Classical Music

Classical Music

American Canvas is a tour de force of flute cello and piano trio repertoire featuring the premiere recordings of four powerful works by some of today’s most celebrated American composers. Pulitzer Prize winners Jennifer Higdon and Shulamit Ran, Andrea Clearfield, and Zhou Tian embrace a variety of sources from visual art, literature, and nature, telling musical stories in a pyrotechnic display of color and brushwork, an eerie nocturne on a lake, a vivid intoxication by the moon, a thrill ride in medieval Spain. The acclaimed Dolce Suono Trio conveys the diverse sonic landscapes, nuanced timbres, and emotional experiences with inimitable virtuosity and passion. Dolce Suono Trio, “one of the most dynamic groups in the US” (The Huffington Post), includes flutist Mimi Stillman, cellist Nathan Vickery, and pianost Charles Ambramovic. Soprano Lucy Shelton and cellists Gabriel Cabezas and Alexis Pia Gerlach complete the album. The trio has enthralled audiences with its programs spanning Haydn trios to its own commissions at prestigious venues including the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Smithsonian American Art Museum, New York’s Symphony Space, Brooklyn’s Roulette, and Cornell University.

Here I Stand is the confident debut album of iSing Silicon Valley, the international-award-winning girls’ choir based in Silicon Valley, California. Here I Stand celebrates iSing’s focus on the power of girls to change the world as they raise their 200+ voices in remembrance, in strength, and in the pure, shared delight of coming together to sing. The album opens with a transcendent performance of the treble-voice version of ?riks Ešenvalds’ soaring, dreamlike work for solo voice and chorus, Only in Sleep. The pro-gram includes some of the stunning works commissioned by iSing during its first six seasons, with themes ranging from social justice, to individual growth and collective power. Among these: Never Shall I Forget, Adam Schoenberg’s haunting setting for treble voices, string quartet and percussion of excerpts from Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir Night; Daniel Elder’s arrangements for iSing of his powerful commentary on gun violence, 365, and of In Your Light, his musical setting one of Rumi’s most ecstatic poems. Given first life on the concert stage and on this recording by iSing’s bright young singers, these commissions and commissioned arrangements make exciting, relevant additions to the repertoire for treble voices, here given definitive, top-notch renditions. The album artwork also includes original illustrations by a young choir alumna; together the package puts girls’ inspiring talents center stage in heartwarming fashion. Listeners, prepare to be moved by the breadth of performance of iSing girls: The musical finesse and the stunning vocal blend of iSing’s elite choirs; the clarity of expression of the soloists; and — on the later tracks of the album — the lovely ensemble sound of younger iSing girls ranging in age from 7 to 12.

This varied anthology of contemporary pieces is a typical Innova product - tangy, oxygen rich and kaleidoscopic.

Saxophonist Timothy McAllister has put together this chamber collection in collaboration with fellow musicians.

The flickering and tapping mechnical action of McAllister's instrument is something you must acclimatise yourself to. It's part of the music. It in fact seems to have been notated into the start of the third movement of the Wanamaker scherzo in the Duo Sonata.

Caleb Burhans's solo alto sax Escape Wisconsin is Reich-like in its minimalist iterative cell repetition. It began life as a piece for two vibraphones.

Kristin Kuster's Jellyfish is for sax and Lucia Unrau's piano. In three quirkily titled sections (Medusa; Blob; Thimbles) but one track. This piece is dissonant, variously hectic and deeply and darkly dreamy.

Kati Agocs' As Biddeth Thy Tongue returns us to the solo sax. Agocs' rhapsodic dissonant, harsh and sometimes horrifying progress takes us flutteringly through fear.

Duo Sonata for sax and, its brother, the clarinet (Robert Spring) is by Gregory Wanamaker. The two instruments are Icarus twins. They fill in each others notes, fly in aerobatic formation, encourage contemplation and indulge in jazz-jamming and minimalist caprice in the Blues finale.

The symphonist Daniel Asia is for me the only big name in this group. His The Alex Set for solo sax is the second oldest piece here. Of the five movements three entitled Alex I etc are interspersed with two entitled Interlude I etc. The music is angular and rhapsodic with a dusting of minimalist manners among the Orientalisms.

GLINT by Roshanne Etezady is for clarinet and sax again. It's a vertiginous and possessed flight into an everglades of bumping and groaning noises. Then follows an ascent succeeded by helter-skelter diving and rocketing upwards.

Philippe Hurel's OPCIT (1984) is for solo sax. It is the most dissonant piece here: rippling, groaning and writhing across its four extended sections seemingly with every avant-garde effect deployed.

Lastly we have Peter Terry's RISE for sax and Lucia Unrau’s synthesised piano. The piece has a nervy and jazzy stride, a touch of pianola torque, the occasional infusion of 1920s expressionism and grand guignol.

