On Saturday, April 6, 2024 the Santa Monica Public Library and the Cold Blue Music recording label presented a concert titled An Afternoon of Double Basses and Piano. This was the latest incarnation of the Soundwaves series of new music concerts, now back in business after the Covid pandemic. The library auditorium was undergoing some renovation, so this concert was held in the nearby Edye Theater at the Broad Stage, part of the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. There were three works presented: Darkness and Scattered Light, by John Luther Adams, featuring five double basses, Flying, by Christopher Roberts,
Read moreTiny Thunder is a new CD of graceful piano music by Nicholas Chase, released February 10, 2023 by Cold Blue Music. This album includes two new works performed by pianist Bryan Pezzone. The press release for Tiny Thunder states that: “Held in motion by their internal logic, these pieces drift and weave through alluring, often serene musical landscapes.” Nicholas Chase has enjoyed a long career as a composer and performer. He has appeared in a number of concert festivals in Europe and the US. Chase has participated in the Whitney Biennial in New York and was an inaugural Composer Fellow
Read moreCold Blue Music has released The Basketweave Elegies, a new recording of music by Peter Garland. This is a CD of solo vibraphone music performed by renowned percussionist William Winant, a close friend and collaborator of the composer. The album consists of nine short movements in an alternating mixture of ‘declamatory core’ pieces and ‘lyric refrains’. Inspired by his admiration of basket making, Garland writes of the album: “The title was originally conceived as a homage to the late artist Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), famous for, among other things, her woven wire sculptures.” Peter Garland has a long and distinguished career
Read moreCold Blue Music has released Houses of the Wind, a new album of electro-acoustic music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams. This was inspired by a 1989 recording of Alaskan arctic winds blowing through an aeolian harp. In listening to that original recording again, John Luther Adams writes: “The voices of the wind singing through the strings of the harp brought back vividly the clarity of light, the sprawling space, and the sense of possibility I had felt.” The recent pandemic lock down presented Adams with the studio time to electronically reshape the recording and the result is a
Read moreCold Blue Music has released Lines Made by Walking, a new CD of string quartet music by composer John Luther Adams. Two three-movement pieces are featured, performed by the acclaimed JACK Quartet. As with his earlier string quartet pieces, this new album further explores the intimate relationship that Adams, an avid hiker, has with the wild terrain that inspires him. As the composer writes: “Making my way across these landscapes at three miles an hour, I began to imagine music coming directly out of the contours of the land…” Those who appreciated Adam’s earlier string quartet music CD The Wind
Read moreOn May 14, 2019, Tuesdays @ Monk Space presented Incandescent Keyboards, Luminous Percussion, a concert of three important works from the Cold Blue Music record label. The Los Angeles premieres of Celesta by Michael Jon Fink, Four Thousand Holes by John Luther Adams and the world premiere of Pacific Coast Highway by Daniel Lentz were on the program. The cozy confines of Koreatown’s Monk Space filled with the agreeable sounds of music created by some of the best composers that the West Coast has yet produced. First up was Celesta (2018), by Michael Jon Fink. This was performed by the
Read moreCold Blue Music presented an evening of solos as the latest in the Soundwaves series of new music concerts held at the Santa Monica Public Library. Music by Daniel Lentz and Michael Byron was performed, with the composers in attendance. Pianist Vicki Ray and harpist Tasha Smith Godínez were on hand as soloists along with a nice crowd arriving on a perfect spring evening. River of 1,000 Streams (2016) by Daniel Lentz was first up, featuring Ms. Ray at the piano and accompanied by a prerecorded track of fragments of the piece that were played through two large speakers on
Read moreOn February 21, 2017, Tuesdays@MonkSpace was host to Nicholas Chase and Robin Lorentz, in Los Angeles to perform Bhajan, their latest CD from the Cold Blue recording label. Ms. Lorentz played the electric violin and Chase was at the controls of the computer and various audio interfaces. This occasion marked the premiere performance of Bhajan. Both were barefoot and clad completely in white, a refreshing departure from the solid black so often seen at new music concerts. Bhajan consists of four roughly equal sections totaling some 47 minutes and is based on Hindu devotional music. For this performance all four
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Commissions, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Mexico, Minimalism, Premieres
On February 16, 2016, Tuesdays@Monk Space hosted a concert of Cold Blue Music artists in the lively Koreatown district of Los Angeles. A good crowd came out to hear music by Michael Jon Fink, Jim Fox, Michael Byron and Peter Garland. Three premieres were heard including the world premiere performance of In the Village of Hope by Michael Byron. The first piece, Vocalise (1979), by Michael Jon Fink, was for piano and performed by the composer. This opened with series of quietly beautiful notes, like the melody from a simple hymn and unfolded with the spare elegance that is the
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