A Walk to Meryton
Made by Musicbots and Arne Eigenfeldt
Redshift Records TK533 (redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com)

North Vancouver-based composer Arne Eigenfeldt has worked with Artificial Intelligence since the1980s. His musical tool creation Musebots is a modular, interactive system which generates countless musical environments like washes, percussive sounds, held notes, intervals and low to high pitches. Ten pieces with video co-written and generated by Musebots feature genres like contemporary music, jazz, spoken word and electronics. Live human performers John Korsrud (trumpet, flugelhorn), Meredith Bates (violin), Jon Bentley (soprano & tenor saxophones) and Barbara Adler (text/reading) were recorded then overlaid to the Musebots tracks. Each musician was given a generated score with melodies, harmonic progressions and suggestions where to improvise. Adler wrote her spoken texts based on her conversations with Eigenfeldt about walking, Jane Austin, musebots and internal dialogs.

Room for a Moment features tonal, accessible lyricism like electronic clicks, held notes and ringing bell sounds between phrases. Background spoken words and violin mix well to closing comforting sound. Fit As You Are opens with a repeated walking and exercising drum beat. Then a bit slower with intervals and held notes. Spoken word articulation at times matches the generated rhythms. Trumpet and sax fit well but are too soft. In Pleasure to Suffer grim low held notes support higher lines of spoken word, alternating bell like sounds and held notes. Abrupt saxophone trills add interest. 

I am SO surprised and excited by this Musebots generated music. Yes, it still has that “familiar TV/film computer sound” yet Musebot’s lush harmonic tonal to atonal melodies, washes and percussive rhythms combine perfectly with the human performers.

Vanessa Marcoux – Cendres
Vanessa Marcoux; Marie-Christine Poirier; Strings
Independent (youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m8IULQX12yWqxLhPw-lHI63QGXkhcnHpQ)

This CD comes without any information about Vanessa Marcoux other than that she’s the violin soloist in her own compositions, performing with pianist Marie-Christine Poirier, also heard here, as Duo Cordelia. Also lacking, other than the movement titles, are any descriptions of the music. Searching online, I learned that she’s Québecoise, was born in 1986, studied composition with Ana Sokolović, was a member of the Juno-nominated klezmer band Oktopus and scored the film adaptation of Gabrielle Roy’s novel La riviėre sans repos.

At 28 minutes, Marcoux’s arrangement for violin, piano and string ensemble of her Violin Sonata dominates the disc. In Lento, the violin wails in desperation. The discordant tango of La porte entrebâillėe grows steadily faster and wilder. Improvisation – Le déroute is an extended, vehement solo cadenza. Tempo rubato’s lyricism is tinged with regret; the concluding Molto Aggressivo defines itself.

Petite Suite Aquatique is in two movements. Aquarium features long-lined, plaintive violin melodies over abrupt piano rhythms. In Deep Blue Saloon, a Romany-flavoured dance is followed by honky-tonk ragtime, ending raucously. According to the only description by Marcoux I could find online, it represents “a bar frequented by the motley fauna of the deep sea who have come to witness the burlesque stripping of a wanton octopus.” (!)

The densely-scored Cendres for string quintet begins with agitated propulsion before subsiding to restless songfulness. Although the CD lasts only 48 minutes, Marcoux’s intensely gripping, tempestuous music left me completely satisfied.

Cartografia del Mar
Andre Cabráin; Pedro Mateo Ganzález
Eudora Records EUD-SAC-2307 (eudorarecords.com)

The sea, like amniotic fluid, has the power to join us all, as creatures of consciousness, through the power of music. Cartografia Del Mar (A Map of the Sea) is a deeply stirring international and intergenerational program presented here by accomplished flutist (and Scotsman) Andre Cebrián and eminent classical guitarist (and Spaniard) Pedro Mateo González. The album’s, suites and stand-alone compositions are from Astor Piazzolla, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Toru Takemitsu, Robert Beaser, Leo Brouwer and Feliu Gasull. 

Up first is Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango. Lyrical and pungent, heavy with the aroma of Argentinian night life through the past century, this magnificent suite has been brilliantly re-imagined by Cebrián and González. In the first movement, Bordel 1900, the duo explores the bordello as the instigator of the 20th century roots of tango. Light, airy, joyous are all descriptive of this movement. Coy, jejune passages are interspersed with waves of intimacy and pungent secrets as Cambrián and González traverse intrigues of the Buenos Aires night like a single-celled organism. 

