Spaces James Romig Tony Oliver, vibraphone Sawyer Editions James Romig’s music has become more expansive. Spaces (2021) is his third recent piece to run over an hour in duration. Still (2016), a piece for pianist Ashlee Mack, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Last year brought The Complexity of Distance, a piece for metal guitarist Mike Scheidt that was both rigorously constructed and ripped uproariously. Like all of Romig’s music, Spaces has a highly detailed plan. Each of the four sections of the piece has an “a” and a “b” subgroup. They begin with a collection of
Read moreJames Romig Still Ashlee Mack, piano New World Records 80802 Composer James Romig has spent the past twenty years cultivating a body of work that embodies both rigorous structuring and a wide-ranging gestural palette. As is explained in Bruce Quaglia’s excellent liner notes for Romig’s first New World CD, Still, there is good reason for these two aspects to be so important to Romig. His training as a composer was with American modernists Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, while his background as a performer – a percussionist – included a number of works by minimalists such as Steve Reich. Extra-musical
Read more