adapted from the press release by Ben Hogwood
Award-winning US pianist and composer Dustin O’Halloran releases new single Red – the second single taken from his forthcoming The Chromatic Sessions EP, to be released on 8 October on Splinter Music. An improvised piano piece recorded in a single take in his Reykjavík studio; it’s a rather beautiful private moment to make up the second of three tracks forming The Chromatic Sessions’EP.
It’s been a productive couple of years for O’Halloran. Late last year he scored two films, including Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. His ambitious 2024 album 1 0 0 1, released on Deutsche Grammophon, was an immersive concept album that asked questions about the place of human consciousness in the age of AI.
Red is a partner piece to Gold – released last month – with a final chromatic track titled Blue set to follow. The theme of colours emerged organically during the process of writing and recording. “It wasn’t something pre-planned,” says Dustin. “I was improvising on the piano every day, and I realised I was always thinking about colours as I wrote. When you have the mic set up and you’re recording, it puts you into deep focus. There’s something about that red light being on that really pulls you into the moment.”
O’Halloran has long experienced synaesthesia – a mingling of the senses that may sound familiar to many. It can be something as simple as a taste snapping us back to a place we’ve been, a familiar scent triggering a powerful emotional flashback, or – in Dustin’s case – a certain sound evoking the feeling of a colour. “I believe that people are more synesthetic than they realise,” he says. “It’s something that you can tune into. All sensations are ultimately translated in the brain — and I think you can learn to connect different parts of those sensations together.” Such connections are a theme that runs through ‘The Chromatic Sessions’ – including the connection between Dustin and his audience.
Each of the three singles that form ‘The Chromatic Sessions’ EP come with downloadable sheet music when bought on Bandcamp, allowing listeners to play the music themselves. It’s a gesture born of O’Halloran’s heartfelt wish to forge a closer relationship with his listeners. “Releasing music digitally feels so distant and disconnected,” he says. “And I think we’re all looking for connection. When people get involved in playing the music, it becomes part of them in a different way. It becomes communal. It becomes theirs.”
Published post no.2,637 – Thursday 28 August 2025
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source arcana.fm ’
