Category: Best of

Taken collectively, this year’s list reveals the remarkable depth, breath and quality of what we call “new music”, but it also conveys a certain tentativeness—one that perhaps befits a crossroads…

G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END! Godspeed You! Black Emperor Constellation Records   As with their previous album Luciferan Towers, a published manifesto accompanied the release of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s…

Best New/Experimental Recordings Trio IX and Exercises Christian Wolff Trio Accanto Nicholas Hodges, piano; Marcus Weiss, saxophone; Christian Dierstein, percussion Wergo CD Three String Quartets Christian Wolff Quatuor Bozzini New…

Parker Quartet; Kim Kashkashian, viola György Kurtág: Six moments musicaux; Officium breve Antonin Dvořák: String Quintet op. 97 ECM Records   The Czech composer Antonin Dvořák (1844-1901) and Hungarian composer…

Number Pieces John Cage Apartment House Another Timbre 4XCD boxed set   John Cage’s Number Pieces, late compositions (from 1987-1992) are given two designations, a number indicating the size of…

Best of 2021 – Happy 80th Birthday Wadada Leo Smith!   Wadada Leo Smith turns eighty today, and Sequenza 21 wishes him many more years of health, creative improvisation, and…

William Byrd and John Bull The Visionaries of Piano Music Kit Armstrong, piano  Deutsche Grammophon CD   In The Visionaries of Piano Music, Kit Armstrong plays two of the greatest…

Hodie Christus Natus Est Boston Camerata, Anne Azéma Harmonia Mundi CD   A trio of female singers accompanied by hurdy gurdy, harp, rebec, and bells present a diverse program of…

Walter Piston: Concerto for Orchestra  Variations on a Theme of Edward Burlingame Hill, Divertimento, Clarinet Concerto Michael Nosworthy, clarinet Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor BMOP/sound CD   Samuel…

Codebreaker Matthew Shipp TAO Forms CD Village Mothership Whit Dickey, drums; William Parker, bass Matthew Shipp, piano;  TAO Forms CD Procedural Language CD Live at SESC Blu-ray DVD Ivo Perelman,…