STAFF PICKS: Friday Faves

Posted on April 28, 2017 by maestrobeats

Second Inversion hosts share a favorite selection from their weekly playlist. Tune in on Friday, April 28 to hear these pieces and plenty of other new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre!

Shara Nova: You Us We All (Zosima)
Performed with Baroque Orchestration X

In recent years there’s been a notable resurgence of Baroque forms and instruments in contemporary classical music—but nowhere so convincingly as in Shara Nova’s Baroque chamber pop opera You Us We All.

This colorful court masque tells the story of five allegorical characters searching for meaning in the modern age, traversing through corny fan letters and cornetto solos, broken hearts and Baroque instruments all along the way.

Nova’s lustrous vocals sparkle in the leading role of Hope, alongside a small but mighty cast of singers who play Virtue, Love, Time, and of course, Death. Baroque Orchestration X provides a clean and courtly backdrop on period instruments, with some more modern percussion (typewriter, anyone?) thrown in for a 21st-century spin. All in all, it’s the perfect marriage of old and new: antique instruments, modern music, timeless themes—and just a dash of existentialism. – Maggie Molloy

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 2pm hour today to hear an excerpt from this piece.

Béla Fleck and Mike Marshall: “The Big Cheese” (Sony Classical)

Here in Seattle, it FINALLY feels like spring has arrived… after a record-breaking-ly soggy winter (look it up). Still, I’ve been feeling some hesitation to go outside and reconnect with the glowing orb in the sky. If you, like me, could use a kick in the pants to “get out there,” this track could just do the trick. The lithe Appalachian flavors here are mixed with some decidedly more square music by English Renaissance composer William Byrd. Perfect!
– Seth Tompkins

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 3pm hour today to hear this piece.

Patrick Laird: “Che”
Performed by Break of Reality

Break of Reality is the ultimate “don’t usually like classical but I love this” band. They brand themselves as “cello rock” and it’s a fitting description as even my punk-rock-playing drummer dad would feel at home in this music. With fierce cellos and intense percussion, “Che” is a passionate, almost violent, exploration of anger and fear. If you’re looking for a unique classical experience, this is your stop.
– Rachele Hales

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 6pm hour today to hear this piece.

Julia Wolfe: Early that summer (Innova Records)
Performed by ETHEL

Boy, this is a crunchy piece. Wolfe uses dissonance throughout this ostinato-filled string quartet to propel the energy along, creating an unfolding sense of conflict. It makes sense: she composed the work while reading a book on American political history, where seemingly small incidents (often introduced in the book with the phrase “early that summer”) would snowball into major political crises. This piece was composed in 1992, but it still represents some music that instead of shying away from the dissonance of our current political climate, dives fully in and revels in it. – Geoffrey Larson

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 9pm hour today to hear this piece.

STAFF PICKS: Friday Faves

Posted on June 17, 2016 by maestrobeats

Second Inversion hosts share a favorite selection from this Friday’s playlist. Tune in during the indicated hours below on Friday, June 17 to hear these pieces. In the meantime, you’ll hear other great new and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre 24/7!

Frédéric Chopin (arr. Chad Lawson): Prelude No.20 in C minor, Op.28 (Hillset Records)
Judy Kang, violin; Rubin Kodheli, cello; Chad Lawson, piano
cover Sometimes, modern re-interpretations of older music yield a product that would not necessarily strike the unguarded listener as terribly modern or even slightly derivative. Chad Lawson’s release The Chopin Variations is one such project. Specifically, the Prelude No.20 in C minor, Op.28 strikes me as a highly successful example. This track is not so much a re-imagining as it is a modern re-hearing of the original. This track is a tangible manifestation of the way Chopin’s original might be internally experienced by a modern listener, filtered through fields of distraction, memories of alternative styles, and competing musical influences. Lawson infuses the Prelude with shades of minimalism, new-age music, and gentle rhapsodic fragments that seem to naturally flow from the original, organically replicating a potential internal mashup that might occur inside the head of modern listener. Maybe modern distraction isn’t an entirely bad thing, after all. – Seth Tompkins

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 9am hour today to hear this piece.

