Daugherty Rushmore

Grammy Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty explores the relationships between machines, humanity and nature in three unique concertos. Dreamachine for solo percussion and orchestra is a colorful tribute to the imagination of inventors who dreamed of new machines, both real and surreal. The flute concerto Trail of Tears dramatizes the tragic governmental forced relocation of Native Americans in 1838 and meditates on how the human spirit discovers ways to deal with adversity.

GRAMMY Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty’s Harp of Ages pays homage to the illustrious history and enduring beauty of the harp, an instrument that has enchanted listeners from ancient civilizations to the modern era. Divided into seven movements, the concerto evokes genres and memorable figures associated with the harp, from the poetic lyre of Sappho in classical Greece, to the wild glissandos of Harpo Marx in 1930s Hollywood, and the jazz harp of Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane in 1950s Detroit.

Experience the open skies of the Badlands, the rolling prairies of the West, and one of America's most famous monuments with Moon Mount Rushmore & The Black Hills.

The Rushmore soundtrack manages to pleasantly skirt the line between sentiment and sentimentality with a nuanced, eminently listenable combo of score and song. The songs mostly blend raw, adolescent urges and insecurity with an awkward grace. Though composed primarily of popular music from the 1960s, none of the selections is a hit of the expected Big Chill variety. In fact, compiler Randall Poster proves himself a '60s pop connoisseur, including little-known gems such as Cat Stevens's buoyant, hummable "Here Comes My Baby" (covered by Yo La Tengo on Fakebook) and the Who 's revved-up, intentionally silly proto-opera "A Quick One While He's Away." The bossa nova folk-pop of Unit 4+2's "Concrete & Clay" is lovingly contrasted by the Creation's blistering, feedback-enhanced hit-that-never-was "Making Time." Devo founder Mark Mothersbaugh's incidental music is nothing short of delightful, but the Rugrats composer clearly comes by whimsy easily. The intriguing thing about Mothersbaugh's score–seven snippets from which are sprinkled throughout the disc–is that it complements the archival tunes while combining Beethoven-lite flourishes and jazzy instrumentation with percolating mod keyboards. Like the film itself, this soundtrack is an inspired, left-field effort, and it's difficult to plot out its many charms. –Mike McGonigal