Composition / Avant-Garde

The American composer Christian Wolff (b. 1934) is the last living representative of the New York School (Rauschenberg, Rothko, etc.). Wolff was not even an adult when he studied with Grete Sultan and John Cage. Wolff’s music was much more politically motivated than that of Feldman and Cage, which is evident on this new Wergo album by Trio Accanto. The album features first recordings made in close collaboration with Wolff in the studios of Deutschlandfunk Cologne/Germany. Wolff's great “Trio IX …

*2022 stock* This CD of works by the Hungarian composer György Ligeti represents an extremely interesting combination of several of his serene works for harpsichord, organ, and wind quintet with two electronic compositions from the late 1950s.

Morton Feldman's complete music for violin and piano, from Piece for Violin and Piano (1950) to For John Cage (1982), which spans both discs, played by Marc Sabat and Stephen Clarke.

Four works by Alvin Lucier played by the Italian ensemble Alter Ego: Two Circles, Fideliotrio and Three Translations of the Works of Maurizio Mochetti, plus a new recording of I Am Sitting in a Room with the composer.

First recordings of Roger Reynolds's recent string quartets FLiGHT (2012-16) and not forgotten (2007-10), by the JACK Quartet under the composer's supervision. First of two volumes marking his 85th birthday.

**Warehouse find, still sealed original copies 1987 edition** Gong action suported by catalan fussion percussionist Santi Arisa. Main attraction here is the percussions and electronics piece Secuencia I.

Nitsch loved the countryside where he lived, the austrian „wine county“ – with this release he wanted to combine his music, his art and the landscape. Recorded on 28th August 2021, Nitsch Museum, MistelbachConductor: Michael MautnerPerformers: Members of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna (RSO Wien)Mix and Master by Christoph Amann, Vienna

Jack Symonds is a composer, conductor, pianist & the Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Opera. SCO is a resident company at Carriagworks, Australia’s answer to The Park Avenue Amoury. His productions are always daring, both musically & theatrically. They tend to garner 5-star reviews and affronted walkouts in equal measure. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London & the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he received the university medal. He has written pieces for Jane She…

Radiolorians (2018) finds Pisaro-Liu drawing inspiration from another gifted observer of this world-in-variation, the German zoologist, naturalist, and philosopher Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), who promoted and popularized evolutionary thought via extensive monographs and artful renderings of insects, animals, sea creatures, and embryos. For Radiolarians, Pisaro-Liu creates what he terms “transcriptions” of individual radiolaria species depicted in Haeckel’s drawings. Radiolarians comprises fourtee…

This habit some experimental musicians have of applying forced context or stories to what is essentially pure improvised music does sometimes perplex me. Here Janek references Kaspar Hauser with the title and in the sleeve notes. He also states the intention “…to de- and reformulate the idea of beauty”. When referencing the case of Kaspar Hauser, I assume Janek sees himself as “…set free…” from traditional technique, and aims, on this disc at least, to “…redefine by discover[y] and recover the p…

58' was composed in 2010 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of d-zAkord. I wanted a very minimalist piece with few sound events and long silences. At that time we presented t'Drone(s)Scape', a sound/living installation lasting 3 hours. The public was invited to sit or lie down in the center of the sonic maelstrom for a multicast travel. It is in this context that 58' was imagined. Although unconventional, the 58' score is extremely precise. The musicians follow a graphic score, with time p…

A two-part composition that combines two antagonistic and complementary dimensions: a text of data read by the artist Orlan and a virtual orchestra composed of four singers (Loré Lixenberg, Joan La Barbara, Wills Morgan and Jacques Lizène) and 124 different instruments.

**300 copies** Avant-garde and experimental musics are intrinsically connected to community, collectivism, support, and collaboration. Audiences and artists, stretching to every corner of the globe, continuously rely on each other to push into ever more ambitious realms. This spirit of discourse has always been central to the multigenerational contexts of avant-garde and experimental music from Italy. For decades, neglected and over looked by their international peers, the country’s musicians an…

Building on the back of their stunning release of Ensemble 0’s rendering of "Femenine" issued earlier this year, Sub Rosa returns with "Three Extended Pieces for Four Pianos", featuring brand new recording of three seminal works composed by Julius Eastman between 1970 and 1980 - "Evil N*gger" (1979) "Gay Guerilla" (1980) and "Crazy N*gger" (1980) - realised by Nicolas Horvath, Melaine Dalibert, Stephane Ginsburgh, and Wilhem Latchoumia. Released as a beautiful double CD with brand new liner not…

Robert Hughes, composer and author, is a graduate of the University of Buffalo (now SUNY Buffalo) and composition student of Aaron Copland, Carlos, Chavez, Luigi Dallapiccola, and Lou Harrison. He has written for symphony orchestra, chamber ensemble, voices, performance art events and a wide variety of media, including twenty film scores and a large body of electronic music. His compositions include commissions from the San Francisco Symphony, Cabrillo Music Festival, Oakland Symphony, Arch Ense…

*2022 stock* Robert Hughes, composer and author, is a graduate of the University of Buffalo (now SUNY Buffalo) and composition student of Aaron Copland, Carlos, Chavez, Luigi Dallapiccola, and Lou Harrison. He has written for symphony orchestra, chamber ensemble, voices, performance art events and a wide variety of media, including twenty film scores and a large body of electronic music. His compositions include commissions from the San Francisco Symphony, Cabrillo Music Festival, Oakland Sympho…

**2022 stock** Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, a cycle of 20 short pieces for prepared piano (a piano modified by inserting nuts and bolts and other objects between the piano strings in order to produce percussive and otherworldly sound effects) by American composer John Cage. Created in 1946–48 after the composer had been introduced to Indian visual and performing arts, the cycle was intended to represent the so-called permanent emotions—the heroic, the erotic, the wondrous, the comi…

Six modern song cycles for soprano and piano by Holliger, Sciarrino, Lachenmann, Kurtág, Rihm and Bernhard Lang, sung by Sarah Maria Sun with pianist Jan Philip Schulze, with several first recordings.

