Sono Luminus

This recording is a reflection of several performances that took place over time and in varying acoustic environments, including collaborations with contemporary and aerial/vertical dance. The Cage works tend to be binary in form, and while meditatively free flowing in spirit, the architecture is clean and easily understood.

In their fifth release with Dorian Sono Luminus, REBEL explodes through the speakers with this exciting collection of Quartets and Quintets by prolific composer Georg Philip Telemann. Telemann was probably the most famous and commercially successful composer working in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century. The consummate stylist, Telemann was always striving to write music that was up to the minute. This helped make him one of the most popular composers of his day and of ours.

I believe that great art is often the product of great difficulty and tribulation, in many cases for the artist themselves. I also think art borne out of a time of societal turmoil can be even more profound, and can shed light today on what it was like to live and endure through tragedies of the past.

Manuscripts Don’t Burn is a famous line in Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita – the retelling of Faust, the 20th century cult novel of an artist surviving in a Totalitarian regime, the love story, the burlesque with giant, vodka drinking cats and vampiric theater administrators.

ZOFO is at it again, this time with an all Terry Riley album, which includes original compositions, arrangements and a special commission by the duet. It is quite evident in this music that the composer and the performers were personally engaged in the making of this electrifying project. From the very beginning, Terry Riley worked in collaboration with ZOFO in the making of this album. Mr Riley himself said: “There is nothing quite like hearing the full 8 octaves of a piano sounding in all its orchestral richness.”

The Italian baroque seems to be an inexhaustible quarry for lovers of historical performance practice and beautifully balanced music. Francesco Antonio Bonporti was a composer-priest who, after studies in Innsbruck and Rome, spent most of his working life in his home town of Trento, once host to the Tridentinum, but in the early eighteenth century nothing more than a provincial nest.

For the Del Sol Quartet, this album is a culmination – and also the start of an ongoing musical journey. Terry Riley doesn’t limit his music within a final double-bar but allows it to keep on growing – he’s already composed more music for us to play together. As a quartet, we’ve found new energy and growth through the experience of performing Terry’s quartets off-book, by memory. As musicians, we’ve found an inspiring example – Terry has the strength to follow his own path balanced with the humility and curiosity of an eternal student. For our 25th anniversary festival, we are focusing on Terry’s music and honored that Terry and Gyan will be joining us.