Genres can be compared to landscapes: they are places where people gawk like tourists, set up camp on Spotify playlists, and explore musical structures. Juro Kim Feliz sat down with me in November 2021 to talk about the challenges of creating in both the Filipino and the Canadian contemporary classical-music landscapes, and also about aContinue reading “The Spatial Sonic Designs of Juro Kim Feliz”
Genre Archives
Jessica Pavone. Lull.
Jessica Pavone’s new album is a close-range recording of her four-movement work Lull for string octet and soloists. Knowing only that Pavone is a violist and composer, I embarked unencumbered by preconceptions on a first listen to the work’s earnest, pulsing waves. The musicians are panned to create the effect of surrounding the listener andContinue reading “Jessica Pavone. Lull.”
Christopher Otto. Rag’sma.
Microtonal tuning systems have provided the underlying architecture for some of the most intriguing and sumptuous works of the past century; yet even among adventurous listeners, there is still some prejudice about these approaches. In the press release accompanying his debut release as a composer, Rag’sma, Christopher Otto attempts to dispel these assumptions. “I don’tContinue reading “Christopher Otto. Rag’sma.”
Jessica Moss. Phosphenes.
Phosphenes is composer-violinist Jessica Moss’s first release since Entanglement in 2018. Defined as the experience of seeing light and shapes while the eye is closed, Phosphenes is an apt title for an album made as the pandemic’s bleakness is starting to allow cracks of light—and hope—come through. In the Contemplation suite, which constitutes the firstContinue reading “Jessica Moss. Phosphenes.”
Aiyun Huang. Resonances.
On Resonances, Toronto-based percussionist Aiyun Huang showcases an eclectic range of musical ideas. The seven-track album is out on the Chicago label Sideband, which was founded in 2020 to present a wide spectrum of new-music records. Resonances features works by an assortment of contemporary classical composers who each offer a different atmosphere—some pieces are coldContinue reading “Aiyun Huang. Resonances.”
Akropolis Reed Quintet. Ghost Light / Quasar. De souffles et de machines III
The year 2021 delivered eclectic offerings of literal and abstract artistic storytelling in U.S.-based Akropolis Reed Quintet’s most recent album Ghost Light, and the latest iteration of De souffles et de machines by Canadian new-music veterans Quasar. The strength of Akropolis Reed Quintet’s latest album Ghost Light is the vast spectrum and variety of theContinue reading “Akropolis Reed Quintet. Ghost Light / Quasar. De souffles et de machines III”
Linda Catlin Smith. Ballad.
Traditional ballads, Scottish writer Willa Muir once suggested, arise from deep strata of shared human experience. They open onto landscapes of feeling and imagination that have their own unhurried rhythms, quite distinct from the regulatory measures of clock time. This performance by cellist Anton Lukoszevieze and pianist Kerry Young of Linda Catlin Smith’s Ballad (2004)Continue reading “Linda Catlin Smith. Ballad.”
Anna Webber. Idiom.
Born in British Columbia, trained at McGill University, and living in New York since 2008, flutist, saxophonist, and composer Anna Webber is one of the most critically acclaimed forces in new music today. This latest double CD release reveals that her musical language easily matches her past Guggenheim and Downbeat award-winning work. On the firstContinue reading “Anna Webber. Idiom.”
Barbara Monk Feldman. Verses.
The Northern Shore alludes in its title to Gaspé Peninsula, eastern Quebec, where the St. Lawrence flows into the Atlantic. The four other titles on this disc lack such site specificity, yet all five compositions may be heard as meditations on diffusion. The presence of each note as it appears in Barbara Monk Feldman’s musicContinue reading “Barbara Monk Feldman. Verses.”
