Juraj Kojs: Imagine

Juraj Kojš’ musical imagination is as wide ranging as his life journey, from his native Slovakia through Denmark, Virginia, and Miami, where he now lives, makes music and art, and teaches. In Imagine – this album of three far-reaching, exploratory ensemble works – traditional, contemporary and experimental ideas converge in a musical amalgam.

Featuring an eclectic array of performers including Eric Umble (clarinet), Adam Marks (piano), [Switch~ Ensemble], Splinter Reeds, and Kojš himself (electronics and spoken word), and with its easy lines interweaving through complex structures, the music traverses a range of Postmodern and Postclassical expressions. Recounting imaginary stories based on reality, reinterpreting field recordings and enabling open platforms for performers to become creators, the composer’s transformational processes are reminiscent of Magical Realism, in which writers knit their narratives with reality-derived – yet often fantastic – characters, situations, and places.

As Kojš puts it, “I wrote this music out of pure love for life, nature, people, and music itself. From the Hawaiian soundscape instrumentale to original poetry scores and Peter-and-the-Wolf-like storytelling, the music demanded visiting some far outposts of expression. Each piece exhibits its own multiple time structures, expanding spheres of pitch, and timbral ecosystems. Some music was scored with utmost precision and some invited extensive decision-making from the performers. Thus, my collaborators were essential in creating this labyrinth of connected threads and pulses; a true living sonic organism: unique, sacred and real.”

Imagine is dedicated to pianist Adam Marks, a long-time friend, collaborator and musician per excellence who passed over suddenly in May 2021.

The performers describe the three works from their perspectives:

Face Forward. Hawaii “reflects the subtle nuances present in the fantastical ecology of Hawaii.”– Adam Marks, pianist

“The ecological inspiration for the work [Face Forward. Hawaii] and its sonic results provide both performer and audience the opportunity to reflect on the human experience juxtaposed and intertwined with our natural world.” – Eric Umble, clarinetist

“The performance [of under the blanket of your lullabies] was one of those special moments that lingers in one’s memory long after the last note.” – Zach Sheets, flutist,

Wavefield: Concrete & Void

Wavefield, a New York City based contemporary music ensemble founded in 2016, releases its debut recording "Concrete & Void" featuring works recorded in October 2020 in an outside parking garage in New Jersey, an environment which facilitated social distancing as well as collective music making. The recording is as much a byproduct of their ongoing relationships with longtime composer collaborators and an openness to a wide range of notational contexts as it is a document of the resiliency of the creative impulse during a trying year.

The practical barriers to rehearsing during the Covid era shaped this project – the stipulation for the new works commissioned for the session was that they needed to facilitate reading and recording in one sitting. And yet the diversity of approaches within these restrictions was illuminating and speaks to the rich practice that has evolved around non-traditionally notated ensemble music.

The recording opens with Jen Baker’s "Lightsicle Sirens," a vast expanse of undulating frequencies that invites the listener to explore the resonance of this unconventional space. Baker revels in beatings and friction between closely spaced intervals. The unfolding texture becomes more active as individual wind instruments emerging and receding in swells before paring down one by one, leaving a texture of sibilant sounds for the work’s close.

During the Covid lockdown, Jessie Cox created an online TV series, “Space Travel from Home,” which he describes as a “personal ritual to digest and deal with this unusual situation.” Space Travel From Someplace Else is akin to a remix of that material – each performer responds to video excerpts of Cox performing and text instructions mapped onto the piece’s overall timing. In this way, the musicians play an active role in the remix process, their individual voices melding together to create a percolating cauldron. The results are restless and cathartic, a collective sonic reckoning with confinement.

Victoria Cheah’s "A wasp, some wax, an outline of the valley over us a fall" mines the deep sensual impact of slow moving harmonies. After several minutes of full scoring for the ensemble, the texture thins down to a bare major seventh between trombone and flute, a stark pillar of uneasy dissonance. A climactic passage intensifies the acoustic density before the texture diffuses again for a weightless ending.

Greg Chudzik’s "Silo" was originally conceived for performance inside a grain silo, exploiting the acoustical properties of the hollowed out, metallic cylinder. Samples are played by a Max/MSP patch; the material from the electronics is from recordings of the same indeterminate music that the performers are asked to play live, creating an ambiguity between live and processed sound that captures the spirit of this beguiling piece. Gradually the register of the music ascends, as if floating up to the top of a silo.

The final work on the recording is by Wavefield conductor and co-artistic director Nicholas DeMaison. "Untitled 1, for Wavefield" uses a graphic score, “drawn from spectrographic renderings of sounds that are far from New York City.” Wavefield’s interpretation of these notational images is tumultuous and charged. For many of these musicians, their first in-person musical experience of the pandemic was this recording session. How appropriate it is then that they were prompted with material that was inspired by far away locations, psychically liberated from the close quarters in which they had been quarantined for so many months.

– Dan Lippel

released May 28, 2021

sTem's Debut Album: LIEDER/CANCIONES

With Lieder/Canciones, sTem honors the old, explores the new, and reimagines what’s in between. Schubert’s oft-performed and recorded Der Hirt auf dem Felsen serves as inspiration for interpreting new works by living composers and our new collaborations give us fresh insight into the standard repertoire. Our debut album serves as the first and definitive recording of sTem’s original commissions by Rex Isenberg and Giovanni Piacentini, along with sTem’s original arrangement of Daniel Catán’s aria, Escúchame.

"sTem's ensemble playing is beautifully executed throughout..."

The Clarinet , September 2017
Read the full review HERE

Lieder/Canciones features performances by: 
 

Meagan Amelia Brus, Voice
Eric Christian Umble, Clarinet
Sophia Subbaya Vastek, Piano
 

credits

released September 1, 2016

Recorded at Dubway Studios
Recorded and Mastered by Chris Abell
Mixed by Chris Camilleri
Album design by Esme Jackson

Special thanks to: 
All our Indiegogo supporters
Rex Isenberg
Gio Piacentini
Fausto Alzati
Tayla Nebesky
Izzy Gleicher
Mic Herring
Gerad O’Shea
Sam Torres
Andrea Puente
Juan Pablo Contreras
Associated Music Publishers, Inc. (BMI)