Valley Lodge

It might not appear like an obvious hotbed of contemporary music, but amid the rolling cornfields of western Michigan, at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Bill Ryan has been masterfully cultivating the GVSU New Music Ensemble. And with RETURN, the group's fourth album, Ryan is reaping what he has sewn since founding the ensemble in 2006: All 15 works were composed by his former students.

Adam Rudolph - Go: Organic Orchestra 1 (2001) {Meta Records 006 rel 2016}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44.1kHz - Digital Download (bandcamp.com) -> 464 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 163 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 2001, 2016 Meta Records | META 006
Jazz / Creative Music / Post Bop / Progressive Jazz / Percussion

Go: Organic Orchestra is a 21st century vision of a "future orchestra". Artistic director Adam Rudolph's prototypical approach to composing and improvisational conducting embraces music forms and cosmologies from around the world. Using a non-linear score with his unique approach to rhythm as the seed material, Rudolph improvisationally conducts the musicians in concert. This creates spontaneous orchestrations which serve as both context and inspiration for the musicians improvisational dialogue.

Unlike either its predecessor Alone in the Universe or 2001's Zoom, From out of Nowhere didn't appear after a prolonged period of silence from Jeff Lynne's ELO. It arrived in November of 2019, nearly exactly four years after Alone in the Universe, a rapid turnaround that recalls Lynne's work schedule as a bandleader and producer in the 1970s and '80s. That's not the only way From out of Nowhere conjures memories of the past. From the spaceship hovering on its record cover to the song title "Sci-Fi Woman" stirring up the ghost of "Evil Woman," the album is designed to sound and feel like an Electric Light Orchestra album from the late 1970s.

On Friday, August 5, 2022, Chickasaw composer and U.S. Cultural Ambassador Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate will release a new album, Winter Moons, on Azica Records. Winter Moons is a ballet in four movements based upon American Indian legends from the Northern Plains and Rocky Mountains, performed with a live storyteller to guide the audience. The title of the ballet is derived from the ancient idea that American Indian stories - some serious historical narratives, and others lighthearted bedtime stories for children, but all usually carrying a moral - are best told during the full moons of the wintertime. Winter Moons was Tate's very first composition, commissioned by and dedicated to his mother, choreographer Dr. Patricia Tate. Spirit Chief Names the Animal People was part of the original version of Winter Moons and is now performed as a separate work with narrator.

Ferde Grofé - Aviation Suite, Atlantic Crossing 1946-1950 (2009) {Naxos Official Digital Download 9.80172}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (chandos.net) -> 157 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 110 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 2009 Naxos | 9.80172
Classical / Early 20th Century

Ferde Grofé was born Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé, to Emil and Elsa von Grofé, in New York City on 27 March 1892. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Los Angeles. Ferde Grofé came by his instinct for music quite naturally. His father was a baritone and actor, while his mother was a cellist and music teacher of some note. In 1906 Grofé left home to work variously as a bookbinder, truck driver, usher, newsboy, elevator operator, lithographer, typesetter and steelworker, studying violin and piano in his spare time. By 1908 he began to take casual musical engagements at lodge dances, parades and picnics and in 1909 met Albert Jerome, a dancing teacher, with whom he toured Californian mining-camps.

Unlike either its predecessor Alone in the Universe or 2001's Zoom, From out of Nowhere didn't appear after a prolonged period of silence from Jeff Lynne's ELO. It arrived in November of 2019, nearly exactly four years after Alone in the Universe, a rapid turnaround that recalls Lynne's work schedule as a bandleader and producer in the 1970s and '80s. That's not the only way From out of Nowhere conjures memories of the past. From the spaceship hovering on its record cover to the song title "Sci-Fi Woman" stirring up the ghost of "Evil Woman," the album is designed to sound and feel like an Electric Light Orchestra album from the late 1970s.

Unlike either its predecessor Alone in the Universe or 2001's Zoom, From out of Nowhere didn't appear after a prolonged period of silence from Jeff Lynne's ELO. It arrived in November of 2019, nearly exactly four years after Alone in the Universe, a rapid turnaround that recalls Lynne's work schedule as a bandleader and producer in the 1970s and '80s. That's not the only way From out of Nowhere conjures memories of the past. From the spaceship hovering on its record cover to the song title "Sci-Fi Woman" stirring up the ghost of "Evil Woman," the album is designed to sound and feel like an Electric Light Orchestra album from the late 1970s.