Italian icon Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Sonatina Op.205 is rendered here with exquisite care and skill by both artists, and captures every nuance of this gorgeous, rhythmically varied suite, rife with nearly unbearable beauty. Japanese composer Takemitsu contributes his masterful work, Toward the Sea. In the first movement, The Night, the listener’s skin tingles… all senses are open and awash with an eerie feeling of unseen presences, swathed in mystery… lower flute tones evoke a feeling of isolation, while the guitar is the veritable vapor on which the flute floats. Also of note is the “Mountain Songs” suite by New England-born Beaser. It is a work of pure Americana, stunningly rendered with authenticity by the duo. A magnificent work!

Nancy Galbraith – Everything Flows
Boston Modern Orchestra Project; Gil Rose
BMOP Sound 1096 (bmopsound.bandcamp.com/album/nancy-galbraith-everything-flows-concerto-for-solo-percussion-and-orchestra)

I’ve previously written reviews in The WholeNote praising five different CDs by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and conductor Gil Rose. Here’s another. These three very entertaining concertos by Nancy Galbraith, chair of composition at Carnegie Mellon University in her native Pittsburgh, were written for, premiered by and now recorded by three “friends and/or colleagues” – violinist-conductor-composer Alyssa Wang, new-music-championing flutist Lindsey Goodman and virtuoso percussionist Abby Langhorst.

Galbraith’s Violin Concerto No.1 (2016) begins with perky percussion and the violin playing buoyant Chinese-sounding melodies. In the elegiac second movement, Eggshell White Night, Galbraith’s tribute to a late friend, the violin laments amid gentle harp and piano arpeggios over solemn, sustained orchestral chords. The finale begins as a perpetuum mobile with headlong violin figurations and ends with grandiose orchestral perorations accompanying the violin’s rapid passagework.

The Flute Concerto (2019) is similarly structured. Two cheerful movements featuring percussion-enlivened Latin American dance rhythms bracket the Nocturne, in which the flute plays plaintive phrases and melodies, electronically echoed and amplified, over gloomy orchestral chords.

A wild barrage of syncopated Latin American rhythms launches the one-movement Everything Flows: Concerto for Solo Percussion and Orchestra (2019), gradually subsiding to a slower, quieter central section that evokes, for me, African drumming and the thumb-played mbira. The concerto ends with a raucous, jazzy jam session. It would be great fun to watch as the soloist becomes a one-person percussion section, playing nearly non-stop on at least 12 different instruments!

Virgil Thomson – A Gallery of Portraits for Piano and Other Piano Works
Craig Rutenberg
Everbest Music 1003 (virgilthomson.org)

Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) is chiefly remembered for his operas Four Saints in Three Acts and The Mother of Us All, both set to librettos by Gertrude Stein, and the orchestral suites he derived from his film scores – the one he arranged from Louisiana Story won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949. Writers about music also continue to cite Thomson’s acerbic reviews from his tenure as music critic of New York’s Herald Tribune (1940-1954).

This two-CD set contains 81 piano miniatures, most under two minutes, including 70 of the approximately 160 Portraits Thomson composed portraying friends and acquaintances, each present during the music’s creation. There are sentimental melodies, often hinting at familiar hymns and folk tunes, military fanfares and marches, merry-go-round music and playful dances, many spiced with puckish “wrong notes.”

I recognized only seven names among those depicted: composers Paul Bowles (a quirky, mildly-dissonant waltz), Lou Harrison (melodically and rhythmically ambiguous) and Aaron Copland (emphatically folksy); Pablo Picasso (Prokofiev-like percussiveness) and Picasso’s mistress Dora Maar (restlessly meandering); actor-producer John Houseman (meditative) and this recording’s pianist, Craig Rutenberg (gently rocking). Rutenberg, a good friend of Thomson, has enjoyed a distinguished career as teacher, vocal coach and accompanist for such stars as Diana Damrau, Frederica von Stade and Ben Heppner.  

Five selections from Thomson’s ballet Filling Station evoke vigorous work-songs, while the four-piece Suite from the film The Plow that Broke the Plains features Cowboy Songs and Blues, adding to this collection’s significance.

Souvenirs
Carlos Manuel Vargas
Navona Records nv6615 (navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6615)

Multi-award winning, Dominican Republic-born, Boston-based pianist Carlos Manuel Vargas performs a compilation of 13 technically and stylistically wide-ranging eclectic international solo compositions chosen with “[persons of influence on] my career in mind, hence the title of “Souvenirs” … a small gesture for all the support I have received over the years.”

