Kerry Yong
Ballad
In the catalog of contemporary composition, Linda Catlin Smith occupies a luminous yet quiet space. Her music resists momentum in favor of presence, exploring the beauty of slowness and the porous borders between harmony and noise. Drawing on the lineage of Morton Feldman while affirming her own sensibility, she builds worlds where stillness and fragility become active forces. Each piece unfolds like a painting observed over time, the ear adjusting to small variations in tone and contour that ac…