Rhythm Nation celebrates American rhythmic traditions as an expression of bodily autonomy and tacit history keeping. This wide-ranging exploration features new works by Jlin, Jeff Scott, Mazz Swift, and Eddie Venegas, commissioned by Publiquartet with the support of a 2024 Chamber Music America Artistic Projects grant. The quartet also expands upon two works from the library of Kronos String Quartet's Fifty for the Future project: Fode Lassana Diabate's Sunjata's Time (2015) and Henry Threadgill's Sixfivetwo (2018), with electronics interludes created by Jannina Norpoth and John-Paul Norpoth meditating on the poignant words of Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation.' Each of the pieces on the album evokes a distinct rhythmic world, reflecting the plurality of American movement(s) and protecting the unspoken spirit of their lineage's narratives.
Listen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books recently described as "one of American music's great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime." The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars - including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross - and two pianos that utilize Threadgill's unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic vision. The eight string instruments revel in the music's painstaking detail with intricate gestures that miraculously entwine to form a grand statement. The meticulous orchestration highlights all of the usual characteristics of Threadgill's music: unusual forms, unexpected timbres, and slippery counterpoint and rhythms, all shaped by the composer's conducting into a singular experience.
Listen Ship is the latest masterpiece in the ever-expanding sound world of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill, whom The New York Review of Books recently described as "one of American music's great Romantics and a lifelong seeker of the sublime." The new work is a suite for six acoustic guitars - including individual stylists such as Bill Frisell, Miles Okazaki and Brandon Ross - and two pianos that utilize Threadgill's unique intervallic syntax to illuminate his idiosyncratic vision. The eight string instruments revel in the music's painstaking detail with intricate gestures that miraculously entwine to form a grand statement. The meticulous orchestration highlights all of the usual characteristics of Threadgill's music: unusual forms, unexpected timbres, and slippery counterpoint and rhythms, all shaped by the composer's conducting into a singular experience.
