02/05/21: Slow, Fast, Strings, Brass
Featuring Tomasz Bednarczyk, The Westerlies, Theo Bleckmann, Michael Grigoni, Chihei Hatakeyama, Stephen Vitiello, Kjell Mørk Karlsen, Laura Cannell, Kate Ellis, and Adolphus Hailstork
Happy Friday! This week I have 5 new releases, and for each week of Black History Month, I’ll be featuring a piece from a living Black composer I appreciate. Let’s get started.
The Music
Something Ambient
Polish composer Tomasz Bednarczyk released Nothing Much Happens. An ambient album with slow, rich guitar loops, this is a soft and relaxing album.
Listen on Bandcamp or Spotify.
Something Folksy
This Land, a collaboration of New York-based brass quartet The Westerlies and German singer and composer Theo Bleckmann, fuses folk, jazz, and classical together in a unique ode to protest and resistance.
Listen on Bandcamp and Spotify.
Something Electroacoustic
Featuring both live instruments and ambient soundscapes, Earth Awhile is the collaboration of Durham, North Carolina-based composer Michael Grigoni, Tokyo-based composer Chihei Hatakeyama, New York-based composer Stephen Vitiello, and, for one track, Australian guitarist Cameron Webb. The release notes state:
Earth Awhile presents six compositions, allowing for an expansive approach to time. The tracks feature lap steel and pedal steel guitar, dobro, modular synthesizer and layers of processing that rise and fall in a series of expansive compositions.
Listen on Bandcamp or Spotify.
Something Brassy
Norwegian composer Kjell Mørk Karlsen released Sonata for Tube and Piano, performed by tubist Geir Løvold and pianist Per Christian Revholt. The unique timbres of the tuba with the piano, alongside Karlsen's modern but not fully atonal sound create an interesting release, especially in the second movement as the speed significantly increases.
Listen on Spotify.
Something Poetic
British composer Laura Cannell and Irish composer Kate Ellis released January Sounds. Three duets for cello and violin, the sound evokes striking imagery of landscapes, each fitting to the track’s title. The 'overbowed' violin gives the whole release a very folksy feel, which pairs with the minimalist form.
Listen on Bandcamp or Spotify.
Black History Month Composers
Adolphus Hailstork
North Carolina Central University professor Dr. Timothy Holley performs "Draw The Sacred Circle Closer:" Variations for Solo Cello, composed in 2009 by American composer Aldolphus Hailstork. Holley is an advocate for new music, especially by Black American composers. International Opus writes: “Hailstork’s compositions have been described as a crossover hybrid of African-American and European-American Music” and a description of his style by FSU’s college of music says:
Hailstork has made a conscious effort to avoid being pigeonholed as a composer of any one type of music, although his numerous choral works and band pieces are probably his best known. However, he has also written several symphonies and other orchestral pieces, chamber works for various combinations of instruments, solo piano and organ music, and several song cycles.
Read more about Hailstork here.