On a Sea of Glass

Orange Mountain is proud to announce the release of the world premiere recording of LIFE - A Journey Through Time with The Hague Philharmonic under the direction of Carolyn Kuan. Commissioned by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and conceived of by nature photographer Frans Lanting, LIFE: A Journey Through Time is a multimedia experience with images by Lanting and music by Philip Glass that showcases the wonders of the natural world. The hour-long score is cast in seven movements and was drawn from previously existing music in the Glass catalogue from a variety of sources, orchestrated for the first time by Michael Riesman. Since its premiere in 2006, LIFE has been performed dozens of times including in an abbreviated version, ORIGINS, at the inauguration of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland for an audience of international dignitaries.

American new-music sextet eighth blackbird, which won Grammy Awards for each of its last three Cedille Records albums, continues to connect with genre-spanning, cutting-edge composers on FILAMENT, a CD of world-premiere recordings of works by Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, and Son Lux, plus a Philip Glass classic. The ensemble’s album, FILAMENT, was produced by Dessner, a Brooklyn-based composer, guitarist, and member of the Grammy-nominated, Billboard-charting indie rock band The National. Premieres include Dessner’s Murder Ballades and Muhly’s Doublespeak, both written for eighth blackbird, and Son Lux’s To Love and This is my Line, a remix created from the album’s other tracks. Dessner, on guitar, and Muhly, on organ, join eighth blackbird for a live-in-concert recording of Glass’s mesmerizing Two Pages at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The album’s title, FILAMENT, is a metaphor for the fiber of friendship, collaboration, and mutual influence connecting the composers and performers on the album.