Patrick Laird: The Farewell (Break of Reality)

a3228272509_10 Cello rock! Heck yeah! You may already be familiar with Break of Reality if you’re one of the 11 million people who have viewed their “Game of Thrones Theme” cello cover on YouTube (it’s badass!), but this group was totally unknown to me until recently. If you like metal you’ll dig this. If you like tribal beats you’ll dig this. If you like classical you’ll dig this. “The Farewell” is cinematic, textural and so beautifully harmonious. – Rachele Hales

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 1pm hour today to hear this piece.

Cindy Cox: “Playing A Round” performed by Keynote+ (Albany Records)

unnamed I’ll be honest: I don’t really like harpsichord. Even when I hear really good harpsichord music, my first thought is still always “Wow, but imagine if that was played on piano instead!”

Suffice it to say, there are very few harpsichord pieces on my new music playlist. To me, most harpsichord works belong squarely in the pure and polite “early music” category.

Or at least, that’s what I thought—until I discovered a most unusual (Read: GENIUS!) multi-keyboard project called Keynote+, comprised of Jane Chapman on harpsichord and Kate Ryder on prepared piano. In this recording from a concert at UC Berkeley, the two each lend their ten fingers and tireless musical talents to a piece called “Playing a Round” by Cindy Cox.

Across five short movements, the piece blurs the line between Baroque harpsichord and 20^th century avant-garde piano idioms, at times making it difficult to tell where one instrument ends and the other begins. Together, Keynote+ envelops the listener in a gorgeously percussive and richly colored orchestra of sound—and all with just two keyboard instruments and 20 very quick fingers. One’s thing for sure: these keyboardists are not playing around. – Maggie Molloy

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 7pm hour today to hear this piece.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Break of Reality’s “TEN”

Posted on September 22, 2014 by maestrobeats

by Maggie Stapleton

Break of Reality is a quartet composed of 3 cellists and a percussionist who perform music ranging from Tool to Radiohead to Bach to their own original compositions inspired by rock, classical, folk, and pop music.

There are a lot of attempts at this genre cross-pollinization these days, but BoR REALLY does it well. This music is genuine and it doesn’t try too hard. Percussionist Ivan Trevino says, “Rock is as much in our blood as classical music. Our music is organic; we’re not doing it as a gimmick to play rock music on the cello. We want our instruments to be respected both in the classical and rock worlds.” Success, I say!

“Ten,” their latest release (buy it here!), is the band’s proudest and most mature record to date. All of the songs are original compositions by cellist Patrick Laird and/or Ivan Trevino and their sound has transitioned from “heavy metal cello band” to a more mellow, classically influenced sound, which comes across very authentically. They also experimented with different microphones and recording techniques and invested in a lot of their own equipment with this album. The result is well-balanced, nuanced, yet totally grooves.

I had the pleasure of talking to Ivan and Patrick about a few of the tracks and learned the following tidbits:

“Star” was written for Patrick Laird’s wife, Marnie, who makes a guest piano appearance on the track.

“Helix” is one of their favorite tunes to perform, with a winding cello riff that travels through all different types of time signatures, leaving one wondering if it’s in 7 or 4. Can you figure it out?

“Six” is the only track on the album that Ivan Trevino wrote all on his own. It was a originally a mallet sextet composed for the Eastman Percussion ensemble. This arrangement is for three cellos, piano, 2 percussionists and features marimba, piano, glockenspiel, and drumset. It has a cinematic, mellow, indie rock flavor, “kind of like Bon Iver meets Steve Reich,” as Ivan puts it.

BoR independently releases all of their records. Trevino recognizes that as a cello band with no singer, their sound doesn’t appeal to a pop music demographic. Rather, they use their niche genre to be 100% in charge of the art. They can take complete control of record sales, keep all of the income from record sales, and have all of the say in the sound and recording process.

Oh, and the sweet cover artwork? It was done by Lauren Yandell, one of Ivan’s high school marching bandmates!

Keep an eye on BoR’s tour schedule and check them out live, if you get a chance. Percussionist Ivan Trevino says Break of Reality’s shows have the energy of rock concerts; the music is memorized which helps communication and interaction with the audience and there are elements of improv. The cellists have more articulate, aggressive, vertical types of bow strokes to get the “rock sound,” while playing with a drummer. However, they always try to bring the unexpected and keep their classical roots at heart and keep the audience guessing what’s going to come next – rock or Bach.

Cheers to you, Break of Reality, for a fantastic new album! We can’t wait to hear what’s next to come.