Sneak Peek Audio Leak: Alex Mincek’s ‘Glossolalia’

Posted on April 24, 2020 by maestrobeats

The Wet Ink Ensemble’s new album is out May 1. Photo by Alexander Perrelli.

For many of us, music is synonymous with community, collaboration, sharing, and play. For the Wet Ink Ensemble, this spirit of collaboration is behind everything they do, from the writing process to performance itself. The composer-performer collective is breaking new ground on their forthcoming album Glossolalia/Lines on Black, which features works by ensemble members Alex Mincek and Sam Pluta that make wildly creative use of electronics, voice, and off-the-wall playing techniques.

Mincek’s contribution to the album, Glossolalia, is named after the phenomenon known as “speaking in tongues,” in which people speak words that are apparently in languages they are entirely unfamiliar with. On first listen, it’s easy to see why: the piece’s third movement, titled “Thread 2,” features a shifting drone over which ensemble members violently interrupt to create a chaotic chatter reminiscent of the piece’s namesake. Aggressive piano lines and a fluttering saxophone mimic ensemble member Kate Soper’s off-kilter and lyric-less vocalizations to create a unique and wonderfully unpredictable musical texture.

We’re excited to share a preview of “Thread 2” ahead of the album’s May 1 release date.

The Wet Ink Ensemble’s new album Glossolalia/Lines on Black is out May 1 on Carrier Records. For more details, click here.

VIDEO PREMIERE: Michael Gordon’s ‘To the West’

Posted on October 25, 2019 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

The vast landscapes and rich histories of Big Sky, Montana are the inspiration behind a new large-scale collaboration between composer Michael Gordon, filmmaker Bill Morrison, and the chamber choir The Crossing.

Montaña is a project unfolding over the course of four years, with the artists meeting each summer in Big Sky to invest in chapters of what will ultimately become a long-form spatial work for a cappella choir and film. Drawing on frontier ballads, cowboy songs, and historical texts, the piece explores not only the expansive geography of Montana but also sounds and stories from the American frontier. The ongoing project invites the public into the artistic process through performances at the end of each summer at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center.

But you don’t have to be in Montana to hear it. We’re thrilled to premiere a new video from Four/Ten Media featuring a section from Montaña titled “To the West,” which sets words from Chief Tecumseh and Thomas Jefferson.

For more information on Montaña, including interviews with the creators, click here.

Sneak Peek Audio Leak: Donnacha Dennehy’s ‘The Hunger’

Posted on August 15, 2019 by maestrobeats

by Peter Tracy

Donnacha Dennehy is an Irish composer who is intensely interested in the music and culture of his homeland. Whether it be setting Irish poets like William Butler Yeats or incorporating Irish folk traditions into his music, Dennehy frequently celebrates his roots while retaining his colorful, vibrant, and forward-thinking musical style.

This is certainly the case on his upcoming album The Hunger, a collaboration with the always inventive Alarm Will Sound featuring soprano Katherine Manley and Iarla Ó Lionáird, a singer specializing in sean-nós (“old style”) singing—a typically melismatic and highly ornamented style sung in the Gaelic language. The album consists of a stirring cantata remembering Ireland’s Great Famine (1845-1849) by setting first-hand accounts from American humanitarian Asenath Nicholson and utilizing material from a sean-nós style song of the period titled “Na Prátaí Dubha” (Black Potatoes).

One of the most emotionally powerful moments on the album is the movement “I Feared He Would Die,” which depicts a starving old man (represented by Iarla Ó Lionáird) who is continually denied the food he needs for himself and the children under his care to survive. Asenath Nicholson, as represented by Katherine Manley, tells of the callousness of the English officers and the harsh reality of the famine over fluttering strings and undulating harmonies.

Hear it here first ahead of the album’s August 23 release date.

Donnacha Dennehy’s The Hunger is out August 23 on Nonesuch Records. For more information, click here.

Sneak Peek Audio Leak: Post-Haste Reed Duo

Posted on February 14, 2019 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

Post-Haste Reed Duo. Photo by Jason Quigley.

When you think of quiet music, a saxophone and bassoon duo is probably not what first comes to mind. Yet the Post-Haste Reed Duo manages to explore the full range of silence and sound in their sophomore album, playfully titled Donut Robot!

Comprised of saxophonist Sean Fredenburg and bassoonist Javier Rodriguez, the Portland-based duo is dedicated to commissioning and championing new works for their unique instrumentation, building the repertoire while also expanding audiences’ perceptions of what a saxophone-bassoon duo can do.

From fluttering soundscapes to eerie microtones and epic grooves, Donut Robot! features six new and wide-ranging works by Edward J. Hines, Drew Baker, Andrea L. Reinkemeyer, Takuma Itoh, Michael Johanson, and Ruby Fulton.

We’re excited to premiere one of the tracks right here on Second Inversion. In the Speaking Silence, composed by Andrea L. Reinkemeyer, explores a reverent sound world that hovers just above the brink of silence.

Post-Haste Reed Duo’s sophomore album Donut Robot! is out Friday, Feb. 15 on Aerocade Music. Click here for more information.

Sneak Peek Audio Leak: Ken Thomson’s Sextet

Posted on September 5, 2018 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

Photo by Naomi White.

Ken Thomson’s music dances at the crossroads of contemporary classical and jazz—filled with boundless verve, blistering improvisations, and contrapuntal complexity. When he’s performing, his energy shines onstage—and when he’s writing music, it leaps off the page.

Though the clarinetist and saxophonist is perhaps best known as one of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Thomson’s new album of original compositions, titled Sextet, features him performing alongside a hand-picked cast of jazz all-stars: saxophonist Anna Webber, trumpeter Russ Johnson, trombonist Alan Ferber, bassist Adam Armstrong, and drummer Daniel Dor.

The album begins with Thomson’s own arrangement of György Ligeti’s melancholic Passacaglia Ungherese before spiraling through a collection of six original groove-driven compositions that float freely between the rigor of through-composed music and the spontaneity of improvised solos.

We’re excited to premiere a track from the brand new album ahead of its September 7 release date. Click below to hear Thomson’s “Phantom Vibration Syndrome.”

<a href="http://kenthomson.bandcamp.com/album/sextet">Sextet by Ken Thomson</a>

Learn more about the music from the performers themselves in the trailer below!