aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks listening log - week of feb 18, 2023

1. emby downs, Steve Gunn - Looming change / Building fabric [2023 Longform Editions]
2. Mike Cooper - Extraordinary Moments @ Hotel Palenque [2023 Room40]

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3. Bardo Pond - Bardo Pond, Vol. 1 [2021 Fire Songs]
4. Sergio Sorrentino, John King - 21st Century Blues [2023 Sergio Sorrentino & John King]
5. Simeon ten Holt, Erik Hall - Canto Ostinato [2023 Western Vinyl]
6. Surface 10 - A Stray Ending [2023 Something Else Music Limited]
7. Michael Robinson, Anindo Chatterjee - Those Sighs [2023 Azure Miles Records]

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8. Stereolab - Simple Headphone Mind / Trippin' With The Birds [2022 Duophonic UHF Disks under exclusive license to Warp Records]
9. Domenico Scarlatti, Vox Heri - Scarlatti: Exercises, Kk. 1-30 [2023 Classical Goat]
10. CPE Bach, Claudio Colombo - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: 6 Keyboard Sonatas, Wq. 49 "Württemberg [2023 Claudio Colombo]
11. Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - The Strays (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film) [2023 Netflix Music, LLC]
12. Georg Frederic Handel, Millenium Orchestra, Leonardo García Alarcón - Handel:Solomon [2023 Outhere]
13. James P. Johnson - The Father of Jazz Piano - James P. Johnson the King of Stride [2023 Old King]
14. Brooklyn Rider - The Wanderer (Live from Paliesius, Lithuania) [2023 In A Circle Records]
15. Kurt Elling, Charlie Hunter, Nate Smith - Guilty Pleasures (feat. Nate Smith) [2023 Edition Records]
16. Morunas - Beyond Our Dreams [2023 Morunas]

aworks listening log - 2023 american classical releases

1. Alvin Lucier, Austin Buckett, Australian Art Orchestra - Swing Bridge & Sizzles [Mode Records]
2. John Williams, Boston Pops Orchestra - John Williams [UMG Recordings, Inc.]

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3. James Romig - Spaces [James Romig]
4. Terry Riley  Aleksey Peresidly - In C [Aleksey Peresidly]
5. Amy Beach, Tomas Ehrenberg - Amy Beach Opus 37, 44 & 51 [Tomas Ehrenberg]

Roger Reynolds: Violin Works - Gabriela Díaz, Gil Rose, Boston Modern Orchestra Project #2022release

• Personae (1989-1990)
• Kokoro for solo violin (1991-1992)
• Aspiration (2004-2005)

• Roger Reynolds: "I grew up in a home that contained scant aesthetic stimulation (absent music, minimal visual art, no books other than, inexplicably, an illustrated copy of Moby Dick). This meant that my outlook was relatively free of the canonic values of Europe or America."
• Recorded 2013-2018.
• Album booklet

Terry Riley, Cleveland Orchestra, Calder Quartet, James Feddeck - The Sands [2022 Cleveland Museum of Art]

• The Sands, from 1991, was commissioned by the Salzburg Festival and written for the Kronos Quarter and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. "A kind of metaphor for what the people of a small Middle Eastern country might be feeling when under a savage air attack from the world's mightiest military." Wise Music Classical
• "A clever, carnival-esque movement, it was composed as a kind of soundtrack for Riley's reminiscences of his early years in Europe, during which time he made a living playing piano for cabarets and circus acts." Jeremy Grimshaw/AllMusic
• Played as part of a 2013 California Masterworks concert, along with Cowell, Rudhyar, Harrison, Tenney, and (John Coolidge) Adams. Cleveland Museum of Art

Becoming Air (2018). Annea Lockwood #closetonoise

Most of the work is as close to noise as I've heard in awhile. The website says this is a "trumpet solo by Annea Lockwood and Nate Wooley." Ok, intriguing if unsettling.

Der Wegweiser from Winterreise (1828). Franz Schubert

This post would be more appropriate on a "gworks - 'new' german classical music" blog...

I of course know of Franz Schubert. And Kai Schumacher is on my Spotify favorite artists list. This new release combines both in a way I haven't yet comprehended:

Kai Schumacher: "For me, the Schubert Lieder are among the most beautiful music of the 19th century. However, for me, the immediacy of the songs is lost in classical recitals. It is often too artificial for me. The classical singer embodies a role on stage - perfect intonation and fidelity to the work are often more important than feeling and intention. I have always been curious about how it sounds when someone approaches it in a completely unaffected way, without classical etiquette, and makes the songs his own without bias. This singer actually had to be Gisbert zu Knyphausen from the beginning... I also wanted to maintain this fine line between classical standards and respect for the original on the one hand, and very personal and contemporary interpretation on the other. So neither neo-romantic kitsch, nor smooth crossover pop." Neue Meister Music

The recording is distinctive and stretches my definition of "Schubertian."