The opening Impressões Seresteiras by Heitor Villa-Lobos is an attention-grabbing virtuosic and dramatic piece. From soft sparkling beginning, to louder clear runs, trills and lower notes, Vargas plays with well thought-out precision. Earl Wild’s arrangements of two George Gershwin compositions for solo piano – Virtuosic Etudes after Gershwin: The man I love, and Embraceable You – are each more classical/romantic takes of the famous jazz tunes, performed here with unique colourful sounds. The highlight of the three Rafael Bullumba Landestoy compositions is the short danceable jazz/Latin sounding Estudio en Zamba which drives Vargas’ energetic performance. Vargas plays the original first two movements of Alexander Scriabin’s Sonata Fantasy:  Piano Sonata No. 2 in G Sharp Minor Op.19. A soft reflective straightforwardly intelligent rendition of I. Andante I is contrasted by the superfast II. Presto. Three famous Edith Piaf songs are included and the highlight is Varga’s interpretation of La vie en rose, arranged by Roberto Piana. Vargas’ slightly rubato emotional playing gives the sense of a sung melody as it alternates between left and right hand to a soft high-pitched closing. Inspired performances of Poulenc, Vitier and Golijov compositions complete the release.

Kinetic
Kinetic Ensemble
Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0189 (brightshiny.ninja/kinetic)

Houston-based Kinetic ensemble was formed in 2015. The 16 professional younger generation string players perform without a conductor in flexible classical chamber and orchestral formations. This debut release consists of four works Kinetic commissioned and premiered which explore the connection between musical sounds and the natural world. 

The Wilderness Anthology by Patrick Harlin is an intriguing seven-movement, beautifully scored work for string orchestra and pre-recorded audio soundscapes from remote and imperiled ecosystems on the Amazon. I. Reverence/Dusk opens with very quiet prerecorded wildlife sounds like bird whistling. Instrumentals begin with melodic, contrapuntal string parts and repeated rhythmic low strings groove. VII. Dawn/Reverence features held notes alternating with recorded wave sounds. 

Avian themes reappear in Paul Novak’s A String Quartet is like a Flock of Birds, with very tight playing of accessible contemporary music. The held notes, plucks, high pitches and melodies are played alone or all at once in fast to slow tempi. To me it sounds like a sunny day with birds in the backyard! Next is Nicky Sohn’s What Happens if Pipes Burst? The softer slower string interludes are very musical and reflective. A faster ending with virtuosic super fast playing adds excitement. Daniel Temkin’s Ocean’s Call for String Orchestra is a three-movement composition for full orchestra. The extended cello solos in I. Hanging Cliffs, Rising Mist are dramatic. III. Lullaby Waves is sparse with passionate solos and an intense closing that slows down to bring this enjoyable album to an exquisite conclusion.

Gundaris Pone – Portraits
Liepaja Symphony Orchestra; Guntis Kuzma; Normunds Sne
SKANI LMIC SKANI 161 (lmic.lv/lv/skani/catalogue?id=244)

In 1950, Latvia-born Gundaris Pone (1932-1994) moved to the U.S., studied composition and, from 1963 until his death, taught composition at the State University of New York at New Paltz, also serving as artistic director and conductor of New Paltz’s annual Music in the Mountains Festival.

Pone’s single-movement, 24-minute Avanti! (1975) features violent dissonances, funereal solemnity and bitter irony, with quotations from the 1905 Latvian revolutionary anthem, With Battle Cries on Our Lips, Berg’s Wozzeck, a lamenting Bach chorale and repeated cuckoo calls. Helping to coordinate the score’s polyrhythms, conductor Guntis Kuzma is assisted by Normunds Šnē.

Filled with exaggerated, off-kilter cinematic tropes, American Portraits (1983-1984) depicts stereotypical representations of five professions: inventor (eerie woodwinds, jagged bursts of heavy percussion); film star (jaunty, cliché cowboy sauntering); powerful financier (film-noir dramatics with pounding brass and percussion); gangster (train whistles and boisterous jazzy riffs – Pone specified “1920s style,” so conductor Kuzma added a washboard to the mix); military genius (furious fanfares and a wild, Ivesian victory-march).

