Centaur Records has recently released Metamorphoses, a new CD of harp music by Tasha Smith Godinez. The album features six new works by five different contemporary composers who are friends and colleagues of Ms. Godinez. The result is an engaging variety of new music carefully crafted and brilliantly performed. The opening piece on the album is Hidden, by Sidney Marquez Boquiren. This is intended as a social commentary on the current US immigration situation and was also inspired musically by another work for harp, Pièce Symphonique, by Henriette Reniè. Hidden opens with a strong chord by the harp rising from
Read morehow do I find you? Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano, Kirill Kuzmin, piano Pentatone CD Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and collaborative pianist Kirill Kuzmin supply an entry in the “pandemic recording” subgenre, how do I find you?, named after the title piece by Caroline Shaw. Cooke performs a great deal of contemporary repertoire, creating roles in operas and premiering art songs by composers including William Bolcom, Nico Muhly (Marnie at the English National Opera), and Joby Talbot. Apart from a selection by Muhly, all of the songs on the release are with new collaborators, composers in the under-fifty age bracket. Written in
Read moreOn Wednesday, February 9th, Herb Deutsch turned ninety years old. Deutsch has been an icon of sound synthesis both as a composer and hardware designer. One of the inventors of the first Moog synthesizers, he designed the keyboard interface that served as the basis for countless synths that followed. Moog Music is using this auspicious occasion to kick off GIANTS, a series of films about synth pioneers. In the video below, Deutsch describes his life, musical inspirations, and the early days of creating versatile hardware to perform and record electronic sound. After the film about Deutsch, you will soon
Read moreWe are saddened to learn of the loss of George Crumb, who passed away on February 6, 2022 at the age of 92. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the composer was one of the most important musical figures of his generation, both as a creator and, for many years, as a professor at University of Pennsylvania. Considered by his students to be a supportive and gifted teacher, he mentored a number of composers who went on to major careers. Crumb composed a large catalog of works, and many of them have become touchstones of the contemporary repertoire. The
Read moreMichael Gielen Edition Volume 10: Music After 1945 SWR Sinfonieorchester, Michael Gielen conductor SWR 6xCD boxed set The tenth and final boxed set in SWR’s Michael Gielen Edition spotlights his considerable contributions to post-1945 concert music. Seven hours of live recordings of music by European avant-garde figures Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Jorge E. López, Maurizio Kagel, and Bernd Alois Zimmerman and Americans Morton Feldman, John Cage, and George Crumb. Gielen’s own compositions are featured as well. Gielen (1927-2019) may not have been prolific, but proves to be a fine composer, one whose works should be
Read moreOn January 8 and 9, 2022, Synchromy mounted two live concert presentations of Tierkreis L.A. Jason Barabba and eleven other local Los Angeles composers contributed new pieces inspired by the twelve original Tierkreis (zodiac) movements of Karlheinz Stockhausen. The Brightwork Ensemble was on hand to perform the music and the concert was accompanied throughout with artful cut paper and line drawing screen projections by Erik Ruin. The Ivy Substation Theater in the heart of Culver City was the venue and a lively musical preamble by SpacePants preceded the performance. Tierkreis L.A. marks a bold beginning for the return of live
Read moreTaken 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 where observers cannot decide whether we’re poised for a new Renaissance or whether 2021 will turn out to be the most serene year of its decade.
Read moreBest 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 World CD On Trio IX and Exercises, Trio Accanto performs recent music by Christian Wolff, a composer with whom they have often collaborated. Trio IX (2017) is dedicated to the group, and it is filled with tunes ranging from J.S. Bach to work songs to quotes and “reminiscences” from Wolff’s own music. This is a palimpsest of a quodlibet, and all the better for it, as the strands from
Read moreParker 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 György Kurtág (1926-) are seldom mentioned in the same breath. One is more often likely to hear Dvořák being discussed in relation to his older colleague Johannes Brahms, and a similar pairing might be made between Kurtág and György Ligeti. However, they are paired by the Parker Quartet and violist Kim Kashkashian on a 2021 ECM CD. While their musical languages are worlds apart, connections between Dvořák and Kurtág,
Read moreNumber 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 the ensemble and a superscript indicating its order in multiple pieces for the same-sized grouping (Quintet #2 = 52). Fragments of pitches, sometimes single notes, are indicated; dynamics appear sporadically. Rhythm is codified through the use of “time brackets,” indicating how long before a performer can move to another fragment. Most of the pieces are for a particular instrumentation, although a few are unspecified. Thus, while a considerable amount of
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