Nearly a year ago I reviewed Christopher Whitley’s album of pieces for solo violin and electronics Describe Yourself. In the same session Whitley recorded a series of short improvisations for violin using the same 300 year old Stradivarius. The half hour or so of music was recorded unedited in a single take and forms the album almost as soft as silence.
There are fifteen pieces ranging in length from 18 seconds to about four minutes. They are quite varied in mood and method but tend toward the meditative. He uses the full range of sounds from the violin. Sometimes, as in “six” the music is very high and chattery. For some reason it suggested squirrels discussing philosophy. Other pieces, like “a5 b5 g5” seem to have an geometrical structure; a series of smooth crescendos are each followed by a very fragmented fade-out, rinse and repeat. Continue reading
Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth is a new miniature album of her own compositions by cellist India Gailey. Back in the day we would probably have called this an EP as there is about 20 minutes of music in all.
My review
My review
Ajdad – Ancestors (Echoes of Persia) is a new CD from the Amir Amiri Ensemble. I had a chance to hear them play at Alliance Française on Friday night as well as listening to the CD which provided some extra perspective. It’s always interesting to watch musicians. Most of the music on the CD is composed by Amir Amiri with a couple of arrangements of other composers’ work. Amiri’s roots are in the classical Persian tradition but he goes well beyond that with quite strong Arabic influence as well as Turkish, Kurdish and Western classical elements. In a sense it’s a nod to what was once a more integrated musical culture that to some extent has been fractured by the political divisions of the last 100 years or so. 
I guess I’ve learned never to expect the predictable from Emily D’Angelo (except for the black clothes and boots). Her new album; freezing, is as unexpected as 
Picture a Day Like This is the latest operatic collaboration between George Benjamin and Martin Crimp (Written on Skin, Lessons in Love and Violence). It’s basically an hour long chamber opera written for five singers and chamber orchestra and it’s now been recorded for CD by Nimbus.
I first came across the music of Errollyn Wallen in a recent recital by Sarah Connolly and Joseph Middleton. There was a quality in her music that reminded me of some other composers of Caribbean origin writing about the immigrant experience in Canada. Wallen is from Belize but now lives in Scotland (in a lighthouse no less) and her music is quite varied. Unusually, besides being a classically trained composer, she also sings while accompanying herself on the piano and the works she has written for that genre definitely have a singer/songwriter vibe.
The second disk in pianist Malcolm Martineau’s project to record all the Brahms songs will soon be available. It features twenty nine songs for low voice with, as far as i could tell, no theme. All the works have titles like Fünf Gesänge Op.72 which actually starts the disk.
Rooms of Elsinore is a new CD of music related to 
operaramblings 