Composer Matt McBane and the renowned Sandbox Percussion ensemble team up on Bathymetry — a 40-minute piece in eight movements scored for monophonic Moog analog synthesizer and percussion. Drawing on classical minimalism, electronic production, ASMR Youtube aesthetics and the diverse palette of ambient modular synth music, Bathymetry features McBane’s Moog synth with Sandbox Percussion performing on a veritable playground of found instruments (mixing bowls, ping pong balls, glass bottles, etc.), orchestral percussion (vibraphone, tam tam, etc.), and drum sets.

Composer Matt McBane and the renowned Sandbox Percussion ensemble team up on Bathymetry — a 40-minute piece in eight movements scored for monophonic Moog analog synthesizer and percussion. Drawing on classical minimalism, electronic production, ASMR Youtube aesthetics and the diverse palette of ambient modular synth music, Bathymetry features McBane’s Moog synth with Sandbox Percussion performing on a veritable playground of found instruments (mixing bowls, ping pong balls, glass bottles, etc.), orchestral percussion (vibraphone, tam tam, etc.), and drum sets.

When composer Philip Glass started work on his solo Piano Etudes back in 1991, his goal was “to explore a variety of tempi, textures, and piano techniques,” but also, as he mentioned in a 2012 interview, to become “a better player.” Ever since, the Etudes have occupied a place of unrivaled prominence in modern music as a proving ground for up-and-coming, and established, classical pianists to test their mettle. It seems only fitting, then, that Vicky Chow should take up the challenge. For more than a decade, she has exerted her star presence with her standout work as part of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, while also teaming up with such composers as Michael Gordon, Tristan Perich, Jane Antonia Cornish and more to release a series of compelling, and at times even physically demanding, solo performances. She has also shared stages with Glass himself — experiences that have given her a more immediate and personal grasp of the composer's original intention.

Acclaimed by the New York Times as "an alluring, mystical new work" when it premiered outdoors at the city's Lincoln Center in July 2014, John Luther Adams' Sila: the Breath of the World is so carefully orchestrated that the recording itself pushes the limits of how to capture multiple ensembles of musicians in one setting. Thanks to modern technology and the magic of multi-tracking (with producers Doug Perkins and Nathaniel Reichman at the controls), Sila maintains the composer's vision as a grand invitation to the listener "to stop and listen more deeply." Put simply, like Inuksuit (2009), widely known as Adams' large ensemble piece for percussion, no two performances of Sila are ever the same, due in part to the freedom that is given to the musicians, each of whom plays or sings a unique part at his or her own pace. But on a macro level, Sila can also be described as an intelligent entity all its own — a living, breathing organism that takes on the collective intent of its performers, and its composer, to transcend the forces of nature and become, in a sense, a "breath of the world."

Includes work(s) by Evan Ziporyn. Ensemble: Boston Modern Orchestra Project. Conductor: Gil Rose. Soloists: Anne Harley, Evan Ziporyn.

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

"Inspired by her love of Appalachia, Julia Wolfe based her text for Steel Hammer on over 200 versions of the “John Henry” ballad. Steel Hammer features the alternately haunting and playful vocalizations of Norway’s renowned Trio Mediaeval, and stretches the standard instrumentation of the Bang on a Can All-Stars with wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo, clapping, clogging and more. “...a musical archaeology of a familiar tale ― one that preserves, even enlarges, its central mystery.” - Alex Ross"

"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."

-- WQXR.com

Tracklist:
1. Treasure
2. Water
3. Needles
4. Cross
5. Shard
6. Swamp
7. Aluminum
8. Flame

No one inhabits a Steinway quite like Australian pianist Lisa Moore, which is probably why so many modern composers have invited her to interpret their music. Known for her “beautiful and impassioned” approach, as The New York Times described one of her performances, Moore brings a fully charged sense of rhythm, mysticism and adventure to The Stone People, her first full-length recording for Cantaloupe Music. It follows in the footsteps of Moore’s three-part series of acclaimed EPs for the label: Seven (2009), Lightning Slingers and Dead Ringers (2011) and Stainless Staining (2012).