Pone enjoyed extended stays in Venice, and his brilliantly orchestrated La Serenissima, Seven Venetian Portraits (1979-1981) presents kaleidoscopic imagery of a day in the city, from morning shadows to afternoon waters, evening chatter and night fog: spectral Venice, in addition to the Arch of Paradise, the mouth of the lion and a meeting with the messenger of death. I found La Serenissima’s discordant impressionism – a vividly expressive amalgam of Debussy and Alban Berg – riveting listening throughout.

Serenade: I Miss You
Nicolas Hurt
Independent (nicolashurt.bandcamp.com)

Texas guitarist/educator/composer Nicolas Hurt showcases his creativity in this “short but sweet” under 25-minute release. During the 2021 COVID isolation Hurt commissioned three of his Austin musician friends for a solo guitar piece. Hurt was so inspired that these, along with his own composition, became the soundtrack to the 2023 film he directed, produced and performed on screen, with each tune introduced by composer commentaries. His EP liner notes encourage listeners to “find the film online and give it a watch”.

Zeke Jarmon’s Lemonade is not classical per se, though tonal with contrasting detached repeated notes and melodic sections, calm lower pitches and slower brief rock, pop, folk and jazz quenching one’s musical thirst. Justice Philips’ Serenade, I Miss You is more contemporary. Love the romantic feel with subtle atonality, short melodic fast to slow sections, chords, plucks, strums and higher soft melodies. Hurt’s three part The Springs is inspired by his beloved swimming locale. Minimalistic repeated descending lines and gentle brief high-pitched notes with occasional atonality emulate rippling water in 1. Hillside. The guitar becomes a percussion instrument with Hurt’s soft guitar taps to loud hits with resonating strings in 2. Ubiquitous Drum Circle. Slow meditative sounds in 3. Under Deep Water (after Satie). Claire Puckett’s Lantern is intense yet calming. Short soft single note sections alternate with melody, silences and colourful chords.

These four stylistically diverse works are just as stellar without the visuals. Performed with inspirational musicality and technique by Hurt, the musical charm increases with each subsequent listen.

Known and Unknown – solo piano works by Rodney Sharman
Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa
Redshift Records TK539
(rodneysharman.com)

Patrick Giguere – Intimes Exubérances
Cheryl Duvall
Redshift Records TK545
(patrickgiguere.ca)

Nova Pon – Symphonies of Mother and Child
Turning Point Ensemble; Owen Underhill
Redshift Records TK564 (novapon.com)

Rounding up some of Redshift’s recent releases we see that this West Coast label continues to bring significant Canadian compositions to light with impressive frequency. 

To enjoy the whimsical ingenuity of Rodney Sharman’s work on Known and Unknown, even before you listen to a single note or phrase played by pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa who interprets his whimsy, you may be well advised to consider everything that is part of the known world to be unknown. Such is the bewilderment and wonder of his music that the very air around you may be filled with green people, with crimson eyes and glittering silver and golden hair – a kind of ecstasy experienced should you dare let a proverbial genie out of a prismatic bottle.

For instance, in the first three parts of the recording fabled – and real – operatic characters from Monteverdi, Puccini, and Wagner – yes, even Wagner, whose dogma was cast in bronze – are turned inside out. Genders are not merely reversed but inverted so that characters are imbued with wholly new personalities. 

Now imagine what this might do with your senses, set free of convention. Suddenly – even if you are stuck in conventions that are long dead – you can revel in beauty of an unexpected kind, be awestruck by love of a different sort, experiencing music played – no! sung – by a pianist who uses a tangy inimitable harmonic language to drive you to the delightful madness of a new, full-blooded romanticism, like a spell cast by Sharman’s bewitching compositions.

On Intimes Exubérances Cheryl Duvall’s highly inflected interpretations of Patrick Giguère’s laudable compositions are of a different kind than the pianistic expressions of the music reviewed above. The repertoire is, of course, equally impressive but as befits the tenor and meaning of the work, what is impressive here is not just the magnificent and reactive pianism on show, but also Duvall’s maturity.

Her performances of the four sections of this work possess a stunning èlan: magnificently ethereal in Partie I – à la frontière d l’intangible, by turns, tenderly delicate and rhythmically rippling in the Partie II – tisser le présent and with a biting drive in Partie III – corps, hors de temps. Finally, Partie IV – lueurs en voix is brilliantly virtuosic, with an understanding of the striking light and shade of this movement.

All told, the excellent sound and annotations tilt the balance dramatically in favour of Duvall’s serious and enlivening artistry. 

