New Classical
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Kronos Quartet is in Toronto tonight to open the 21C Music Festival with the world premiere of Jherek Bischoff’s “Strange.” Founding member David Harrington and I sat down to talk about repertoire decisions, John Cage and more. What goes into the decision to perform or record a piece? That’s the question I think about every…
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New Zealand’s Jesse Woolston is equal parts audio and visual artist. His new disc µstructure is the work of a genuine aesthete with a flair for electronics. But there’s much more to unpack. The music is presented along with an artbook and installation. “This record is the representation of my passion for art, sound and…
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Born in the south of France in 1988, pianist Dominique Charpentier plays with a sophistication well beyond his three decades. His second solo album landed earlier this month. He and I traded emails yesterday. Did you intend for each of these pieces to be recorded so quickly? Yes, it was intended. Each track was composed in…
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Poetry fans will recognize At The Still Point Of The Turning World from T. S. Eliot’s Burnt Norton. The first of his Four Quartets, the poem is about time and redemption. Eliot’s big idea was that getting our heads around the nature of time and the universe will draw us closer to God. By focusing…
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The vinyl surface noise scattered across Tim Linghaus’ lovely new album comes from an unexpected source. It would seem the German multi-instrumentalist and composer has long been taken with the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing. It’s hard to imagine someone responsible for such a quietly melancholic disc could have a soft spot for Patrick Swayze and…
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Guitarist Raven Bauer Durham of Phoenix Auto Group has released her debut, a lo-fi beauty that slides back and forth between indie folk, ambient and new classical. Bandmates James Wolf and Stephen Carroll Palke are along for the ride. Wolf contributes violin and a mean singing bowl to “Spring,” “Drawings,” “Emphemeral “and “Without Which, Not.”…
The Moderns 