Classical Music

•People’s Emergency Center is a chance for PRISM to finally focus on Levy’s own music, which draws freely—and often surprisingly— from classical, jazz, world, and rock traditions. The album includes three works written just for PRISM, including “Lyric”. Levy’s voracious musical appetite apparently includes the French “Spectralists,” composers like Gerard Grisey and Tristan Murail. The recording also features four works, including “Serial Mood”, in which PRISM is joined by an all-star jazz line-up.

Four Parts Five is a quintet tour de force that takes virtuosic rhythmic ensemble playing to a new level. It's a densely harmonious, frequently hair-raising, and deeply groovy piece of music which gives nods to such varied composers as Gyorgy Ligeti and Count Basie. New York-based composer Gordon Beeferman has created a diverse body of adventurous work spanning opera, orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, avant-jazz, free improvisation, and collaborations with dance and other arts. Performed by an ensemble consisting of Beeferman, Peter Hess, Anders Nilsson, James Ilgenfritz, and Adam Gold, the album's four pieces showcase tight, disciplined ensemble playing that spans the sparse, punctuated spaces of Part 1 and the spiraling, expansive curls of Part 4 with equal facility.

Classical Music

Go big or go home, they say. The ever-intrepid New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley State University (Allendale, Michigan) gets to do both. Having conquered the Big Apple with their rendition of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, and then turning to Terry Riley’s In C, performing and remixing it for their most recent innova album, they now return home to see what they can come up with on their own. Their wholesome farm-to-table freshness is apparent in this new album where three alumni wrote acoustic music for the group and then took back the recordings to play with in the studio. Return may not have had to look beyond its own back yard for materials, but this album of hybrid electronic-acoustic audio landscapes opens up a wide musical horizon- forward gazing, a big chill and sentimental, with surprises along the way. In the end it is a youthful vision of beauty unencumbered by textbook dogma. And to polish it all off, the mastering was done by Grammy winner Randy Merrill at Sterling Sound. All the music on this album was written by three former students of ensemble director and composer Bill Ryan: Daniel Rhode, Adam Cuthbert, and matt Finch. With their 15 new tracks, the ensemble has now commissioned over 60 new works since its inception in 2006.

This debut album from the John Yao Quintet signals the definitive arrival of trombonist and composer, John Yao. Demonstrating a broad textural palette and drawing from an array of stylistic influences, Yao explores the concept of opposing forces. In the Now is a musical journey beyond conventional jazz form and structure, with the ensemble winding skillfully through a wide range of moods, colors, and textures.

Classical Music

Classical Music

•This album represents a musical journey. Composer Guy Barash’s fruitful collaboration with memoirist Nick Flynn started with a meeting one evening in a Brooklyn café in 2008. His memoir delves into the Buddhist cycle of birth, life and death (Samsāra) and other themes in post-9/11 American life, and includes many water references. Wrong Ocean is a personal meditation on the fluidity of our perception, mindfulness amid a hyperactive society, and the cyclical nature of being.

With a resume that includes founding and leading a couple of major opera companies, David DiChiera can be forgiven for occasionally allowing his composing career to be overshadowed. Now, to celebrate his retirement at 82 his friends and colleagues have produced an album of his chamber works, Letters & Fantasies, that show “Dr. D” proudly wearing his composer hat. DiChiera’s story of dedication, perseverance, and talent, has become synonymous with the revival of Detroit and it is no coincidence that this album represents a grand synthesis of all that has striven for: supporting young, diverse, local talent and international stars. The album was recorded by the Berlin Phil’s engineer Caroline Siegers in the atmospheric ambience of Detroit’s Jam Handy Film Studios. DiChiera’s musical style is poignant, melodic and expressively Neo-romantic, always demonstrating his deep understanding of drama, gesture, and atmosphere. Each work contains an opera in miniature. The potent dissonances of early works contrast sharply with the stark serialism of the later works. The instrumental works exude expertly crafted dramaturgy, while recent works mark a return to the power of simplicity and direct lyricism. Taken as a whole, Letters & Fantasies is not only a lifelong missive from a warm and gifted artist but also a love letter from his friends and admirers for the community he has fostered. Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and raised in Los Angeles, California, David DiChiera received a Master’s degree in composition at UCLA with highest honors in 1956. He was then selected to be a Fulbright scholar for studies in Italy where he conducted extensive research on unpublished manuscripts of eighteenth century opera. DiChiera moved to suburban Detroit in 1962 to become a professor and ultimately chairman of music at Oakland University.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music