Deviant Resonances carries the concept of "creative listening" into new dimensions. In addition to the unconventional ways in which the everyday listener is called on to interpret the music, composer David Rosenboom literally uses the action of "listening" as an instrument. The first track, Portable Gold and Philosophers' Stones (Deviant Resonances) (2015), is an epic piece lasting over 35 minutes. Rosenboom achieves a resonant sound by analyzing electrical signals coming from the brains of two imaginative performers. A third performer calibrates a computer system to the responses of what he calls "imaginative listening." This system adapts to the brainwave activity of the first two performers and builds a symphony ranging from quiet beginnings to climaxing crescendos. The resulting sound is simultaneously relaxing and curious. The calming flow of resonance from the brainwaves creates the illusion that time is being slowed down. In this calm, however, one can't help but wonder at the revolutionary use of brain functions as music and the potentiality of the organ inside each of our heads. The ethereal droning with occasional flaring sparks and pops evokes a timeless, spaceless experience which listeners from anywhere in the world can explore. The album continues with it's experimental approach to the reverberation of space using electronics and computer algorithms in tandem with live instruments. Though only half the length of Portable Gold, compositions like The Right Measure of Opposites and Earth Encomium explore the same "nothingness" of space but offer grounding in the physical world through instruments like live piano. The album concludes with The Experiment and Four Lines (String Quartet). They are the only tracks to use voice and strings, respectively. These compositions call on attentive listeners to experience a constant volley between electronic and conventional instruments as they warp time and space, embellish the soundscape, and attempt to achieve a perfect synchrony.

This album is devoted to the sounds of southern India, and more precisely those of the Auroville forest near Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu. This field recording was made by audio naturalist Bernard Fort and documents the natural soundscapes in both day and night, respecting the chronology of the birdsongs and their length, together with the silences and contrasting dynamics. These soundscapes also feature the wind, the distant ocean and the sounds of the forest itself, often caused by the presence of little mammals both in tree branches and on the ground.

The German-French composer Mark Andre (*1964) is one of the most important representatives of New Music. His twelve "Miniatures" for string quartet were composed in 2014/17 as a commission from the Arditti Quartet, Bavarian Radio's "musica viva", the Festival d'Automne à Paris and the ProQuartet-CEMC, funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. Andre created his organ work "Himmelfahrt" (Ascension), funded by the Siemens Music Foundation, in 2018 on behalf of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The orchestral work "woher... wohin" was written between 2015 and 2017 as a composition commission by BR's "musica viva" in conjunction with the Happy New Ears prize for composition from the Hans and Gertrud Zender Foundation. The live recordings of all three works are now being released in the album edition of Bavarian Radio's "musica viva" concert series on BR-KLASSIK. The album edition of the Bavarian Radio concert series "musica viva", which began in 2000, has been continued since autumn 2020 together with BR-KLASSIK. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of "musica viva" (the concert series was founded by Karl Amadeus Hartmann in 1945), recordings with works by the contemporary composer Rebecca Saunders (*1967) and the composer Enno Poppe (*1969) appeared as first releases in October 2020. The edition is now being continued with works by Mark Andre (*1964). All the recordings feature live recordings made at "musica viva" concerts with the Bavarian Radio Chorus, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and renowned soloists.

Few performers are more familiar with the musical language of the French composer Olivier Messiaen than the American conductor Kent Nagano. Nagano has had Messiaen's orchestral works and oratorios in his program for several decades now, and he also participated in the world premiere of “Saint François d'Assise”, Messiaen's only opera. During the year 1982 Nagano spent his time with Messiaen in Paris, where not only an artistic relationship but also a close personal one developed between the two musicians.

BR-KLASSIK has now released three masterpieces by the French composer with the magical sound, presented by Kent Nagano to the Munich concert audience in recent years as conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks: the oratorio “La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ" (The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ) for chorus, seven solo instruments and orchestra, the song cycle "Poèmes pour Mi" for soprano and orchestra, as well as "Chronochromie" for large orchestra. These three live recordings document outstanding artistic events from the Munich concert program of June 2017, July 2018 and February 2019.

