Michael Byron

Music of Nights Without Moon or Pearl is a 1998 work for string quartet, contrabass, two pianos, and electronic keyboard. The strings in this piece play pizzicato throughout—with their notes sometimes arriving one at a time, disconnected from one another, and sometimes arriving in flurries. An arch-form work that unfolds slowly and insistently, at its point of greatest activity, the texture of Music of Nights might be likened to the sound of rainfall on a roof—delicate, resonate, active, continuously changing while, in some sense, seeming to remain the same.

Invisible “Seeds” for James Tenney is a 1998 work scored for the same forces as Music of Nights. It too is an arch-form work, but unlike its aforementioned sister piece, the strings always play arco. It begins with somewhat slowly moving sustained tones, gradually picks up its pace and intensity until it reaches its climax, and then it slows back down to a state that is somewhat akin to its beginning.

Entrances is a work for four pianos—all four parts stunningly played by David Rosenboom, who also realized the specific construction of the version of this somewhat open-form piece that is heard here. Starting with intermittent bursts of notes, it builds to an extraordinarily dense barrage of sound.

Michael Byron is a New Jersey/New York-based composer whose works have been performed around the world. As a performer, he has been a member various new music and experimental improvisation ensembles with such other composer/performers as David Rosenboom, Peter Garland, and William Winant and artists Jackie Humbert and George Manupelli. Byron has also been a member of the American Gamelan ensemble Son of Lion. He has taught at York University and served on the Board of Directors of the Aesthetic Research Centre of Canada, where he edited the first issue of Journal of Experimental Aesthetics. He also was the editor/publisher of Pieces, a series of books of music scores by contemporary American composers. Byron has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, and the Canada Council for the Arts, and he has had his music recorded on the Cold Blue and Neutral labels.

“[P]ieces lovely in their cloudy string textures and abrupt piano riffs…it all breathes the air of pre-Silicon Valley California.” —Kyle Gann, Village Voice

“It’s wonderful that music can have such power to (en)lighten the soul and that Michael has the gift to so empower us.” —Richard Teitelbaum