"Wolfe is doing what she does best: frenetic power created through post-minimalist techniques that transcend mere repetition. The music materials are sharp, taut, basic, and the economy of material is expertly managed. Wolfe knows how to make a lot out of a little AND pull the listener along for the ride. Both works have programmatic elements but not knowing the program does not interfere with the listening experiences. These works sound fresh and contemporary and I’m confident that audiences in the future will continue to relate and connect with the ideas therein."
-- Sequenza 21
"Teeming with jealousy, rage, passion, murder and a ghost, Julia Wolfe’s Cruel Sister has all the makings of an opera... Under conductor Brad Lubman, Ensemble Resonanz elevates Cruel Sister to an incandescent plane, delving into the psyche of the titular murderous sibling the way Judi Dench once mined the character traits of Lady Macbeth."
This fall, Cantaloupe Music will release Julia Wolfe's Dark Full Ride: Music in Multiples, her first album since 2003. It consists of four new compositions, each clocking in at over 15 minutes, each written for multiples of individual instruments--nine bagpipes, four drum sets, six pianos, and eight double basses. Wolfe says, "Like staring for a long time at a Rothko painting, I imagined each of these pieces as an exploration of one color. But in truth an instrument isn't really a single timbre. There are a myriad of worlds within each sound." Working closely with the performers during the composing process, Wolfe uncovers a never before-heard music. For example, while writing "LAD," she discovered the initial drone produced while filling the bagpipe with air, using that as the piece's introduction. The first seven minutes of the title track "Dark Full Ride" use only a drum set's hi-hats. "my lips from speaking" builds on the piano riff from a classic R&B song to showcase the instrument's ferocity. Finally "Stronghold" shows the bass isn't just about low end. Says Wofe: "With each piece I tried to dive into a psychedelic landscape, at once multilayered, fractured, ecstatic, silent, driving, cacophonous, and direct." " "Sales Inventory
Big Beautiful Dark And Scary / Bang On A Can All Stars
Cantaloupe Music
CD
$21.99Feb 28, 2012
The Bang on a Can All-Stars have recorded their first studio album in five years; the first to include the All-Stars' current line-up: Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Mark Stewart, electric guitar; and Evan Ziporyn, clarinets.
With Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, the Bang on a Can All-Stars show off their blazing speed, polyrhythmic virtuosity and all-world versatility in a return to the core Bang on a Can sound - an uncategorizable supermix of classical and electric instruments that is part classical ensemble, part rock band, and part jazz sextet. The album is the first in a decade that features the All-Stars exclusively, rather than as part of a collaborative project. Each of the pieces on the double-CD calls upon a different kind of virtuosity, demonstrating the range of musical abilities and experiences arguably unique to this ensemble. Recorded in New York City, all of the music on Big Beautiful Dark and Scary (including the arrangements of the works by Conlon Nancarrow) were written for and premiered by the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
Groundbreaking new-music sextet Eighth Blackbird, winners of four Grammy Awards for their previous Cedille Records albums, are heard in the world-premiere recording of a collaborative, all-instrumental program of intensely rhythmic works written expressly for the Chicago-based ensemble by the founders of the celebrated Bang on a Can composers collective. Each piece on Singing in the Dead of Night takes its name from Paul McCartney’s lyrics to The Beatles song “Blackbird” — but this music exists in another realm altogether. Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Wolfe’s title track conjures a dark, silent solitude from which creative inspiration emerges. Michael Gordon’s music melds “the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism" (The New Yorker). In “the light of the dark,” he evokes the wild spontaneity of an uninhibited, late-night jam session. Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang’s three-movement “these broken wings,” a “glamorously beautiful suite” (The Guardian), takes flight via Eighth Blackbird’s boundless stamina and high-voltage virtuosity. Eighth Blackbird sequences the component pieces in the unconventional, composer-approved concert order they’ve employed since the collaborative work’s 2008 premiere: They play the Gordon and Wolfe works in between movements of the Lang, whose piece thus frames the program.
Through Broken Time: Works by León, Singleton, Wolfe & More / Grim, Sheppard
New Focus Recordings
CD
$20.99Sep 23, 2022
Flutist Jennifer Grim releases "Through Broken Time," a collection of works at the intersection of Afro-Modernism and post-minimalism, by composers Tania León, Alvin Singleton, David Sanford, Valerie Coleman, Allison Loggins-Hull, and Julia Wolfe. Together with pianist Michael Sheppard, Grim performs these multi-dimensional works with characteristic precision, virtuosity, and expressive power. Hailed as “a deft, smooth flute soloist” by the New York Times, flutist Jennifer Grim has given solo and chamber performances throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. For over twenty years, she was the flutist of the award-winning Zéphyros Winds and the New York Chamber Soloists. She is a frequent guest artist with the Boston Chamber Music Society, Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival, Ensemble Flageolet, and has performed with such renowned ensembles such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, American String Quartet, and with members of the Takacs Quartet and St. Lawrence Quartet.
Purnima - Music of Bang on a Can & Others / Rakhi Singh
Cantaloupe Music
CD
$21.99Nov 10, 2023
Rakhi Singh is a violinist, music director, curator and composer based in the UK. In 2016 she co-founded Manchester Collective, a progressive group that the BBC describes as "transforming all our perceptions of what a classical music group can be."
"Sabkha" is the first single from Singh's full-length debut album Purnima (coming October 27) — a stirring stream-of-consciousness foray into signal processing and multi-tracking for violin, with Singh's own wordless vocals adding to the hypnotic mood. Purnima, which translates literally from the Sanskrit as "she who is the full moon,” is not only Singh's middle name — it's also a source of spiritual inspiration that has guided her own musical journey on her chosen instrument. Interpreting works by composers Alex Groves ("Trace I"), Emily Hall ("Outshifts"), Julia Wolfe ("LAD") and Michael Gordon ("Light Is Calling"), and augmenting them with unearthly electronic and electro-acoustic textures, Singh creates a haunting dreamworld of melody and sound that doesn't quite emit a completely "classical" aura — but instead suggests an altogether new one.
Extending the Range is the result of several years of collaboration between Allmanna Sangen and the Malva Quartet. Our two ensembles are driven by a shared desire to explore new music and to promote music by female composers. Both aspects are reflected in this album of music for choir and string quartet, written by some of the most exciting Swedish and American composers of our time.
