A new recording of the March 2022 performance by pianist Nic Gerpe of Makrokosmos Volume I, by George Crumb is now available for digital download. In 1972 George Crumb composed his Makrokosmos Volume I, a major 20th Century work for solo piano. To mark the 50th anniversary of this innovative piece, Nic Gerpe performed all twelve sections in concert on March 15, 2022. As Gerpe states on the website: “To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of its composition, I have commissioned twelve composers to each write a response to one movement of Crumb’s original epic piece, to create a brand new
Read moreAerocade Music’s Because/Patterns is an album of experimental music by composer Isaac Schankler. Three new works are featured and performed by top Los Angeles-area musicians. Each piece is the product of the relationship that develops between the acoustic instruments and accompanying electronic constructions. Schankler is perhaps best known as the artistic director of People Inside Electronics, an organization dedicated to ambitious and innovative uses of electronics in new concert music. This album marks the high level of his efforts in this area. The first piece is Because Patterns/Deep State, with Aron Kallay on piano, Vicki Ray on prepared piano and
Read moreA Brightwork Newmusic concert was staged at Boston Court Pasadena on Saturday, March 18, 2023. A program of intensely complex music was performed, including pieces by Khachaturian and Bartok from the 1930s and three works by contemporary composers. Aron Kallay, pianist, Shalini Vijayan, violin and Brian Walsh on clarinet comprised the highly talented Brightwork trio of Los Angeles area musicians. The intimate Marjorie Branson Performance Space at Boston Court, which underwent some upgrades during the pandemic, was perfectly suited to the ensemble, the music and the audience. The concert opened with Trio for Violin, Clarinet and Piano (1932) by Aram
Read moreTiny Thunder is a new CD of graceful piano music by Nicholas Chase, released February 10, 2023 by Cold Blue Music. This album includes two new works performed by pianist Bryan Pezzone. The press release for Tiny Thunder states that: “Held in motion by their internal logic, these pieces drift and weave through alluring, often serene musical landscapes.” Nicholas Chase has enjoyed a long career as a composer and performer. He has appeared in a number of concert festivals in Europe and the US. Chase has participated in the Whitney Biennial in New York and was an inaugural Composer Fellow
Read moreCold Blue Music has released The Basketweave Elegies, a new recording of music by Peter Garland. This is a CD of solo vibraphone music performed by renowned percussionist William Winant, a close friend and collaborator of the composer. The album consists of nine short movements in an alternating mixture of ‘declamatory core’ pieces and ‘lyric refrains’. Inspired by his admiration of basket making, Garland writes of the album: “The title was originally conceived as a homage to the late artist Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), famous for, among other things, her woven wire sculptures.” Peter Garland has a long and distinguished career
Read moreAfter almost three years on hiatus due to the covid pandemic, the Southland Ensemble returned to the concert stage on February 3, 2023 to perform Harmonium, experimental music composed by James Tenney. The venue was Frankie, a large studio building deep in the heart of the warehouse district in Boyle Heights. The Southland Ensemble is known for performing historically significant music. In selecting works by James Tenney for this concert, they gave voice to perhaps the most influential West Coast composer of the last 30 years. Three pieces, averaging about 20 minutes each, provided a full hour of pioneering harmonies
Read moreOn February 10, 2023, Cold Blue Music released Halcyon Days, a new album of music by composer Michael Byron. The CD consists of percussion and keyboard pieces that date from early in Byron’s career providing new insight into the beginnings and development of his brilliantly original style. The performers on the album include Vicki Ray and Aron Kallay, two of the top new music pianists in Los Angeles. The legendary William Winant and his versatile percussion group are also heard on this CD. The material dates from 1972 to 1978 and also includes one recent work from 2016, performed by
Read moreElizabeth Huston and Catherine Litaker were the featured performers for Play Nice – An Evening of Two Harps, a concert presented by Synchromy and held on a rainy December 1, 2022. Originally scheduled for 2020, this concert was postponed for two years due to the Covid pandemic. Six pieces, including two world premieres, were on the program performed at the CadFab Creative gallery in the Culver City Arts District. A wide variety of unusual harp music was heard including solos, duos, extended techniques and pieces with integrated electronic processing. The first half of the concert was titled Interstellar Space and
Read moreOn Tuesday, November 22, 2022, Brightwork newmusic’s Tuesday@Monk Space was host to the populist records recording label and several of their artists in a concert titled Ten Years of populist records. Andrew McIntosh, Rachel Beetz, Nicholas Deyoe and Aperture Duo all performed in a selection of music heard on CDs released over the ten year history of populist records. It was good to see a big crowd at Monk Space with everyone getting reacquainted after the scarcity of live performances during the pandemic. Eggs and Baskets (1987), by Tom Johnson was the first piece on the concert program and was
Read moreThe Covid pandemic of the last two years has drastically reduced live performances, and many musicians have stayed busy making studio recordings. Experimental music has benefited from this with the release of threads, a new CD from Sofa Music by trombonist Mattie Barbier. Recorded at the Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado in October of 2020, threads is an exploration of the possibilities of musical sounds when heard in an environment with ‘extraordinary internal acoustical resonance’. The Tank Center facility is built around an abandoned steel railroad water tank some seven stories high making it a unique venue
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