01/28/22: Indigenous, Invented, Innovative, and Integrated
Featuring Bob Chilcott, Eric Nathan, Ondřej Adámek, and Steve Roden
Welcome to Keeping Score! I hope you had a great week. I have four new releases for you today.
The Music
Something Sung
British composer Bob Chilcott released Circlesong. Tonal, dramatic, and interesting, the release notes explain the piece:
Circlesong is a musical portrayal of the human life cycle as captured in the indigenous poetry of North America. Based on poetry from the Chinook, Comanche, Dakota, Eskimo, Iroquois, Kwakiutl, Navajo, Ojibwa, Pueblo, Seminole, Sioux, and Yaqui traditions, the thirteen movements, in seven parts, mark the different stages of life, from birth and childhood to adulthood, middle age and death.
With singing by the Grammy award winning Houston Chamber Choir, be sure to check out this unique release.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc.
Something Diverse
American composer Eric Nathan released Missing Words, contemporary chamber music with a wide range of sound from piece to piece. Describing the piece, Nathan details:
Missing Words is inspired by German words invented by writer Ben Schott in his book Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition. These words illuminate experiences of everyday contemporary life for which English has no synonyms. The words are therefore “missing” from English, and Schott has proposed new German words that English speakers can adopt, in the vein of Doppelgänger, Schadenfreude and Wanderlust. I love the wit, humor, pathos and intimacy of Schott’s words, and use the concepts they evoke as points of departure for the music.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc.
Something Orchestral
Czechian composer Ondřej Adámek released Follow Me & Where Are You?, for violin and orchestra and mezzo-soprano and orchestra, respectively. Follow Me divides the melody between the soloist and the orchestra, following an old medieval technique called hocket. Where Are You? uses rhythmic sounds to “search for the human and the divine”. Adámek is known for his use of distant musical cultures to create unique and innovative soundscapes, which he does very well here.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc.
Something Environmental
American composer Steve Roden released Oionos, composed for The Grand Promenade exhibition in Athens, Greece. Roden says:
I pleaded with the curator to allow me to work with architect Dimitris Pikionis’s Church of St. Dimitris Loumbardiardis…when I first saw the small church it totally took my breath away, and I immediately began to think about a work that could exist in resonance with it — but not distract from it. The church itself is still in use, and I wanted to the work to be gentle and out of the way of the people who worship there.
Using unconventional instruments such as tin whistles and toy harmonicas, as well as field recordings, Roden has created a soundscape that fits perfectly with the environment.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc., or watch a subset of the installation below: