Alice Sara Ott – “Odi et Amo/Krókódíll” Jóhannsson: Beauty (From “Blind Massage”) [Performed on Piano] Icelander Jóhann Jóhannsson was a gifted musician who left us too soon. Late last year, pianist Alice Sara Ott released two EPs on Deutsche Gramophon, entitled From Englabörn and Film Themes, on which she played excerpts from the composer’s film music. These and more of his music are part of the album project Piano Works, which will be released on March 6th. Although it may make one miss Jóhannsson even more, the excerpts are well chosen and well served by Ott’s poignant performances.
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CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Recording review, Recordings, Twentieth Century Composer
Tobias Picker NOVA Various Artists Bright Shiny Things Composer Tobias Picker won a Grammy for his 2020 operatic version of The Fantastic Mister Fox, and many pianists have first encountered him through the diatonic piece The Old and Lost Rivers. Picker has another side to his musical persona that is in no small measure reflective of his time as a student of Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Charles Wuorinen. The Bright Shiny Things recording NOVA includes chamber music that celebrates these high modernist roots, as well as forays into postmodernism. The title work is the latter, a riff
Read moreUnseen World is a new release by composer Mara Gibson on the Mark Masters record label. The album consists of five works composed between 2020 and 2024 that are inspired by vivid visual art that is both expressive and complex. Various instrumental ensembles are employed including a piano and cello duet, a brass quintet, trumpet duet, woodwind duet and a large chamber orchestra. The meticulous writing present in the scores, the outstanding technique of the musicians and remarkable efforts by the soloists make Unseen World an impressive realization of contemporary musical expression. The first piece on the album is Swansongs
Read moreSimone Dinnerstein and Baroklyn Perform Glass at Merkin Hall Kaufman Music Center Piano Dialogues Simone Dinnerstein with Baroklyn May 12, 2025 Published on Sequenza 21 NEW YORK – Last Monday, the pianist Simone Dinnerstein brought her Baroklyn project to Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall to perform an all Philip Glass program. Baroklyn is a string ensemble, augmented at the concert by harp and celesta, assembled by Dinnerstein from musician friends with an eye towards a mostly, but not exclusively, female group. The concert opener was The Hours Suite, excerpted from the film score and arranged by Michael
Read moreMichael Tippett New Year Rhian Lois soprano Ross Ramgobin baritone Susan Bickley mezzo-soprano Roland Wood baritone Robert Murray tenor Rachel Nicholls soprano Alan Oke tenor BBC Singers BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins, conductor NMC Recordings Michael Tippett’s final opera, New Year (1988) has finally been recorded. The work was produced in Houston in 1989 and Glyndebourne in 1990 and then fell out of the repertoire. The Birmingham Opera performed it last year, and the NMC double-CD recording is of a 2024 live semi-staged production by the BBC Scottish Symphony, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. New Year’s reemergence is
Read moreSatie Alain Planès, Pleyel piano (1928) François Pinel, piano duets, Marc Mauillon, baritone Harmonia Mundi In 2025, substantial attention is being paid to the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth. Pianist Alain Planès has instead decided to celebrate the centenary of Erik Satie’s passing with a recording of music from the various stylistic periods of the eclectic composer’s oeuvre. Most of the music are works originally for piano and transcriptions, but there is a set of four-hands pieces and another of songs. At age seventy-seven, Planès has maintained his technique and interpretive skill, accommodating the varying demeanors –
Read moreLisa Illean Arcing, stilling, bending, gathering NMC Records, 2024 Composer Lisa Illean (b. 1983) is from Australia and has been based in recent years in the UK. Her work encompasses a variety of techniques, including alternate tunings and sampled electronics. These are means to consummately expressive ends, and Illean’s music maintains an organic sensibility irrespective of how the sounds are formed. The title piece, performed by the Australian Academy of Music, is split into various constellations of sound: small groups of strings, solo piano, and pre-recorded sound. Illean uses detuned pitch collections to make a supple harmonic language. Like much
Read moreKalevi Aho String Quartets 1-3 Stenhammar Quartet BIS Kalevi Aho (1949-) is a prominent Finnish composer whose oeuvre includes a number of orchestral and chamber works and a smaller body of vocal music. His string quartets are from relatively early in his career, the first from quite early, written when he was only eighteen. All three are included on a BIS recording made by the Stenhammar Quartet, a group from Sweden. The pieces are presented out of order, beginning with the second quartet, which was written in 1970, during his studies with Einojuhani Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy
Read morePersist Ethel and Allison Loggins-Hull Sono Luminus The string quartet Ethel presents a characteristically diverse program of contemporary music on Persist, their first recording for Sono Luminus. They are joined by composer/flutist Allison Loggins-Hull and the resulting quintet are strong advocates for the emerging composers featured here. The title work is by Loggins-Hull, currently a composer fellow with the Cleveland Orchestra. Her work is gracefully written and appealing. Persist begins with an ambling section with an angular flute melody, pizzicato strings and percussion instruments. This is varied throughout, juxtaposed with presto passages featuring quickfire flute lines accompanied by
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CD Review, CDs, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, File Under?, London, Twentieth Century Composer
Music for Trumpets, Bass Clarinets, and Saxophones Aural Terrains Rebecca Toal, Katie Lodge, Bradley Jones, trumpets Raymond Brien, Michelle Hromin, Eb and bass clarinets Chris Cundy, Yoni Silver, bass clarinets Robert Burton, soprano saxophone Julie Kjaer, alto saxophone, Tim Hodgkinson, alto saxophone and conducting Jason Alder, baritone saxophone, contrabass clarinet William Cole, conducting A live recording made in England’s Cafe Oto, Music for Trumpets, Bass Clarinets, and Saxophones includes both brand new compositions for the assembled musicians and important pieces from the contemporary canon. An example of the latter is John Cage’s Five (1988) which is performed by
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