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 composing. Smith has been a driving force as a member of AACM for over five decades, a keen collaborator with jazz and concert musicians, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and a faculty member at CalArts and elsewhere. 2021 has been a prolific one in terms of record releases by the trumpeter and composer. He is joined by wind player Douglas Ewart and drummer Mike Reed on the Astral Spirits CD Sun
Read moreWilliam 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 English keyboard composers active during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I on the modern piano, aiming to show what he calls “a seamless line of development” between this repertory and more recent music written explicitly for the piano. William Byrd (ca. 1540-1623) and John Bull (ca. 1562-1628) wrote for very different instruments from the piano, the harpsichord and its smaller companion the virginal; Christofori developed early versions of
Read moreHodie 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 medieval Christmas music in English, Latin, Italian, Iberian, and French. Plainsong hymns, responses, carols, and dances, all by anonymous sources, are performed with impeccable sound, blend, and tuning and an impressive variety of approaches. Some of the music is intoned as chant while other pieces are metricized. This repertoire would not have appeared together in a single performance, especially given the blend of sacred and secular pieces, but Hodie Christus
Read moreWalter 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 Barber: Medea Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Medea (complete ballet), A Hand of Bridge Kristen Watson, soprano; Matthew DiBattista, tenor; Angela Gooch, soprano, David Kravitz, baritone, Krista River, mezzo-soprano; Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, conductor BMOP/sound CD Although the Boston Modern Orchestra Project has undertaken commissioning and recording music from our time, another important part of their mission has been reviving symphonists from mid-century America. Two recordings spotlighting music
Read moreSupermundane John Thayer Self-released Far In Helado Negro 4AD Weightless (10 hour version) Signals Marconi Union Just Music Changing Landscapes (Isle of Eigg) Arthur King AKP Fast Idol Black Marble Sacred Bones Ookii Gekkou Vanishing Twin Fire Records John Thayer is a musician who wears many hats: composer, audio engineer, sound artist, and percussionist. He has played with a host of new music performers, including Zeena Parkins, Daniel Carter, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kato Hideki, Ezra Feinberg, Arp, Robbie Lee, Jeff Tobias, and Jim Pugliese. It is his work with Arp that is likely
Read moreCodebreaker 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, saxophones; Matthew Shipp, piano SMP boxed set In both solo and group settings, Pianist Matthew Shipp has continued to prolifically record in 2021. His collaborations with longtime partners, drummer Whit Dickey and bassist William Parker on Village Mothership, and Procedural Language, a celebration of his two-decade musical odyssey with saxophonist Ivo Perelman, are scintillating reminders of Shipp’s development of a fluid musical language that adapts to different scenarios. In
Read moreBest of 2021: A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle and Alice Coltrane’s Kirtan: Turiya Sings Fifty-six years after its release, John Coltrane’s recording of his suite A Love Supreme has been certified platinum by the RIAA. With the lauded release of the recently rediscovered tapes of A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle, renewed interest has moved the recording of the original to this distinguished sales standard. The Live in Seattle version expands the personnel from the classic Coltrane Quartet to include saxophonists Pharaoh Sanders and Carlos Ward, and a second double bassist Donald Garrett. Thought some outlets have criticized the bass response on the recording, on my rig
Read moreBurned into the Orange Music of Peter Gilbert Arditti String Quartet; Iridium Quartet, Emmanuele Arciuli, piano; et al. New Focus Records CD/DL This is composer Peter Gilbert’s second recording for New Focus; the first was back in 2008, The Long Arch of Undreamt Things. He is Associate Professor of Music at University of New Mexico, and has a long artistic pedigree filled with prestigious residencies, performances, and awards. There is a visceral character in Gilbert’s music that distinguishes it, and in his recent music it appears that geography plays as much of a role as any of the aforementioned
Read moreJosquin 500 Part Two The Josquin Legacy Gesualdo Six Harmonia Mundi CD In Principio De Labyrintho, Walter Tesolin Baryton CD Josquin Desprez The Renaissance Master – Sacred Music and Chansons Cappella Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss Ensemble Clément Janequin, Ensemble Organum, Marcel Pérès Ensemble Les Eléments, Ensemble Clément Janequin, Dominique Visse Huelgas-Ensemble, Paul Van Nevel La Chapelle Royale, Philippe Herreweghe Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier Harmonia Mundi 3xCD Josquin and the Franco-Flemish School Ensemble Gille Binchois Kings Singers Early Music Consort of London Hilliard Ensemble Warner Classics 34XCD boxed set Josquin – Baisiez Moy thélème, Jean-Christophe Groffe Aparté CD These releases
Read moreBest EP of 2021 Light Past Blue Alex Somers & Aska Matsumiya Mini LP Sometimes music sneaks up on you. This recording, Light Past Blue, just dropped Friday, indeed out of the blue, braving the hustle bustle and list making of the holiday season to provide 20 minutes of exquisite calm. Alex Somers is a composer and producer who has worked with a heady roster of talents that includes Sigur Rós, Jónsi, Julianna Barwick, Sin Fang, and Gyða Valtýsdóttir. He performed in the duo Jónsi & Alex Somers, who released two albums Riceboy Sleeps (2009) and Lost and
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