Composers who venture into the realm of chamber work do so at their own peril, especially when they de rigueur must live up to the brilliant standards set by older contemporaries and look over their shoulders at past masters such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Bartók. But Nova Pon, for one, has gone past intimidation to produce a long piece World Within, and the significant five-movement Symphonies of Mother and Child.

It is clear from the first strains of World Within that the composer knows the importance of embracing the past while going her own way. The swirling gestures at the outset are like jolts of Bartók that quickly give way to Pon’s forceful and expressive sound world. Likewise, the organically arranged five movements of Symphonies of Mother and Child give the correct impression of being an intensely felt work from solemn to invigorating ideas, with ample contrapuntal interplay to keep the narratives rich and layered. 

The performers of the Turning Point Ensemble show how masterfully attuned to the vision and artistry of Nova Pon and how deeply they have interiorised this music in their idiomatically turned-out recital.

Listen to 'Nova Pon: Symphonies of Mother and Child' Now in the Listening Room

Brent Lee – Homstal
Brent Lee; Various Artists
Centrediscs CMCCD32223 (cmccanada.org/shop/homstal)

Windsor Ontario composer and media artist Brent Lee’s work explores relationships among music, image and technology, especially through multimedia performance. A professor of Integrated Media in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Windsor, he’s composed music for orchestra, interactive media and film soundtracks. 

Lee’s recent work integrates electroacoustic composition, improvisation, saxophone performance, videography, Max computer programming and field recording. His Homstal project reflects those interests. Homstal, the Old English word meaning “home” or “homestead,” reflects that much of the work on this project was accomplished at his studio in rural Ontario. While the six Homstal album tracks are studio productions, each can be presented as an audiovisual environment allowing for improvisation and site-specific variation. 

In his liner notes Lee acknowledges that Homstal “grew directly out of my work with my friends in the Noiseborder Ensemble and I am grateful for their generous collaboration. … Martin Schiller plays electric bass on Overtro and Aaron Eichler plays the long snare drum sample used in DOT 1000.”

A quiet, chill, non-metric chamber jazz vibe presides over the album articulated by Lee’s eloquent sax playing and his chosen harmonic textures. The opening track for instance begins with soft spacialised sax key clack sounds, joined by a wandering cantabile soprano sax melody featuring sustained notes delicately ornamented with alternate fingerings. A seemingly un-metred treble melody on upright piano is then added; in turn the whole is deftly contextualised by several layers of electronic sounds. 

A dreamy Southwestern Ontario mist seems to have settled on Lee’s Homstal music.

Anthony Rozankovic – Origami
Louise Bessette
ATMA ACD2 2895 (atmaclassique.com/en)

Friends in Montreal have spoken for years about composer Anthony Rozankovich so it’s a delight to finally have a collection of his music to display some of this talent. Origami is an album of his music for solo piano performed with enormous dedication, virtuosity and sensitivity by Louise Bessette. 

Some of these works began life as film scores and others were composed as concert pieces; most are between three and four minutes long but a few are longer. Accessible but sophisticated, Rozankovich’s music displays his deep understanding of the building blocks of music: this is tonal, lyrical music but not at all facile or predictable. The listener is rewarded over and over again with gorgeous moments of introspection and nostalgia, complex counterpoint, some grit and even some humour. The composer has a fondness for waltz-like episodes but always he shows us his delicious mastery of harmony, taking us in unexpected directions and into curious sidebars. 

As a favourite, I might choose the thoughtful nostalgia of Avenue Zéro or Errance but I also love the fusion-inspired Andalouse Running Shoes and the quirky and rhapsodic Pigeon Biset (Rock Dove) which is available online but not on the disc itself. If there’s a shortcoming to this collection, it might be that the music is too interesting to use as background music and requires time to enjoy. It’s time well spent.

What Brings You In
Leslie Ting; Various Artists
People Places Records PPR | 045 (peopleplacesrecords.bandcamp.com)

Toronto-based violinist and interdisciplinary artist Leslie Ting’s creative output has incorporated elements of installation and theatre as much as pure musical expression. Her unusual career trajectory is also of note. After working as a licensed optometrist, from 2013-2017 she served as Associate Principal Second violinist in the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra.

Ting’s theatre work Speculation layered the music of John Cage and Beethoven with a monologue and projections to tell the story of her mother “slowly losing her vision, while [Leslie] makes a career change to pursue her dream of becoming a professional musician.”