As Pulitzer-winning composer and Bang on a Can cofounder David Lang reveals in the album’s liner notes, the project takes its name from the opening piece by another Pultizer winner, John Luther Adams. “John’s music is ruggedly elemental,” Lang writes, “using very restrained materials as a way of probing some of our most fundamental human truths. Who we are. Where we are. How we relate to each other. How we relate to the natural world. His pieces are stark explorations of humankind in its most elemental state, and this CD brings together, for the first time, his complete acoustic music for solo piano.”

Among other firsts, the disc includes two works for piano by Julia Wolfe (2015’s Pulitzer winner), as well as newly recorded pieces by Martin Bresnick, Missy Mazzoli and Kate Moore. By turns meditative, mysterious, tumultuous and tender, The Stone People presents Lisa Moore at the height of her transformative powers.

The first woman to record Frederic Rzewski's setting of Oscar Wilde's 'De Profundis', Bang on a Can/Steve Reich pianist Lisa Moore sheds powerful new light on Wilde's jailhouse meditation on imprisonment, debasement and the barriers that he faced as a homosexual. Rzewski, one of the great revolutionary American composers, has created an aggressively emotional soundtrack to Wilde's moving prose. 'De Profundis' breaks down the boundaries between a piano recital and a theatrical expierence. Written for a virtuosic pianist who also sings, shouts, and declaims, Rzewski's masterpiece is given a gripping re-interpretation by the fiery Moore, who brings a new character to the work through her passionate piano performance and compelling voice. With 'Which Side Are You On?' Moore brings together two of Rzewski's major piano/voice works on one CD for the first time as 'De Profundis' is paired with 'North American Ballads'.

The second, and perhaps more meditative, installment in the Bang on Can All-Stars' acclaimed commissioned composer series, More Field Recordings once again maps a strange new terrain where found sound, samples and archival audio collide with contemporary classical music, written by a wide range of artists and performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars. In keeping with the "ground rules" of the Field Recordings project, each composer was asked to go into the field of recorded sound itself — to find something old or record something new, and to respond with their own music, in dialogue with what they found. Featuring new works by Richard Reed Parry (Arcade Fire), Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Dan Deacon, Ben Frost and more, this two-disc set embraces the classical and electronic influences of the first Field Recordings collection (released on Cantaloupe in 2015) and extends its reach into futuristic worlds of ambient and ethereal sound. Special package exquisitely designed by artist Russell Mills, known for his work with Nine Inch Nails.

Kate Moore is an Australian composer who writes contemporary music for a varying range of ensembles, including The Amsterdam Cello Octet, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, The New European Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Slagwerk Den Haag, The Bang on a Can All-Stars, and more. This new release is Moore’s debut album for Cantaloupe Music. This album is what Moore has called a shared collaborative experience. Moore said of working with cellist Ashley Bathgate, “Being at a similar place in our lives really added to [the collaborative experience]. It meant that we could immediately see where the other was coming from. We’re both rebels from an intense background playing the cello, and we both wanted to break out, with the aim to create something new that we could call our own.” Ashley Bathgate performs with the Bang on a Can All-Stars. This is her debut solo recording.

Since 1999, So Percussion has been creating music that explores all the extremes of emotion and musical possibility. It has not been an easy music to define. Called an “experimental powerhouse” by the Village Voice, “astonishing and entrancing” by Billboard Magazine, and “brilliant” by the New York Times, the Brooklyn based quartet’s innovative work with today’s most exciting composers and their own original music has quickly helped them forge a unique and diverse career.

Threads, written for So Percussion in 2005, is a half-hour long “cantata” for percussion quartet in ten short movements. There are three “threads” that are interwoven in the piece: Arias and Preludes that focus on the metallic pitched sounds of vibraphones, glockenspiel and pipes; Choruses in which drumming predominates; and Recitatives made largely from Cage-like noise instruments, bottles, flower pots, crotales, etc. The aim of the different threads is to highlight the wide range of qualities that percussion instruments are capable of, from lyrical and tender to forceful and aggressive, and weave them into one continuous “thread”.

-- Paul Lansky

Classical Music