John Cage works for a speaking percussionist, including Bonnie Whiting's realization 51'15.657" and Music for Two (By One), the early voice and piano songs, and a piece by Allen Otte built on Cage's methods.

Marc Chan's My Wounded Head 3, an open-ended piano piece inspired by Bach's Passion chorales, played in a 72-minute continuous recording by Rob Haskins.

Structured improvisation compositions by violinist Malcolm Goldstein, ranging from jazzy to dense microtonal sound, in which he plays with the Montreal-based Ratchet Orchestra as composer, soloist and ensemble member.

Volume 7 of Mode's Edition Christian Wolff, on 2CD: the composer plays his own Incidental Music (2003-04), written for a Merce Cunningham Dance Company Event, and the ongoing series Keyboard Miscellany, on piano and melodica.

DVD centred on Iannis Xenakis's Linaia-Agon for trombone, French horn and tuba, in two performances with Benny Sluchin, plus Zythos for trombone and six marimbas, a 78-minute film by Sluchin and an interactive interface.

Roger Reynolds's complete works for cello, on 2CD and composer supervised, with many first recordings, played by Alexis Descharmes with Ensemble Court-circuit, violin, electronics and piano, and readings by the composer.

Five chamber works by Tim Hodgkinson, co-founder of Henry Cow, for ensemble and electronic sound, bass clarinet and strings, and string quartet with harp, trombone and synthesizer, played by Hyperion Ensemble and others.

Four-CD survey of American piano music from 1911 to 1991: 62 works by 48 composers, from Ives and Antheil to Zappa, including seven first recordings, played by Yvar Mikhashoff.

First commercial release of John Cage's Variations V, the 1966 NDR Hamburg television production with David Tudor, Gordon Mumma and the Cunningham Dance Company, with the Paris 1966 audio, dancer interviews and a 12-page book.

Four works by Johannes Schöllhorn: the concert piece clouds and sky for piano and orchestra with the WDR orchestra, rota for contrabass clarinet and string quartet, red and blue for percussion sextet, and a self-same song for solo contrabass clarinet.

First complete recording of John Cage's works for organ, played by Gary Verkade on the organ of Gammelstad Church, Sweden: Some of 'The Harmony of Maine', Souvenir, ASLSP and Organ2/ASLSP, with 4'33'' on the DVD only.

Helmut Lachenmann performs with and supervises Ensemble Signal in Zwei Gefühle, Musik mit Leonardo for speaker and ensemble, and plays three of his own piano works, recorded after a four-concert tour of the programme.

John Cage's early percussion chamber works from 1935-1942, including the three Constructions, Trio, Quartet and Living Room Music, played by Third Coast Percussion, with the first movement of Living Room Music recorded in the Ford House.

DVD of French-school percussion theatre by Aperghis, Kagel, Globokar, Alvarez and Drouet, performed by Aiyun Huang and colleagues and directed by Hans Fjellestad and Anton Cabaleiro, the first commercial video release of these works.

Three of John Cage's late number pieces, Five, Seven and Thirteen, recorded in 1993-94 by Essential Music of New York and released for the first time. Thirteen, Cage's final completed work, is heard in only its second recording.

Multimedia adaptation of Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers by guitarist Marco Cappelli, narrated by John Turturro in English and Enzo Salomone in Italian, with music by Sintax Error and video art by Anne Rothschild.

Roger Reynolds's Sanctuary for spatially distributed percussion ensemble and live electronics, presented in three versions on a double DVD: a studio performance, a live performance at the National Gallery of Art and excerpts from the Salk Institute.

Margaret Leng Tan's follow-up to The Art of the Toy Piano: Cage's Suite for Toy Piano and Dream, a George Crumb song and other pieces, played on six toy pianos plus toy instruments, grand piano, music boxes and percussion.

Chaya Czernowin's Maim (Water), a 50-minute orchestral triptych with five soloists (tubax, oboe and musette, piano and harpsichord, guitars, viola) and live electronics, played by the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Johannes Kalitzke.

Second volume of Iannis Xenakis's works for piano with instruments, played by Aki Takahashi with Rohan de Saram, the JACK Quartet and the Callithumpian Consort, including a new recording of Eonta for piano, trumpets and trombones.

Complete piano works by Roger Reynolds on two CDs, from Epigram and Evolution (1960) to The Angel of Death (1998-2001), played by Yuji Takahashi, Eric Huebner and Marilyn Nonken, with new recordings and remastered analog reissues.

Xenakis Edition volume 10 and the first complete recording of Iannis Xenakis's string quartets, played by the JACK Quartet: Tetras, Tetora, ST/4-1,080262 and Ergma, the last quartet, released on CD and surround-sound DVD.