Exploring the haunting beauty of one of the Earth’s most exquisitely majestic landscapes, “Hidden Soul Of The Fjords” is a musical journey, an ‘Elemental-Sonic Soundscape’ artfully expressing the primal origins, mythic mysteries and life and death realities of the stark and stunning Fjords of Western Norway. Co-created by Norwegian Singer/Composer Heidi Torsvik and Grammy Nominated American Producer/Composer Lazerus Winter, the new double album includes performances from renown soloists: Karl Seglem (tenor sax and Bukkehorn), Stein Urheim (electric guitar), Benedicte Maurseth (Hardanger Fiddle), Alexander Grieg (Contrabass), David Chelsom Vogt (Violin) and drummer Ivar Thormodsæter. “Hidden Soul of the Fjords” is the first in a new “Hidden Soul Series” for Naxos International Records new subsidiary label NXN. Initially composed in an old wooden home on the edge of the fjord waters and including multiple field recordings and found sounds from travels throughout the region, “Hidden Soul Of The Fjords” album production touches the heart, mind and Soul with a unique musical vision that that might remind the listener of such diverse musical references as Arvo Part and Massive Attack. “Hidden Soul of the Fjords” seeks to bring the magic of one of the Earth’s greatest natural eco-systems to the all who listen in a one-of-a-kind ‘Elemental-Sonic Soundscape."

The singers in a rainforest are like a group of musicians hidden in their orchestra pit. You can hear a great many birds in French Guiana, but actually see only a few. The trees are so tall and the vegetation is so lush that these birds remain hidden in the leaves or high up in the forest canopy. Generally speaking, only their voices lead you to suspect they exist. Birdsong is also a means of determining their species, even for neophytes. And where some nocturnal birds are concerned, it is the only means, because in daytime they are invisible. Pierre Huguet made these magnificent recordings - on trails outside Sa�l, along the Itany tributaries of the Maroni river upstream from Ant�cume- Pata, and in the zones between Cayenne and Saint-Georges that are inhabited or under cultivation - with the assistance of the Wayana canoeists, Olivier Claessens and his scientific expertise in identifying the birds, and the Groupe d'Etudes et de Protection des Oiseaux en Guyane.

Poppe’s composition Fett for orchestra dates from 2018/19 and was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and its artistic director Gustavo Dudamel, and "musica viva". Enno Poppe is one of the most important younger representatives of New Music. His composition I cannot remember anything for chorus, organ and orchestra, based on words by Marcel Beyer, was written between 2005 and 2015 as a commission for Bayerischer Rundfunk’s "musica viva". The first performance in Germany was recorded on May 8, 2015 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz. The album edition of the “musica viva” series, founded in June 2000 to document the concert series that has existed since 1945, contains selected live recordings of “musica viva” concerts. An integral part of the edition is made up of concerts by the ensembles of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, guest recordings by international orchestras and ensembles, and also historical recordings. With two or three new releases per year, the main focus of the edition -which sees itself primarily as a series for composers –is mainly on portrait albums.

The portrait of the British composer Rebecca Saunders, who lives in Germany, begins with her 2011 two-part violin concerto Still written in 2011. It was premiered at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn (with Carolin Widmann as soloist). The chamber music composition Aether for two bass clarinets was composed in 2015/16; and Albacame from a composition commission in 2014 by Bayerischer Rundfunk’s "musica viva" and BBC Radio 3 for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The album edition of the “musica viva” series, founded in June 2000 to document the concert series that has existed since 1945, contains selected live recordings of “musica viva” concerts. An integral part of the edition is made up of concerts by the ensembles of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, guest recordings by international orchestras and ensembles, and also historical recordings. With two or three new releases per year, the main focus of the edition -which sees itself primarily as a series for composers –is mainly on portrait albums.

This album, composed by Majid Derakhshani and sung by Zohreh Jooya, is based on poems of the Persian mystics Mowlana Rumi, Hafiz and Saadi. It is a blend of classical Persian music with the colors and sounds of today; an unconventional combination of Oriental and European instruments. It represents a new musical direction: evocative and contemplative melodies, a fusion of oriental and occidental rhythms and sounds which envelop the soul with a gentle, velvety caress. Traditional rhythms and sounds with contemporary aesthetics. It is the belief and the truth in these poems which connects the soul with God. The realization of a new world evolves from the reading of these verses. Realism and mysticism are part of a whole, in which the profane and the holy, human and Divine love, senses and spirit become one. Majid Derakhshani was born in Iran into an artistic family. He studied string instruments and composition at the University of Teheran. After moving to Germany he founded the Nova music school in Cologne. He has given many highly-respected performances at international festivals and at radio stations all over the world. Today he is considered one of the best tar players in Iran.