Good liner notes. Sensible design. Will suit the broad-minded sax repertoire enthusiast.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Seven Kings is the newest release from the Meridian Arts Ensemble. The group, which was founded in 1987, consists of a traditional brass quintet plus percussion. Music on this release is from composers David Sanford, Edward Jacobs, Robert Maggio, Dave Ballou, and the ensemble’s horn player, Daniel Grabois. All of these pieces were composed in the last twenty years. The Meridian Arts Ensemble is known for its versatility, performing music from the Renaissance until now. They have won numerous competitions in the last two decades, including the Concert Artists Guild Competition.

Classical Music

Bookended by two works of Lou Harrison, Karen Gottlieb's Music for Harp is a tribute to four mid-20th c. San Francisco Bay area new music composers: John Cage, Wayne Peterson, Dan Reiter and Mr. Harrison. Both individually and as a group, the compositions reflect elements from the cultures of Southeast Asia, India, "The Silk Road", and Europe. Ms. Gottlieb has performed with the SF Symphony for more than two decades as second harpist. In addition, Ms. Gottlieb is Principal Harpist for The SF Contemporary Music Players and performs regularly with other Northern California new music groups.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Matteo Liberatore is a boundary-pushing guitarist and composer from Italy, living in Brooklyn, NY. His avant-garde style explores the crossroads of free improvisation, contemporary classical music and noise using guitar and electronics. Matteo studied classical guitar under Maestro Marco Salcito at Conservatorio di Foggia and philosophy at University of L'Aquila. As part of a duo releasing records and performing in Italy, he won competitions such as Concorso Nazionale di musica “B.Barattelli” in Popoli (PE), (2005), Concorso Nazionale di Musica Capitanata in Apricena (FG) (2005), and Teramo International Chamber Music Competition (2005). Matteo's current solo project draws from his early experience of life in America - the rawness of a world where incredible art and expression flourish alongside money market-driven politics and where tense capitalistic ambition reigns supreme. Matteo’s sound and performance is abstract... deconstructing sound, expectations and beauty in form.

Classical Music

Cellist Maya Beiser's latest, Uncovered, is an album of classic rock tunes re-imagined and re-contextualized in stunning and multi-layered performances. Consisting almost entirely of Beiser's multi-tracked cello with drums and bass added by collaborators Glenn Kotche (Wilco) and Jherek Bischoff, these uncovers - in new arrangements by Evan Ziporyn - breathe new life into works by Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Janis Joplin, Howlin' Wolf, King Crimson, Muddy Waters and AC/DC.

Trailblazing a path for the carillon in the 21st Century, Tiffany Ng commands towers of bells that ring across great distances. On Dark Matters, Ng masterfully helms the carillon works of composer Stephen Rush. These works and Ng’s playing possess a kind of magical cacophony that is in equal parts powerful, intimate, and entrancing. Since Stephen Rush’s debut carillon work Three Etudes reshaped the soundscape of carillon composition in 1987, he has steadily fashioned new campanological sounds in partnership with trailblazing carillonists like Margo Halsted and Neil Thornock. When Halsted premiered Six Treatments for Carillon in 2002, they launched a tradition of carillon with live electronics at the University of Michigan that flourishes to this day. In 2013, Dark Matters invited Rush to attend to time, space, and chance on a vast scale. Through the visceral experience of music, movement, and space, this piece leads into the unknown, questioning the origin of life, coincidence and inevitability, macro and micro, the stars and the elements, the instant and the eternal. As an oeuvre, Rush’s carillon music is singular in style, compelling in its driving rhythmic effects, and pushes the technical boundaries of the instrument while remaining idiomatically true to it. Ng recorded this album in collaboration with Rush, Jason Corey, Roger Arnett, Jessica Glynn, and Matias Vilaplana. A “virtuoso” (HKSNA) in command of a range of expression from “eerie sonance” (Diapason) to “jumpy athleticism” (Chicago Classical Review), Tiffany K. Ng, Ph.D., is assistant professor of music and university carillonist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Classical Music

With Mantra Revealed, the Marc Rossi group continues the work he began on Hidden Mandala: bearing the standard for pan-Indian jazz fusion into the present tense and beyond. The album’s rich panoply of colors and textures comes from the interplay of Rossi’s own distinctive compositions and the players’ absorbing improvisational skills. It’s become commonplace to refer to an album as a “journey” these days, but few navigate a path as wide-ranging, engaging and multi-hued as Mantra Revealed.

Three original works by contemporary American composers, Andrea Clearfield, Jennifer Higdon and James Primosch, all based in Philadelphia, are featured on the new CD recording of performances by Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. All three works were commissioned by Mendelssohn Club and premiered in concert with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia over the past five years.

