Staff & Community Picks: August 13

Posted on August 13, 2015 by maestrobeats

A weekly rundown of the music our staff and listeners are loving lately! Are you interested in contributing some thoughts on your favorite new music albums? Drop us a line!

Joshua Roman on Golijov’s Ayre:

This is an amazing piece that I first stumbled upon several years ago and basically put on repeat. It’s a unique set-up where you have things like a hyper-accordion, which is an invention by the player himself, Michael Ward-Bergeman. He basically takes two inputs and puts them on either side of the accordion and creates this stereo effect with a machine that mixes them together to create the “hyper effect.” It’s kind of like an accordion on steroids and produces a lot of intense sounds. Golijov uses this to great effect to take you through different modes of musical communication. It’s not stuck in style; it really goes all over the place, but all fits together very well and flows very naturally. There are moments that are very touching and movements where you’ll think, “What the hell is going on?” but in a really great way. It’s extremely exciting! Dawn Upshaw gives an incredible performance and allows herself to go to places that are just primal in nature.

Jill Kimball on David Leisner’s Facts of Life

Addiction. Heartbreak. Disappointment. We’d like to brush all these things under a rug, but sometimes they’re the facts of life. Composer David del Tredici chose to place his negative life experiences at the forefront of his four-movement solo guitar work, “Facts of Life.” It’s just one of three pieces on an album featuring the virtuosic guitarist David Leisner. The piece transitions effortlessly from tango to fugue to some fantastically frenetic strumming. Another beautifully chaotic piece on the album is Osvaldo Golijov’s “Fish Tale,” a chamber piece about a sea creature who takes a trippy, Alice in Wonderland-like journey through the water.

Geoffrey Larson on Ravi Shankar’s Symphony

This piece is something totally different: an orchestral work that is part symphony, part sitar concerto. Both a sitar master and long-time classical composer and collaborator, the late Ravi Shankar fashioned a four-movement work that brings Hindustani music to the Western orchestral ensemble. Pounding raga-like rhythms and dance figures can be found throughout, augmented by actual vocalizations by the LPO players in the final movement. The composer’s daughter, sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar shines in this live performance recording. Common practice period not spicy enough? These unique symphonic flavors might do the trick.

Staff & Community Picks: July 29

Posted on July 29, 2015 by maestrobeats

A weekly rundown of the music our staff and listeners are loving lately! Are you interested in contributing some thoughts on your favorite new music albums? Drop us a line!

Religion + hormones + hip hop beats = nihilist pop opera. The Little Death Vol. 1 is boppy, fun & sentimental. Strong vocals from Mellissa Hughes and Matt Marks’ twisted take on the traditional “boy meets girl” story make this one of my favorite CDs in our music library. I dare you not to dance to “I Don’t Have Any Fun.” – by Rachele Hales

If you enjoy Spanish and Latin American music, you’ll find a lot to love in “Andalusian Fantasy,” a collection of pieces written and performed by pianist Lionel Sainsbury. The compositions embrace the darker, more romantic side of traditional Latin music, incorporating a pleasantly crunchy chord just seldom enough to keep things melodic overall. Imagine if tango, Debussy, and Gershwin all met in one album, and you’ll get a sense for Sainsbury’s music. – by Jill Kimball

I’ve been a huge Arcade Fire fan for years, and I was completely awestruck when this album came out. The whole idea behind the works on this album – letting the human body dictate the tempi, is one of the most revolutionary concepts I’ve encountered in new music. I can’t really think of many albums that represent Second Inversion SO WELL – the composer/genre/artist crossover, the musicians on the album – yMusic, Kronos Quartet, Nadia Sirota, Nico Muhly, Aaron and Bryce Dessner – all are revolutionaries in the new music world and helping to create music that completely breaks the mold of classical, despite the instruments they’re playing. – by Maggie Stapleton

Staff & Community Picks: July 22

Posted on July 22, 2015 by maestrobeats

A weekly rundown of the music our staff and listeners are loving lately! Are you interested in contributing some thoughts on your favorite new music albums? Drop us a line!

Sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and let waves of lush, tonal music wash over you, and Nancy Galbraith’s music seems to be perfectly suited to those moments. Nancy’s music combines evocative, atmospheric sounds with driving rhythms and changing, dance-like meters. This most recent album presents works written for large chamber ensemble, solo piano, and large orchestra, all composed in the past four years. It features premiere performances given by students and faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, Galbraith’s resident institution, that were prepared in close collaboration with the composer and present an intimate picture of her creativity. – by Geoffrey Larson

Somewhere in between theatre and chamber music lives The Devil’s Tale, a sequel to Stravinsky’s L’Histoire Du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) but told backwards, turning the entire program into a kind of palindromic dance with the devil. This time, though, our protagonist Joseph triumphs in the end over the devil’s constant attempts to bring him down with his too-good-to-be-true offers by playing a trick of his own. Musically, the composer, James Stephenson, continues Stravinsky’s odd, rhythmically off-kilter score with his own unique version, occasionally borrowing little themes from L’Histoire. Stephenson closes the piece with the opening line from The Soldier’s Tale, bringing the palindromic dance to a close. – by David Wall

I can’t help but listen with my eyes first – I’m a sucker for artistic, unique album art. Martin Kennedy’s Trivial Pursuits delivers on the visual aesthetic and the aural stimulation. The title track, performed here by Lara St. John and Martin Kennedy is a celebration of their friendship and mutual love for the game Trivial Pursuit. Six unique musical sections and themes represent the six pie pieces one seeks to collect in the game. The Piano Sonata and Piano Concerto are great additions to the 21^st century repertoire as well, showcasing playful lines, brooding harmonies, and musical depth. – by Maggie Stapleton

Staff & Community Picks: July 15

Posted on July 15, 2015 by maestrobeats

A weekly rundown of the music our staff and listeners are loving lately! Are you interested in contributing some thoughts on your favorite new music albums? Drop us a line!

I recently rediscovered one of my (now) favorite piano pieces. I’m not even sure where to begin, it is almost unbelievably good. Stainless Staining by Donnacha Dennehy is the kind of piece that I can just put on repeat and let its relentless, perpetual, rhythmic drive push and pull me through my day, as it becomes a kind of soundtrack to my waking life. There are actually two tracks on this jaw-dropping EP release from Lisa Moore, but I can barely tell you anything about the second track, Reservoir, because I never seem to get to it with track 1 on endless repeat. — by James Holt

Every year, more than 100,000 people make the 500-mile pilgrimage from St Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Not all of them are Catholic, and not all of them are looking for a spiritual experience; some just crave adventure. You don’t have to be religious, or even spiritual, to find adventure in Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles,” an hour-long piece dedicated to the famous pilgrimage. The seventeen-part harmony, set to text that’s in turns religious, historical, and poetic, is indescribably beautiful. Talbot’s piece is the choral interpretation of a month-long journey filled with excitement, doubt, revelation, fear, and triumph. – by Jill Kimball

It’s just not every day that you hear a beatboxing flutist, and beyond that, one who can play circles around some of the best classically trained flutists in the world! Greg Pattillo, joined by cellist Eric Stephenson and bassist Peter Seymour are PROJECT Trio and make music so much fun by breathing, bowing, and plucking new life into classical favorites (Brahms Hungarian Dance No.5 and the Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah by Saint-Saens) and writing original tunes for their unusual trio combination, with titles on this disc such as Djangish, BRB, and 99 Mondays. – by Maggie Stapleton

Staff & Community Picks: July 9

Posted on July 9, 2015 by maestrobeats

A weekly rundown of the music our staff and listeners are loving lately! Are you interested in contributing some thoughts on your favorite new music albums? Drop us a line!

Beautiful poetry set to song and accompanied by sensitive piano playing. A sparkling collection of delicate and dazzling art songs – it’s worth buying for “The Vineyard Songs” alone. – by Rachele Hales

Despite living principally in the familiar chamber ensemble world of piano, strings, and winds, “The South Shore” feels like a different place and time. Through extensive use of simple, pure modal scales and harmonies, composer Michael Vincent Waller is able to effortlessly conjure impressions of otherness, without pointing directly to any particular era or locale. While these miniatures are beautiful in their simplicity, they are by no means unsophisticated – Waller is clearly familiar with the chamber music language, and each instrument speaks strongly in its individuality, while remaining blissfully uncomplicated as a whole. Evocative, unfettered, and at times even bucolic, Waller’s music transports, and all this music asks of us is to come along for the ride. – by Sarah Anthony

DJing was Henrik’s his first love, having built a reputation at major events in the early nineties and working as a remixer for artists like Mary J. Blige and Coldplay. With genuine curiosity, Henrik simply wanted to see what his music would sound like for a body of classical instruments. It goes a bit deeper, literally, with the use of low woodwinds (bass flute, bass clarinet, and bassoon) to help replace the low electronic bass sounds and kick drums. Pulsing strings and percussion provide a rhythmic aura not unreminiscent of night club culture, like trance music for classical instruments. This music is coming to a dance club near you, I hope! – by Maggie Stapleton