Peter Garland, Ron Squibbs - 3 Dawns & Bush Radio Calling (2021 Cold Blue Music)

3 Dawns (1982)

• Inspired by poems of Jean-Joseph Rabéarivelo. bandcamp
• "Two succinct parts bookend a plaintive and subtly regal central movement, the outer frames beguiling in their buoyant, sing-song character and interlacing patterns. It's the softly chiming middle one, however, that proves most stirring in the way it slowly, gracefully, and methodically unfurls for twelve resonant minutes." textura

Bush Radio Calling (1992)

• Composed for the Alan Bunton Play "Just Them Walking." bandcamp
• "Cumulatively, Bush Radio Calling advances like a journey down a winding river, with the trip abundant in vivid contrast and striking scenery." textura

 

american (classical) listening log - Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States

2013	Smoke and Mirrors	Christopher Chandler	Switch~ Ensemble, Chrisiopher Chandler	SEAMUS Records	2020	"melding timbres together into gestures that wash over the texture"
2013	Three Etudes for Piano and Electronics	Jeffrey Haas	Kati Gleiser, Jeffrey Hass	SEAMUS Records	2020	"an occasional beep of a smoke detector"
2012	MR-HSC	Elliot Patros	Elliot Patros	SEAMUS Records	2020	"excessive DSP tends to disconnect the acts of recording and composing"
2012	Bright Lines	Halim Beere	Halim Beere	SEAMUS Records	2020	"dramatic gestures that sweep from left to right across the stereo field"
2012	Desire with Digressions	Butch Rovan	Keith Kirchoff, Butch Rovan	SEAMUS Records	2020	"the main character is attempting to flee from his former life"
2011-12	Steel Golem	Chester Udell	Chester Udell	SEAMUS Records	2020	Formerly known as Concertino for Twisted Metal
2011	Duo for Cajón and Computer	Cort Lippe	Patti Cudd, Cort Lippe	SEAMUS Records	2020	Afro-Peruvian percussion instrument
2008	Train Song	David Gedosh	David Gedosh	SEAMUS Records	2020	With sounds from Denton, Texas

american (classical) listening log - more contemporary organ music

2019	✓ Closing (from the Tao of Glass)	Phillip Glass	Philip Glass	Orange Mountain Music	2020
2012	✓ An Evangelist Drowns	Michael Daugherty	Randall Harlow	Innova	2020	More contemporary organ music
2012	The Revd Mustard his Installation Prelude	Nico Muhly	Randall Harlow	Innova	2020
2002	✓ On a Day of Bells	Libby Larsen	Randall Harlow	Innova	2020
2001	Ceremonies: II. Meditation	Jennifer Higdon	Randall Harlow	Innova	2020
2000	Fantasia Cromática	Roberto Sierra	Randall Harlow	Innova	2020
1990	✓ Diapason Fall	Matt Darriau	Randall Harlow	Innova	2020
1998	Wished and Candles	Stephen Paulus	Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, The Ebor Singers, Paul Gameson, Rachel Jerome	Resonus Limited	2020
1949	To a Yellow Rose	Florence Price	Sandra Coursey, Madison Hills	Sandra Coursey	2020	"each Rose uses a different melodic style and emotional vein to evoke the different connotations of yellow, white, and red roses"

american (classical) listening log :: 12/06/2020

2015	The Last Dalai Lama?	Philip Glass	Tenzin Choegyal	Orange Mountain Music	2020	Soundtrack to the film
2009	55 Chords	Tom Johnson	Randall Harlow	Innova	2020	It takes awhile to work through 3 hours of contemporary organ music. Having a diverse set of composers helps.
1979	Mad Rush (Live at St. John the Divine)	Philip Glass	Philip Glass	Orange Mountain Music	2020	Live recording on organ, appended to the Last Dalai Lama soundtrack. The work is 'a glistening labyrinth of interlocking rhythms and competing “grooves.”'
1979	Mad Rush	Philip Glass	Philip Glass	Orange Mountain Music	2017	1 Glass piece plus Monk, Jarrett, Palestine, Davis and Budd on From the Kitchen Archives, No. 5 - Pianos in the Kitchen.
1979	Mad Rush	Philip Glass	Donald Joyce	BMG Music	1993	Interesting that I don't really like any of these versions of Mad Rush.
1977-78	✓ The Time Curve Preludes	William Duckworth	R. Andrew Lee	Irritable Hedgehog	2011
1958	Book, Book and Candle	George Duning		Harkbit Entertainment	2004	Tepid jazz & pop-classical soundtrack to a peculiar movie. James Stewart is cranky, Kim Novak a witch (albeit a serious one) and Jack Lemmon a warlock & self-professed bongo player.