VIDEO PREMIERE: Melia Watras’s ‘Berceuse’

Posted on January 25, 2019 by maestrobeats

Fairy tales and folk songs are just a couple of the major influences behind violist Melia Watras’s new album, Schumann Resonances. More specifically, the album grew out of her love for Schumann’s Märchenbilder (Pictures from Fairyland), one of the great pieces of the viola repertoire.

The album features Watras performing six world premieres of new works inspired by Märchenbilder, fairy tales, and other folklore. Among them are enchanting new pieces by Cuong Vu, Richard Karpen, and Watras herself.

We’re thrilled to premiere the video for one of Watras’s original compositions from the album, “Berceuse with a Singer in London.” Scored for voice and viola, Watras dedicated the piece to folk singer Galia Arad (the daughter of violist and composer Atar Arad, with whom Watras studied). The piece is equal parts art song and folk lullaby, its intertwining melodies made more potent by its sparse texture and poetic text, which was written by Watras’s frequent collaborator, violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim.

Schumann Resonances also marks the launch of Planet M Records, a brand new record label founded this year by Watras and Lim. The Seattle-based, artist-led label specializes in music at the intersection of classical and contemporary.

Melia Watras’s Schumann Resonances is out Friday, Feb. 8 on Planet M Records. Click here to learn more and pre-order the album.

VIDEO PREMIERE: ‘Fields’ by Anna Thorvaldsdottir ft. ICE

Posted on November 29, 2018 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

Anna Thorvaldsdottir finds inspiration in nature—her music is its own ecosystem, the nuanced textures shared, traded, and transformed among individual instruments over the course of her works.

You won’t hear any birds chirping or water splashing in this sonic ecosystem, but you will hear the full subtleties of timbre, the complex interplay of voices, the way the music expands and contracts, breathing and humming and vibrating like the earth.

That notion of seismic balance is at the heart of Thorvaldsdottir’s newest album AEQUA, a constellation of chamber works (plus one solo piano piece) that explore shimmering nuances of sound. Her delicately textured compositions are brought to life by the International Contemporary Ensemble with conductor Steven Schick.

We are thrilled to premiere the video for the album’s closing track Fields, featuring a mixture of footage taken by Sono Luminus CEO Collin Rae and Thorvaldsdottir’s husband Hrafn Asgeirsson, woven together and edited by Allison Noah.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s AEQUA is out now on Sono Luminus. Click here to learn more and purchase the album.

VIDEO PREMIERE: ‘Spirals’ by Maria Huld Markan Sigfusdottir

Posted on November 12, 2018 by maestrobeats

Nordic Affect (Left to right: Hanna Loftsdóttir, Guðrún Hrund Harðardóttir, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, and Guðrún Óskarsdóttir.) Photo by David Oldfield.

by Maggie Molloy

“Hér” is the Icelandic word for here. That idea of being present—of listening, of connecting here and now through music is at the heart of Nordic Affect’s new album He(a)r. Out now on Sono Luminus, the album is a collection of seven world premiere recordings penned by women composers and performed by women musicians.

“He(a)r is an ode to hear, here, hér, and her,” writes Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, the ensemble’s artistic director and violinist. Wide-ranging sound worlds from Stefánsdóttir, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, Mirjam Tally, and Hildur Guðnadóttir comprise the album, each offering a distinct perspective on the ways in which we hear and create sound—our individual voices and the ways in which they interact.

“Spirals,” one of two works contributed by María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, circles around these themes and expands outward: dense chords, hazy melodies, and fragmented sounds from an old music box echo and grow into an immersive meditation on time itself.

We are thrilled to premiere a brand new video for Sigfúsdóttir’s composition “Spirals,” performed by Nordic Affect.

Nordic Affect’s He(a)r is out now on Sono Luminus. Click here to listen to the full album.

VIDEO PREMIERE: ‘Lightness of Being’ by R.D. King

Posted on November 8, 2018 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Molloy

R.D. King is interested in exploring big questions through music. Questions of psychology, philosophy—even questions of our own existence.

These are just a few of the themes explored in the guitarist’s debut album vs. Self, a collection of introspective acoustic guitar works. Inspired by art, literature, and cinema, King’s compositions typically begin with narrative and expand outward into abstraction.

The album’s first track explores the philosophical underpinnings of Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being: a rumination on the ephemeral nature of life, with both the freedoms and limitations it brings. Just as the novel explores the paradox of lightness and weight, King’s composition merges elements of classical technique with steel-string guitar, balancing buoyant melodies against driving rhythms and shifting textures.

We’re thrilled to premiere a brand new video of R.D. King performing his original composition “Lightness of Being.”

This video was produced by Lightning Bulb Productions and Nico Rivers and shot at the Gallery at Villageworks with artwork by Linda Hoffman.

Click here to listen to R.D.’s debut album, vs. Self. His second self-titled album is set for release in January 2019.

VIDEO PREMIERE: ‘Substratum’ by Jeff Snyder

Posted on November 2, 2018 by maestrobeats

by Gabriela Tedeschi

It’s unusual, perhaps unheard of, to pair a pedal steel guitar with a traditional string quartet. But composer Jeff Snyder does just that in his piece “Substratum,” from his upcoming album Concerning the Nature of Things.

Combining seemingly discordant elements is central to Snyder’s style. His new album draws inspiration from a wide array of sources: Brazilian rhythms, medieval polyphony, and contemporary experimental music, to name just a few. It also features electronic instruments that Snyder invented and built himself.

“Substratum” begins with each instrument contributing one sustained note at a time, sometimes leaving pockets of suspenseful silence, and other times overlapping to create unsettling harmonies and unexpected timbral combinations. When the piece gains energy, the instruments unleash eerie melodies that clash and intertwine. The result is a creepy, but rich and captivating flurry of sound.

“Substratum” was written for Susan Alcorn and the Mivos Quartet, who perform it here in a brand new video directed by Caroline Key.