An unconventional, ambitious debut album What Brings You In is much more than a violin recital of contemporary repertoire. Calling it, “A violinist confronts the noise of her psyche in an electroacoustic soundscape,” Ting operates both as a director and performer in the project, employing talk therapy, hypnotherapy, dreamwork, sandplay, somatics and reiki in her creative process with her co-musicians. 

Having been produced as a live theatrical event and a web-based installation, for this five-track audio recording of What Brings You In Ting has collaborated with several Canadian musicians: Germaine Liu on percussion and amplified sandbox, while Matt Smith, Rose Bolton and Julia Mermelstein provided electronic sounds, the latter two also contributing compositions.

The album also features Ting as eloquent solo violinist, beginning with Linda Catlin Smith’s delicately austere violin and percussion composition Dirt Road. Bolton’s Beholding for solo violin and electronics follows the composer’s sometimes turbulent internal therapeutic transformation. Mermelstein’s Folds in Crossings couches Ting’s violin performance in orchestral sounding electronic textures, culminating in a final peaceful violin sigh.

MC Maguire – Dystophilia
MC Maguire Orchestra/CPU
Neuma 190 (neumarecords.org)

The other day when I heard my neighbour’s pounding bass (something pop, disco or otherwise annoying) I responded by turning Dystophilia, M.C. Maguire’s new release, up to 11; the battle ended soon after. He offers sound-pressure supremacy that out-cools whatever tired torch song or clichéd show tune my neighbour enjoys. As a pacifist I don’t relish these battles, and only engage when the next-door volume is too high for my peaceful soul, but Maguire’s Yummy World (track one, followed by Another Lucid Dream) provides sonic delight as well as firepower. That said, I caution against the all-out assault: this is rich and textured music, so while high-volume might be your thing, you’ll possibly miss some of the depths if you indulge in your kink too much. You do you, though, no judgement.

Gone are the days, I think, when record executives would target sound thieves in their war on audio crime (aka creativity). There’s just way too much borrowing or sampling today. They all make a mint on streaming platforms, anyway, enjoying profits from the Justin Biebers of the industry. How can they prevent Robin Hoodlums like Maguire from using a tune like Yummy to generate the mind-blowing soundscape presented here? Do I hear the Beebs? Arguable. What I definitely hear is pop-mageddon, a kind of hyper-layered riff on every aspect of the aesthetic. 

One reviewer references (or steals, I think) John Oswald’s term “plunderphonics;” Oswald got in trouble with another Michael, the late King of pop. I’d be disappointed to learn either that Maguire had received warning shots across his bow, or worse, had bowed to the power of Big Music’s money managers and received permission to extrapolate the stuff he uses/sends up/improves. Anyway, the result is exciting, even if not used in battle.

Jan Järvlepp – Sonix and Other Tonix
Various Artists
Navona Records nv6603 (navonarecords.com)

Ottawa-based Jan Järvlepp is an experienced composer, freelance and orchestral cellist, teacher and recording technician. After completing a doctorate in composition and 20th century avant-garde music, he began composing in the neo-tonal style instead, incorporating accessible classical, contemporary, world, folk, jazz, pop and rock music styles for various instrumentations. 

Sonix, composed for the Mexican Ónix ensemble, combines elements from two of his earlier works. Performed here by Trio Casals with guests Chelsey Menig flute and Antonello DiMatteo clarinet, there’s exciting listening throughout with opening fast tonal minimalistic lines, a middle section with supportive piano background below calming lyrical flute, and repeated accented descending short lines to closing loud rock chord. Trio Casals perform Trio No. 3, Järvlepp’s three movement musical protest against the rise of surveillance. The first movement Surveillance Cameras Everywhere features repeated piano rhythms with accented instrument shots imitating surveillance cameras snapping pictures. 

Nishikawa Ensemble performs Shinkansen, a two-movement ride on a Japanese bullet train musically driven here by short percussive hits. Members of the Benda Quartet perform Trio No.5, for violin, viola and cello, Järvlepp’s protest over the COVID shutdown rules. Strength in the Face of Adversity has a classically-influenced violin melody, and the constant rhythmic backdrop keeps the tense music and listener moving during the shutdown. 

The solo piano Insect Drive was composed at home during lockdown with Järvlepp’s self-described “treble sounds and bouncy rhythms.” It is performed here by Anna Kislitsyna. Trio Casals returns for In Memoriam, a respectful, caring, sad lyrical compositional tribute for his late brother.

Listen to 'Jan Järvlepp: Sonix and Other Tonix' Now in the Listening Room