Recordings from Persona Digital
Recording Arts and Science
Trinity P-2500 Band
Persona Classical Consort
Em4U
Persona Studio Setup
Stephen Gislason

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Trinity P2500 Band

The Band performs both original music written by Stephen Gislason and new arrangements of all, popular tunes. We cover many different styles from different countries. Stephen says: "A good arranger wants to add a personal touch to a well established piece of music.  I have been interested in eclectic music and explore a variety of styles in my arrangements. My goal is not the faithful reproduction of the originals but the creation of new arrangements with new instruments and new compositional ideas that become interesting in their own right. When I switch to recording engineer, I have high standards. I strive to achieve the highest audiophile quality for the recordings. "

Jazz The band has followed the path of modern jazz, starting with bebop as invented by Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker. The path leads to Miles Davis and the extraordinarily talented musicians that played with him and then proceeded on their own innovative paths. Stephen is a trumpet player as well as a keyboardist and synthesizer expert; his arrangements favour trumpet, flugelhorn and electronic keyboards. Jazz players take pride in improvisations on the base of old tunes, often leaving only melody fragments and some chord changes. There has  been a remarkable proliferation of musical styles, partly because of "crossovers" that merged blues, country music, rock, and jazz. Latin American, African and Caribbean  music merged, especially rhythmically with American and European music. The idea of popular music grew to include this variety of ethnic styles.

Latin  Stephen is fascinated by the music of  Mexico, Central and South America. In Brazil, Tom Jobim, de Moraes, Mendonça, an others developed Samba and  Bossa Nova styles that spread to the US and Europe. Argentina contributed the Tango. Dances, rhythms and melodic styles emerged as energetic fusion elements in jazz and popular music in the rest of the world.  Bolero refers to dance music that originated in Santiago de Cuba in the 19th century.  The Cuban bolero traveled to Mexico, Puerto Rico composer, and other Caribbean islands. Different  bolero styles have been identified  such as the  son (rumba),  bolero-mambo and the  bolero-cha.  We explore some of these rich musical traditions.

Popular Tunes One ongoing project is to recall, rearrange and perform some of the "classics of popular music." Several motivations combine in an interest to arrange and record popular songs of the past 60 years. Bands often emerge with a repertoire of cover tunes that most audiences know and enjoy. Popular songs are played by in countless venues daily by amateur and professional musicians.  Often, singers and bands get started by recording popular tunes with their own inflection and stylist changes. Some tunes become standards that are performed and recorded  thousands of times. New styles evolve from seed songs that acquire fan bases. Elements of every successful composition are copied into "original" compositions that follow, often multiple copies that create new stylistic groupings.  Sometimes a new arrangement renews a songs appeal or changes its appeal so that its popularity moves toward a new group of listeners. Several of the songs we have recorded have been reproduced many times in recordings by many groups. John Denver's Annie's Song, for example has been recorded a 100 times by different groups. We have treated the songs as classics that exemplify an aspect of popular music that emerged in the 1950s. Many  bands and musicians that were popular in the 60s and 70s have been resurrected to play concerts for the "baby boomers' who feel strongly about popular songs they heard as teenagers and young adults. We all have grey hair and have more wrinkles, but musical enjoyment is ageless.

Stephen Gislason

The Trinity P 2500 band members are different aspect of Stephen's personality working with his favorite music workstations. He started playing all the instruments available in the band room at Earl Haig Collegiate in 1957 when he was 14 . He started paying the piano at age 5 and studied music composition to pass exams at the Royal Conservatory of music in Toronto. His uncle Vince gave him a trumpet when he was 12. He approached  Bob Cringan, the music teacher, when he got to high school asking if he could play trumpet in the concert band, even thought his academic curriculum left no room for band classes. Cringan accepted him and became a generous and trusting mentor. Cringan would leave him the keys to the band room and Stephen would often stay after classes to practice different instruments. Other students would drop in and jam. Eventually a dance band emerged. Stephen played first trumpet in the band, often playing lead melody parts as a soloist. His trumpet playing is often featured in the arrangements available online. He tends to use a Flugelhorn patch on the Trinity and an amazing brass patch on the P2500 derived from an Oberheim Matrix sample. The Trinity is a Korg synthesizer, music station, which Stephen acquired in 1996 when it first became available. The Trinity became a highly regarded professional instrument. Stephen states" It was love a first sight and listen for me. We bonded and for several years all my music came from the Trinity. The EMU Proteus 2500 is another music synthesizer, workstation that represents a highly evolved, excellent example of electronic engineering, sound sampling and musical sophistication. The sounds are often quite different from the Trinity as is the approach to synthesis. Stephen admits that the Proteus 2500 has become his second love and he often neglects the Trinity. By using the complete spectrum of instruments in both workstations he has the best of both worlds, hence the Trinity P2500 band. 

Music Player at Reverb Nation

Persona Digital Studio is located on the Sunshine Coast, Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada. www.personadigitalstudio.com  email  music@personadigitalstudio.com. Our Music catalogue includes recorded performances by the Trinity P2500 Band, Em4U, and the Persona Classical Consort. Music downloads are available from iTunes, Napster, AmazonMP3 and from our companion website: Persona Digital.  We have enjoyed association with Reverb Nation who provides an online service for musicians to present and market their music.