“This recording project was captured mere days before the semester was abruptly altered. This recording would not have happened if it were scheduled three days later! That thought is sobering and makes me cherish even more this compilation. History is teeming with inspiring stories where, in the midst of a tragedy, humanity has risen to levels of heroism that are simply beyond our day-to-day imagination. This phenomenon is in full effect as I write during this two-headed pandemic: COVID19 + racial tensions. These two viruses are literally killing humanity. Both are crippling. Although lingering emotions of fear, uncertainty, and anguish are constant, compassion is on full display during these times of hardship. How moving it is to see tributes being paid to medical workers who are facing this silent killer head on! It brought tears to my eyes to see a community in Italy curating their own concert as they stood in windows and doorways playing instruments and singing. Seeing persons of all varying ethnic backgrounds in the streets protesting for racial equality is a beautiful thing. Music is a reflection of society. For some listeners, it can be a sobering reminder of calamity. In contrast, some people find consolation in music and feed their being with its rhythm and beat. Whenever they feel despondent, they can plug into music to help alleviate their sorrow. If you are reading this, you are a key conduit in making sure this art form reaches the masses. Because music consolidates humanity, it is cause for optimism. Through our programming we can bring hope to so many in need. You, our audience, should be provoked, challenged, and leave with optimism—the type of optimism that Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King possessed. We, the Aeolians, are no longer satisfied with solely displaying musical prowess. Coupling hope with mastery could be the combination that produces uncompromising societal transformation. We have programmed this music hoping to appeal to the mind, but not leaving the heart untouched.” (Jason Max Ferdinand)

Paul Livingstone and Peter Jacobson offer soulful musical meditations on beauty and tranquility; helping the listener or yoga practitioner balance his or her inner world. Pete and Paul take inspiration from the Hindustani musical tradition and from Paul’s teacher and mentor Ravi Shankar who collaborated so eloquently with Yehudi Menuhin on violin and helped to popularize Hindustani music in the West. Pete and Paul also draw inspiration from American jazz improvisation. You may have heard Paul before on his several classical Hindustani or “ragajazz” crossover recordings, and Yarlung’s Sangam release in 2022.

Pete is a cello rock star, whom you may know from his tours and recordings with Rhye, Dr. Dre, Kamasi Washington and the West Coast Get Down, The Talking Strings, Quartetto Fantastico and Aux Cerna. You may also know him from film and television, including in The Walking Dead, Motherland and The Twighlight Zone. Paul and Pete have performed on GRAMMY-winning records by Ricky Kej, Ozomatli and Quetzal. Taos evokes magic, mystery, art, multiculturalism and majesty.

Home to the Tiwa-speaking Red Willow people of Taos Pueblo for more than a thousand years, Taos is also home to Spanish settlers from 1600, who founded the Spanish village of Taos in 1795. Taos offers breathtaking scenery, refreshing air and light and the magnificent smells of adobe earth, pinion and sagebrush. The area inspired some of the 20th Century’s most creative artists, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams and D.H. Lawrence. The native Red Willow people, the Tiwa Indians in Taos, practice a hybrid religion today, incorporating the conflicting tenants of their native religion with Roman Catholicism superimposed by the Spanish padres over hundreds of years. If one asks a devout Tiwa friend about the conflicts, he or she may shrug and may comment that one can follow both truths.

This ability for people in Taos to incorporate disparate theologies and world views will help us understand the multiple spiritual inspirations for the music on this recording. –Bob Attiyeh, producer

“Marcus Aurelius, warrior emperor, philosopher and poet during the Second Century AD, reminds us that people with enormous power do not always fall victim to their own vanity. Total power may usually corrupt totally, but not always. I find this heartening, especially in 2022 during another time of war, where titanic egos guiding powerful militaries battle each other with real life consequences for ordinary people and elites alike. Aurelius was indeed a bloodily victorious commander of Roman legions, defeating numerous enemies on the battle field during his reign. But the emperor continued his introspective journey throughout most of his life, honing his “inner world,” to use a modern phrase, as he tried to maintain a balance between being the most powerful person on the planet and a man answerable to his own conscience and higher philosophy.

