Time to Burn CD
I am thrilled that my new CD, Time to Burn, has been released, and you can get it at Innova Recordings.
The wonderful Cassatt Quartet bookends the CD with performances of Glyph and Eljiah’s Chariot. For Glyph, they were joined by outstanding musicians James Dunham (solo viola) and pianist Margaret Kampmeier. Elijah’s Chariot, commissioned and toured by the Kronos Quartet, is scored for amplified quartet and electronics made from processed shofar sounds. It was not so easy to find the shofar sounds, and I’m grateful to Dr. Mel Siegel for those, and for my sister Deborah Shatin for arranging the performance.
The eponymous Time to Burn was commissioned by percussionists I-Jen Fang and Mike Schutz, who perform it here with ace oboist Aaron Hill. Inspired by the political eruptions surrounding us, and by earlier rampages such as the Inquisition and the burning of witches, it is an intense piece. It is followed by Grito del Corazon, scored in this instance for two clarinets (noted players F. Gerard Errante and D. Gause) and electronics. Commissoned by the Ensemble Barcelona Nuova Musica, for their Painting Music program, it is available and has been performed in a wide range of scorings.
The next piece, Sic Transit, is performed by percussionist I-Jen Fang and CADI (Computer Automated Drum Instrument). Take a look at the video above to see these computer-controlled robot arms in action. These, and other computer-controlled instruments, were invented by EMMI (Expressive Machines Musical Instrunents).
Completing the CD is Hosech Al P’ney HaTehom (Darkness Upon the Face of the Earth). The last piece created using CCRMA’s famed Sambox, this piece is about a world being born. There are no sampled sounds. Rather the sounds are constructed from the basic waveforms, digitally encoded.
See what Noam ben Ze’ev had to say about this CD in Ha’Aretz, the Israeli daily, on 4/11/14