Under the dynamic leadership of artistic director Alan Harler, Mendelssohn Club has demonstrated a major commitment to new music, commissioning nearly fifty choral works over the past two decades. METAMORPHOSIS is the first recording of all original commissions in the 138-year history of the chorus.

One of the most prominent American composers today, best known for his orchestral works (including "Aftertones of Infinity," - 1979 Pulitzer Prize), Joseph Schwantner has long shown a special affinity for the flute. On Looking Back, flutist Jennie Oh Brown embraces Schwantner's progressive, colorful musical language while directly quoting and acknowledging music of his past. The four pieces on this album were written over a span of three decades. Jennie Oh Brown is Artistic Director and Flutist with Picosa, a chamber ensemble for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and resident composer.

The “King of Instruments,” the pipe organ, has a long and storied history. Its long association with the church has been a source of strength but also, in recent times, led to its seeming neglect by contemporary concert composers. Organon Novus is a monumental effort to bring together this hidden slice of American music. Clocking in at over three hours of music, and running the gamut from Adler to Zorn, it includes 25 works from the past 25 years by 25 celebrated composers – composers not often associated with their organ oeuvre. With 8,565 pipes in 132 ranks available to them, the 1928 E.M. Skinner symphonic organ in Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago is no modest resource for a composer’s imagination (not to mention a player’s active limbs). Randall Harlow, in this marathon tour de force, reaches them all. Compositional approaches range from the sonic tapestries of Thomas and Zorn, to the linear complexity of Adler and Mamlok; from the full-bodied symphonic approaches of Ran and Tower, to the eclectic and unique voices of Lang, Johnson, Lucier and Wolff. The album concludes with the premiere of Aaron Travers’ monumental Barlow Prize work, Exodus. Exploring the extremes of what is possible on the organ, the work offers a way forward for the instrument in contemporary art music, an exit from the common modern associations of the organ with churches and staid liturgical Gebrauchsmusik. Organon, “the device”: the original Greek word for the pipe organ from the third century BCE. Novus, “the new.” From its beginnings as a noise maker to its apotheosis as a contrapuntal keyboard-controlled orchestra, all coupled with the acoustic and architecture of its location, the organ can be many things. This musical snapshot is both a chronicle and a revelation.

Classical Music

2014 vinyl LP pressing release from experimental classical composer/producer. He is 'praised as "heady", possessing "elements of post-Minimalism, avant-garde rock, jazz and global-fusion styles that mingle and merge with dreamlike mutability"- New York Times.

Moran was commissioned by Trinity Wall Street (the 'Ground Zero' church) to write a Requiem for their youth chorus to commemorate the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001. The result is a heartfelt and heavenly work for angelic voices with organ, harps and cellos. It's simplicity and direct appeal rival that of Faure himself and it is sure to become a standard repertory work. While many of the singers were barely born at the time of the attacks in New York, the composer found inspiration in the all-too common grief found in war zones around the world (such as Kosovo and London) when children suddenly lose their families to violence. Listeners will note the synchronicity recorded on tape during the Offertory; a siren passed by during the best vocal take and could not be edited out. It becomes a touching reminder of the context of this work and the personal authenticity of these fine musicians.

For more than 16 years, Quey [“Kway”] Percussion Duo (QPD) has dazzled audiences worldwide with their unmistakable style that blends traditions of Western percussion, “world,” contemporary, classical, and popular music to create colorful sound worlds that often place focus on interlocking counterpoint and musical multi-tasking. In other words, breathtaking and virtuosic.This recording is a small selection of the many works written for the duo over the past 16 years, which have been created through three large com-mission contests and by working directly with composers. Two of the titles represented on the recording are winning compositions from the group’s composition contests in 2005 (In the History of Man) and 2012 (Rhapsody for Vibraphone and Marimba). In addition, many works composed by duo member Gene Koshinski were written specifically for QPD, two of which are represented here on this album. The most prominent composition is the double percussion concerto entitled, soniChroma, recorded here with full orchestra. As the title suggests, soniChroma (meaning “sound color”), is focused on creating unique sonic and instrumental combinations. This can be seen throughout the orches-tra, but prominently in the large percussion solo setup which contains over 80 instruments, including skins, metals, woods, strings (guitars), non-Western instruments, and found objects. The solo parts reflect the diverse performance demands of the 21st Century percussionist, ranging from classical percussionists, drum set players, keyboard soloists, contemporary multi-percussionists, and world music performers. Comprised of members Gene Koshinski and Tim Broscious, Duluth-based QPD has performed in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Jordan, the UK, and extensively throughout the US. They have worked with music festivals, art galleries, chamber music series’, conventions (including 4 PASIC appearances), professional orchestras, and have engaged in more than 50 university residencies worldwide. They also can be heard in the score of the award winning short film The Passage, which was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018.