Three is a new CD release from Cold Blue Music by musician and master-machinist Chas Smith. Now residing in rural Grass Valley, California, Smith lived for many years in the San Fernando Valley, and this put him squarely in the center of the Los Angeles aerospace and movie industries. Smith was a student of James Tenney and Harold Budd, which led to later friendships with both men. Smith’s long experience as a machinist has resulted in the ability to fabricate specialized musical instruments and intriguing sound sculptures. His industrial metalworking is no doubt still in use, and his sound sculptures
Read moreBest of 2021: Varèse, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Baldini on Centaur Varèse, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Baldini Munich Radio Orchestra; UC Davis Symphony Orchestra Miranda Cuckson, violin; Maximilian Haft, violin Christian Baldini, conductor Centaur Records CD/DL Conductor and composer Christian Baldini is making a name for himself on the West Coast, where he directs the UC Davis Orchestra and is a frequent guest conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, as well as abroad with a number of orchestras and opera companies. This Centaur CD features live performances of three pivotal European modernist works, as well as a piece by Baldini that negotiates similar
Read moreBest of 2021 Andrew Cyrille Quartet The News ECM Records David Virelles, piano; Bill Frisell, guitar; Ben Street, bass; Andrew Cyrille, drums and percussion Andrew Cyrille is now an octogenarian, an age at which many musicians have already retired or are slowing down. Cyrille retains a superlative technique and while his latest quartet outing for ECM, The News, emphasizes interplay and texture over power, it is clear that there is much of that yet remaining in the drummer’s arsenal as well. Cyrille is credited with three of the compositions on The News. The title track was originally a
Read moreAnna Thorvaldsdottir Enigma EP Spektral Quartet Clara Lyon, Maeve Feinberg, violin; Doyle Armbrust, viola; Russell Rolen, cello Sono Luminus CD, 2021 Enigma, the first string quartet by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, arrives after a spate of engaging chamber works that have often featured strings, but never in this most traditional configuration. The piece has essentially two very different experiences to offer to the listener. The one considered here is a well engineered CD recording with detailed antiphony that gives a sense of the spatial dimensions of Enigma’s live incarnation, a multimedia work in a 360 degree full-dome theater space,
Read moreBernhard Lang Piano Music Wolfram Oettl, piano Kairos Music CD Bernhard Lang (b. 1957) writes in a number of different media, from chamber music to theatre works. His solo piano music is reflective of the composer’s omnivorous interest in various musical styles and his adroit sense of scoring, which allows the piano to have an orchestral impact in the two multi-movement works on his latest Kairos CD. In liner notes for the CD, Lang remarks that he is interested in free improvisation and DJ electronica as well as contemporary concert music. One can hear this in the angular
Read moreNite Jewel No Sun Gloriette LP/DL How closely does art imitate life and vice versa? It is a question that has been debated since antiquity. Ramona Gonzalez, who records as Nite Jewel, provides an offering that serves to revive the debate. Nite Jewel has released No Sun, her first full length in four years, on her own imprint, Gloriette. It explores mourning and loss. Not so coincidentally, Gonzalez is researching those same themes in her graduate work in musicology at UCLA: women performing mourning songs and rituals. Another wrinkle is that Gonzalez has reason for grief in her own
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 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 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,
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