Julia Hülsmann Quartet The Next Door Julia Hülsmann, piano; Uli Kemperdorff, tenor saxophone; Marc Muellbauer, double bass; Heinrich Köbberling, drums ECM Records Since their 2019 debut recording, Not Far From Here, the Julia Hülsmann Quartet has spent a lot of time touring and gigging, refining their sound and improvisational aesthetic. The group’s latest recording, The Next Door, is primarily comprised of originals by quartet members, alongside a scintillating rock cover. The addition of tenor saxophonist Uli Kemperdorff to Hülsmann’s long standing trio with bassist Marc Muellbauer and drummer Heinrich Köbberling has been a winning choice. Kemperdorff’s florid runs contain
Read moreChristopher Trapani Horizontal Drift New Focus Records Christopher Trapani’s latest portrait recording for New Focus features pieces for solo instruments, several with electronics. The composer’s work with microtones and hybrid tuning systems is spotlighted. Trapani has a compendious knowledge of microtonality, and he brings it to bear eloquently in the programmed pieces. The album’s opener, Târgul, is written for vioara cu goarna, a Romanian variant on the stroh violin, a violin with an added horn to provide greater projection. It also can provide fascinating timbres, as Maximilian Haft’s performance illuminates. Dan Lippel plays the title track on
Read moreThe Prom on August 26 was presented by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and their conductor, Nicholas Collon, joined by violinist Pekka Kuusisto. The program opened with La Mer by Debussy, which was given an extremely shaped and nuanced and always beautiful sounding performance. It was followed by Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending in a very beautiful and thoughtful and very quiet and moving performance featuring Kuusisto. The Vaughan Williams and Märchentänze by Thomas Adès made a very interesting and thought provoking paring. The Vaughan Williams, written just before the first world war, was one of his first works to
Read moreThe Prom on Monday, August 15, presented by the BBC Symphony, conducted by Sakari Oramo, opened with the first UK performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Time Flies, a joint Commission from the BBC, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra which is based in Hamburg. Each of the three movements represents one of the cities involved, London, Hamburg, and Tokyo, respectively. The piece is for a very large orchestra, used with a certain amount of skill and verve. The London movement is fast, and, so we’re told, jaunty in an English kind of way; the second is slower
Read moreProm 37, presented by the Royal Northern Sinfonia, conducted by Dinis Sousa, was a late morning concert. It included a performance of the Oboe Concerto by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with soloist Nicholas Daniel, which was part of a thread for the season featuring concertos for less usual solo instruments as well as being part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s birth. The concerto is in three movements and is relatively brief–19 minutes. It’s also musically quite concise (except maybe for the last movement) and as well conceived for the instrument as one could wish. It’s a
Read moreTony Williams Play or Die Tony Williams, drums, percussion, vocals; Tom Grant, keyboards, synthesizer; Patrick O’Hearn, electric bass. M.I.G. Music GMBH Recorded in Stuttgart in 1980 and limited to 500 copies that weren’t widely distributed outside Germany, Play or Die, led by late drummer Tony Williams, is a unicorn record that is finally receiving a reissue. Joined by keyboardist Tom Grant and bassist Patrick O’Hearn, Williams leans in on one his most fusion focused recordings. Sharing the composition duties with O’Hearn, Play or Die includes two originals by the drummer, one by the bassist, and a “Jam Tune” credited
Read moreUnlike last summer, when the Proms was somewhat restricted, at least in terms of the size of the audience, and with a number of programs being somewhat shorter and without intermission, this year everything seems to be in full swing again. Certainly the house was packed on August 10 for the concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Chorus, conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. This concert sandwiched the new work, Pearl by Matthew Kaner, a BBC commission and first performance, between Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration and Holst’s The Planets. For the stretch of the few days around this
Read moreThe world premiere of Oratorio for the Earth by Pamela Madsen was heard in the Meng Concert Hall at Cal State University, Fullerton on May 14, 2022. If you couldn’t make it to the performance, a video of a quite satisfactory quality is now available online. This seven-movement oratorio is scored for a full orchestra, a large chorus and six vocal soloists who are the Hex Ensemble. The work offers a dramatic commentary on the uncertain state of nature and the earth in a time of portentous climate change. While the scope and scale of Oratorio for the Earth is
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Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York, Premieres
In the doldrums of summer, it seems like 80 percent of the population in New York City is away, presumably biding their time in cooler and/or more restful locales. That goes for both musicians and their audiences. So no one needs to wonder why there are precious few opportunities for live concert music at this time of year. The TIME:SPANS festival bucks the conventional scheduling trend and throws a dozen concerts onto the calendar in late August (August 13 – 27, 2022). What’s more, the performances are all held in the air-conditioned comfort of the DiMenna Center (450 West 37th
Read moreGity Razaz The Strange Highway Francesca de Pasquale, violin; Katharine Kang Litton, viola; Ingbal Segev, cello; Scott Cuellar, piano All-American Cello Band; Metropolist Ensemble, Andrew Cyr, conductor BIS Records Born in Iran and now residing in New York, over the past fifteen years composer Gity Razaz has created a number of well-crafted works. The Strange Highway, her first portrait CD, includes chamber music, ensemble works, and electronics in live and studio recordings. The title piece, composed for cello octet and played by the All-American Cello Band for Dutch radio, was inspired by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaňo’s eponymous
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