenstein?) makes it to Ted Gioia’s newsletter in his “12 YouTube Videos I'm Enjoying Right Now”

“The World” — Public Radio International

We’re on national radio, fam ... and syndicated around the globe! I sit down with PRI and Orson Welles (!) to discuss releasing Travel Poems — thanks to Emilie Pons and Carole Hills

JAZZIZ Magazine premiere

Matt Micucci interviews me for JAZZIZ Magazine, also debuting the first single from Travel Poems, Foot of the Carpathians (music video here)

CMJ + ASCAP selections

“Wheelhouse of Wonder (Welcome Home)” is selected by ASCAP for their magazine, and I play CMJ Music Marathon 2021

Reviews for Lullabies of the Pleiades

My neo-classical piano EP, Lullabies of the Pleiades, continues to receive personal testimonials from people who love the songs. One early write-up was from the discerning publication Music Dances While You Sleep — it's an honor to hear from everyone 💌

Inquiries + Booking

You are the universe.


Silliness is probably required.

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

Quick Bio

⋆ ☄︎. 
· ˚ * 🔭 the piano is my telescope 🏕️

jazz + folk polyrhythms 🍨🍧

daily music, photos, words —

offline + on-chain

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