The Prom on August 26 was presented by The BBC Scottish Symphony conducted by Ilan Volkov. It included, along with Ah! Perfido (sung by Lucy Crowe) and the second Symphony of Beethoven, the first performance of Minds in Flux by George Lewis. This involved computer software design and realization by Damon Holzborn and Sound Intermedia. Like the piece by Shiva Feshareki a week earlier, Minds in Flux was written a designed to make use of the special acoustical properties of the Albert Hall, and it did that handsomely. The sounds of the work were compelling and alluring and engaging and
Read moreThe Proms concert on August 19, presented by the BBC Singers conducted by Sofi Jeannin, was a continuous complex sequence lasting about an hour and a half. In it, a number of renaissance choral works were paired with reflections on or reactions to those pieces by more recent composers, in three cases BBC commissions written for this concert. At the center of this was one of Stravinsky’s completion, by adding lost parts, of one of the Three Sacred Songs by Gesualdo, Illunina nos. There was also a work by Hildegard of Bingen, O viridissima virga which stood by itself. An
Read moreSivan Silver-Swartz Untitled 6 Wandelweiser CD EWR 1920 Nigel Dean, violin; Patrick Behnke, Tanner Pfeiffer, viola; Tal Katz, Julian Tedaldi, cello Antoine Beuger Jankélévich Sextets Another Timbre CD at168 Apartment House – James Opstad, double bass; Mark Knoop, accordion; Heather Roche, bass clarinet; Mira Benjamin, violin; Joe Qiu, bassoon; Bridget Carey, viola At twenty-eight years of age, Sivan Silver-Swartz is the youngest member of the Wandelweiser collective. A native of Ohio, he received his undergraduate degree at Oberlin College and then relocated to California to get his Master’s at CalArts. He has remained in Los Angeles since getting
Read moreThe Proms concert on August 17 was presented by The Manchester Collective. The group apparently has different manifestations, but in this case it was an almost twenty-member string orchestra, led by its music director, violinist Rakhi Singh, performing a more usual sort of new music concert, featuring harpsichord soloist Mahan Esfahani. Adam Szabo, the organization’s Chief Executive, also participated as a sort of MC for the evening, introducing and commenting on the program. Like the concert highlighting Abel Selaocoe two days earlier, it had a piece featuring, or at least referencing Jean-Phillipe Rameau, this one being Suite in Old Style
Read moreCity of Tomorrow Blow New Focus Records The City of Tomorrow is a woodwind quintet dedicated to 20/21 music, particularly compositions that explore environmental themes. They first convened to play the title work on this recording. Blow, by Franco Donatoni, is a tour de force for woodwinds. In addition to the obvious association with embouchures, the piece also explores the qualities of wind, from a soothing breeze to gusts to gale force. The use of counterpoint in polyrhythms reminds one of the formidable craft Donatoni possessed – and expected of the musicians who play Blow. The confluence of “wind
Read moreA new CD of solo piano music by Peter Garland has been released on the Cold Blue Music label. Two pieces comprise the album: Three Dawns, inspired by the poetry of Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo and Bush Radio Calling, written specifically for avant-garde theater with a total of nine movements. Peter Garland is a well-known composer with deep roots in contemporary music from long association with important influences such as Lou Harrison, Harold Budd, James Tenney and Conlon Nancarrow. The performer for this album is Ron Squibbs, pianist, academic and a leading authority on the music of Iannis Xenakis. This latest album
Read moreAlthough completely recognizable, there are differences in this year’s Proms concerts, most of them what one would expect. One has to show proof of vaccination to get into the Albert Hall, and then most of the audience is masked. There are still Promenaders, but fewer of them, and the audiences are in general less populated. This decline in numbers doesn’t seem to have in any way reduced the general enthusiasm for the concerts, though. The Prom on August 15 was centered around the South African ‘cellist Abel Selaocoe and included along with him his trio Chesaba (in which he is
Read moreCantus Manifesto Signum Classics The all-male vocal ensemble Cantus’s first full length recording in seven years, Manifesto, features pieces, all in world premiere recordings, that explore relationships and identity. The title work is a piece by David Lang, the text taken from answers to a Google Search auto-complete list of the query “I want to be with someone who…” It was originally commissioned by Cantus for a program titled “The Four Loves.” Lang’s piece signifies romantic love and is written in a minimal style, the textual repetitions being a hallmark of his approach. “If I Profane,” by Libby Larsen,
Read moreMy Tree Where the Grace Is Self-released, 2021 The duo My Tree consists of vocalist Caroline Davis and multi-instrumentalist Ben ‘Jamal’ Hoffmann. Davis is best known as a jazz saxophonist and flutist, but on My Tree’s latest recording, Where the Grace Is, she demonstrates an attractive voice comfortable in a hybrid blend of musical styles. These encompass funk and fusion from the seventies and more recent electronic pop. Hoffmann favors vintage gear, including analog synths and a Linn drum machine. He crafts intricate and memorable arrangements and demonstrates keen versatility. Davis’s supple singing serves well the uplifting songs
Read moreTiranno Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen, director Alpha Records – Alpha 736 Nero, Emperor of Rome from AD 54-68, is the subject of a set of baroque arias and cantatas on mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey’s latest recording with Arcangelo. Over the course of the program, Lindsey portrays several of the main characters associated with Nero’s biography: the Emperor himself, his mother Agrippina, his first wife Ottavia, and consort Poppea. Alessandro Scarlatti’s cantata Il Nerone presents its titular character at his most tyrannical, singing “In my realm only cruelty reigns.” Lindsey conquers both the fast flying melismas and jaunty
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