Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard and Quatuor Bozzini – Colliding Bubbles: Surface Tension and Release (Important) Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard is a composer based in Copenhagen. On his latest EP he joins forces with the premiere Canadian string quartet for new music, Quatuor Bozzini, to create a piece that deals with the perception of bubbles replicating the human experience. In addition to the harmonics played by the strings, the players are required to play harmonicas at the same time. At first blush, this might sound like a gimmick, but the conception of the piece as instability and friction emerging from continuous sound, like
Read moreKronos Says Goodbye to Two Members After a Hello to Moondog and Sun Ra Many are celebrating the tenures of two members of Kronos Quartet – violinist John Sherba and violist Hank Dutt – who are, after more than forty-five years, retiring from the group at the end of June. As a valediction, I have been listening to and enjoying recordings from throughout their catalog. I am impressed by how enduring the quartet’s creative vitality and imagination has persisted, even on their most recent outings. Joined by the Ghost Train Orchestra and a number of guest vocalists, last
Read moreComposer, vocalist, and instrumentalist Caroline Shaw rejoins Sō Percussion for Rectangles and Circumstance, a new full length recording out today on Nonesuch. To celebrate the release, a video for the lead-off single, “Sing On,” has been released on YouTube today. Rectangles and Circumstance combines imaginative percussion writing with abundant electronics and Shaw’s pop-adjacent singing. Shaw takes on an assured and distinctive role. Her voice is sometimes treated to make it nearly unrecognizable. Elsewhere, her singing is presented in its natural, fetchingly lyrical guise. Sō has developed a sound world that befits Shaw’s heterogeneous compositions, using a plethora of pitched percussion, drums, and electronics. Whether
Read moreCold Blue Music has released Waves and Particles, a new CD by John Luther Adams featuring the JACK Quartet. This new album by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Adams explores the deeper levels of elemental nature through extraordinary musical expression. The composer writes: “Waves and Particles was inspired by quantum physics, fractal geometry, and noise – which function as elemental metaphors in my music.” This is realized by the renowned JACK Quartet who artfully extract new and exceptional sounds from the standard string quartet. This new album follows three previous CDs by Adams, released by the Cold Blue label and recorded by
Read moreRichard Baker The Tyranny of Fun NMC Recordings Composer and conductor Richard Baker (b. 1972) has been an important fixture on the British new music scene for over a decade. While The Tyranny of Fun refers to a work on the recording, it also could be seen as an analog for Baker’s mixture of fierceness and whimsy in many of his pieces. He had the right teacher – Louis Andriessen at the Hague – to develop this sort of emotional dichotomy in his work. He has also championed composers like Gerald Barry and Philip Venables, who both walk an
Read moreDavid Crowell Point/Cloud Better Company Records Composer and multi-instrumentalist David Crowell has minimalist bona fides: he played in the Philip Glass Ensemble for nearly a decade. But Crowell draws from a number of traditions in his work: prog rock, jazz, folk, and other contemporary classical idioms. His latest, Point/Cloud, features works for percussion, guitars, and a moving finale for voice, cello, and Crowell’s instrumentation. Sandbox Percussion performs Verses for a Liminal Space. At nearly a quarter of an hour, it shows Crowell’s keen sense of pacing. He conceives of the piece as being cast in three verses. There is a
Read moreCarl Philip Emanuel Bach Symphonies from Berlin to Hamburg Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Mayumi Hirasaki and Georg Kallweit, concertmasters Harmonia Mundi Carl Philip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) was the middle of Johann Sebastian Bach’s three surviving sons. His music occupies the period between the baroque and classical, often called the galant or rococo style. It truly is a transitional era, with the development of the orchestra, symphony, and a move toward more homophonic textures. Several recordings of his works have recently been issued, and it is nice to see this talented composer having a moment. Akademie für Alte
Read morePhilip Glass Solo Philip Glass, piano Orange Mountain Music This is the second piano album made by Philip Glass. Solo Piano (1989) contains some overlap of tracks with the latest recording, Philip Glass Solo (2024), but there are distinct differences between the renditions on each. At 87 years of age, and in demand from opera houses, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, and filmmakers for a steady spate of new works, a solo performance recording might seem like an unnecessary addition to Glass’s catalog. But it is in those aforementioned differences found in the music that he shares a different vantage point
Read morePolytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces, by Peter Thoegersen, is a new digital release from the Fragments of Blue recording label. Since obtaining his Doctorate in Composition from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Thoegersen has devoted much of his composing career to the exploration of the musical possibilities at the intersection of rhythmic structures in multiple meters combined with scales built from microtonal pitches. This latest album builds on earlier works by simultaneously combining different meters and tempi with various microtonal temperaments. These pieces originally date from 2003 to the present, but all have been updated to incorporate expanded combinations
Read moreKinds of ~Nois ~Nois, Kinds of Kings Bright Shiny Things The Bright Shiny Things recording Kinds of ~Nois is the result of a six-year long collaboration between the saxophone quartet ~Nois (Julian Velasco, soprano; Hunter Bockes, alto; Jordan Lulloff, tenor; János Csontos, baritone) and the composer collective Kinds of Kings (Shelley Washington, Maria Kaoutzani, and Gemma Peacocke). The recorded works are generally in a complexly post-minimal style, but each composer has their own distinctive voice. ~Nois’s rich ensemble tone and dexterous rhythms serve the music quite well. One can readily hear that a lot of preparation was put into
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