"Brussels-based classical, jazz, funk and new-age composer Koben Sprengers notes that Aurelius’ “Meditations,” as they are popularly known, were written not for publication but “for himself, as a sort of diary or personal notebook; to frequently remind himself of the important lessons and wisdom he had learned from the ancient philosophers. Since his writings were aimed at himself, I found that these paragraphs had a very intimate, familiar voice to them. Like a grandfather patiently explaining something to his overly curious grandchild, almost soothing….” I hope Marcus Aurelius’ stable intelligent voice and vision, as portrayed in his own words and through music composed by the young firebrand Koben Sprengers, gives you solace and inspiration during this remarkable and troubling period of history.” (Bob Attiyeh, producer)

SVIN has been at the forefront of progressive Danish music for a decade, as both a lauded pioneer and a well-guarded secret. The ten movements of ELEGI build from a base of reflective melancholy to one of high energy, combining the ambient drones familiar from some of SVIN’s previous albums with junkyard percussion, ritualistic fervor, and a sure sense of Zen. It is composed music with the impulses of a tight, reactive improvisation and with a vast range of timbres and textures, acoustic and electronic.

This recording includes a five-movement work by Michael John Trotta along with three a cappella traditional works. Intimations of Immortality is based on Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. In these poems, Wordsworth presents a fully developed, yet morally flexible, picture of the relationship between human beings and the natural world. The work was dedicated to the Mississippi State University State Singers for the opening of the new Music Building. However, because of the global pandemic, COVID-19, the debut performance has been on hold, until now.

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.

The double album “Spheres of Resonance” contains central works from Ludger Brümmer's compositional oeuvre. In these, Ludger Brümmer not only explores new timbres or new musical architectures, but also attempts to resolve the ontological discontinuity between macro- and microstructure inherent in traditional musical writing. Central to Ludger Brümmer's compositional concept are the methods of granular synthesis and physical modeling all controlled by custom-made algorithms. The pieces “Gesualdo”, “Carlo”, “Glass Harp” and “Falling” on this album were created with the help of granular synthesis. This method can be described as an image that is cut into small particles and reassembled. The sonic results of such an operation can certainly be compared to the painting of the pointillists. For the works “Cellularium”, “Spheres of Resonance”, “Lizard Point” and “Gestalt” the simulation software GENESIS was used. This is a method by means of which the material and vibration properties of real objects can be imitated extremely realistically and the slowed down course of the vibration can be viewed in detail.

Ludger Brümmer uses these means to create a dramatic world of sound in which the sound structure plays a major, almost expressive role. In many works the interaction with historical material is central – an attempt to build a new language on old foundations, with sometimes astonishing results. The album “Ludger Brümmer: Spheres of Resonance”, published by WERGO within the Edition ZKM, is a result of the project EASTN-DC and funded by the program “Creative Europe”. The second double album “Ludger Brümmer: Sonic Patterns” will be released by WERGO at the end of 2022.

Born in Prague in 1979, the composer, conductor and chorus master Ondrej Adámek, who studied in his Czech hometown and in Paris, has already won numerous prestigious awards for his orchestral, chamber, vocal and electro-acoustic music. In his musical language, which also repeatedly incorporates elements of distant cultures, he creates unusual musical narratives. He seeks the authenticity of his interpretations by combining voices and movements, gestures and theatricality, phonetic and semantic aspects, and his own specially developed musical instruments. The premieres of Ondrej Adámek's "Where are You?" and "Follow me" were distinctive for their excellent casts, featuring stars such as Magdalena Kožená, Isabelle Faust and Simon Rattle. In Adámek’s "Follow me", a three-movement concerto for violin and orchestra, the melodies are divided between the soloist and the orchestra along the lines of the late medieval hocket technique, whereby the composer seeks to connect a single individual with a (human) crowd. The first performance of Adámek’s "Where are You?" for mezzo-soprano and orchestra was an outstanding event in Munich's concert programme this year. In the eleven-part, approximately 35-minute-long kaleidoscope of sound, dominated by constant motoric movement – ranging from everyday sounds such as the monotonous ticking of a clock to the sweeping, electrifyingly rhythmic pounding of the orchestra tutti – the composer embarks on a search for the human ("Where do we come from and where are we going?") and the divine.

Review

This is music that grabs the listener by the ears and doesn’t let go. I found it completely exhilarating.

Nothing about either score included on this recording is remotely derivative or even predictable. If I were to say that it is as if Adámek had smashed up all previous music into tiny pieces and then reconstructed them into something marvellous and new, that might give the impression that he is some kind of arch post modernist. He is nothing of the sort. Almost miraculously he manages to be both uncompromisingly modernist and yet intensely communicative. Try his setting of what, in effect amounts to St Theresa’s ecstatic, religious orgasm in the seventh song of Where Are You? and what you’ll get is music that verges on the demented but which manages to be deeply spiritual and very sexy! Both scores are full of such wild, rude, exultant moments.

Follow Me is simultaneously a violin concerto and someone having a lot of fun with what a violin concerto might mean. I am not aware of another concerto that concludes with what amounts to a musical lynching of the soloist by the orchestra. One of the characteristics of Adámek’s writing is his absolute command of even the most outré material. Every note delivers an aural punch. He is of course capable of writing music of great delicacy, as in the concerto’s Bach derived slow movement but even here every note makes its point.

The opening movement features orchestral soloists echoing the opening phrases by the solo violin (the ‘follow me’ of the work’s title), phrases the composer explains in his joyous, quixotic note that were inspired by the exaggerated vibrato of a singer in Japanese Noh theatre. The orchestra, in a sense, gathers round the soloist, repeating her phrases. Isabelle Faust is at her imperious best here. This then subsides into silence before the soloist starts again with more seductive phrases. As Adámek puts it, these phrases provoke the orchestra “eventually driving them mad”. This builds and builds as the various motifs combine and recombine. The tension generated by the gradually gathering of tempo and volume is quite ferocious before Adámek pulls the rug from under the expected eruption and the movement ends with weird whistlings and scrapings out of which the slow movement evolves. A great strength of Adámek’s music is to unsettle the listener whilst keeping them on the edge of their seat.

One of the unifying techniques across all three movements of this concerto is what Adámek likens to a kind of musical ping pong where melodies are split, in alternate notes, between soloist and members of the orchestra. This effect plus an extreme elongation of material taken from Bach is most noticeable in this slow movement. It is a strange and mysterious movement that subsides into the uneasy calm from it emerged.

On a purely technical level, the finale combines all the elements of the previous two movements but that scarcely does justice to the effect it has on the listener. The shadowing of the soloist which gives the work its title is allowed finally to work its way from a hushed, fugitive opening all the way to the mighty climax that the opening movement was robbed of. As in that movement, the following of the soloist by the orchestra becomes more combative- a wry nod I think to the lion taming tradition of the 19^th century virtuoso concerto – and the music, dominated by a rogue trombone, constantly threatens to swamp the soloist whose final phrases are delivered off stage before a final thrilling orchestral stampede rounds things off. Is that a tongue in cheek reference to the final sacrificial dance of the Rite of Spring I hear in this final passage? What this description may not capture is that this is all immensely diverting and colossal fun. The world of Adámek’s music may be capable of great seriousness but it never takes itself too seriously.

Follow Me is, in many ways, the curtain raiser for the even more remarkable Where Are You? My earlier comments have probably already given some indication of what it is like. Written for mezzo soprano and orchestra, it is a song cycle on spiritual themes with texts from the Bible, the Gita and the autobiography of St Theresa. None of this is handled in a conventional manner. The opening section revels in the vowel sounds of the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic. A later movement sets possible Czech translations of those Aramaic words. It’s that sort of piece! The theme that unites these disparate elements is the way in which the spiritual quest for the divine however how high it can raise us comes down to earth with the question ‘Where are you?’ left unanswered. It has to be said that the piece celebrates the quest as much as it illustrates its ultimate failure and it does so with affection and good humour as well as profundity and anguish.

The vocalist is required to adopt a huge range of singing styles from breaths and rolled r’s to folk singing to outrageous coloratura. As in most of his other scores that I’ve heard, Adámek can find music in almost anything and make no mistake – this is a musical event above all else. The composer isn’t advancing some obscure musicological idea but making maddening, frenzied, bewildering, exuberant music. Ultimately, like the spiritual quest it describes, words fail to do justice to this piece. You are just going to have to listen to it.

--MusicWeb International (David McDade)