Rebecca Saunders

London-born, Berlin-based Rebecca Saunders, who turned 40 last year, is a composer enraptured by sound in the moment and manner of its creation. She's like a poet obsessed not just with the resonances of vowels or the textures of fricatives, but also with the strange in-betweens, where the strangeness of the sound blurs all possibility of conventional meaning.

Riot Ensemble - Speak, Be Silent (2019) {Huddersfield Contemporary Records HCR20CD}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/48kHz - Official Digital Download (nmcrec.co.uk) -> 396 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 219 Mb
Full Artwork (jpg+pdf) -> 17 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2019 Huddersfield Contemporary Records | HCR20CD
Classical / Modern Classical / 21th Century

London’s Riot Ensemble present works by four of the most important composers in contemporary music today—Chaya Czernowin, Liza Lim, Rebecca Saunders, and Anna Thorvaldsdóttir—alongside rising star Mirela Ivičević, who was commissioned as part of the ensemble’s 2017 Call for Scores. Four of the works are recorded here for the first time.

The German-French composer Mark Andre (b.1964) is one of the most important representatives of New Music. His twelve "Miniatures" for string quartet were composed in 2014/17 as a commission from the Arditti Quartet, Bavarian Radio's "musica viva", the Festival d'Automne à Paris and the ProQuartet-CEMC, funded by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. Andre created his organ work "Himmelfahrt" (Ascension), funded by the Siemens Music Foundation, in 2018 on behalf of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The orchestral work woher…wohin was written between 2015 and 2017 as a composition commission by BR's "musica viva" in conjunction with the Happy New Ears prize for composition from the Hans and Gertrud Zender Foundation. The live recordings of all three works are now being released in the CD edition of Bavarian Radio's "musica viva" concert series on BR-KLASSIK.

For some time now, I have been saddened by the seeming disappearance of the "true" musical avant-garde. Yes, there have been some promising new releases from young composers eager to experiment; Rebecca Saunders, Jason Eckardt, and some of Matthias Pintscher's work come to mind, though it's difficult to tell whether these efforts will be sustained. Luciano Berio is dead.

The Donaueschingen Festival (Donaueschinger Musiktage) is a festival for new music that takes place in Donaueschingen in south-western Germany every October. This prestigious festival was founded in 1921 and is one of the oldest festivals for contemporary music in the world. NEOS presents the highlights of the 2016 festival in high resolution and surround technique. All works on the two SACDs are live recordings of the world premieres recorded between 14 and 16 October 2016, performed by artists like the British soprano Juliet Fraser, the trombonist Mike Svoboda, renowned ensembles like the Arditti Quartet, Klangforum Wien, ensemble recherche and the SWR Symphonieorchester.

Thirteen hours of unreleased and ultra-rare music. The Eternal Myth Revealed is a 14 disc docu-biography of Ra's life and career, from his birth in 1914 up to 1959. In addition to his own music, it includes music he was influenced by, and a lot of stuff he may or may not have had a hand in as arranger, vocal coach, pianist or something else. Sun Ra's output was as prolific as Ellington's, and discographers have had nightmares and arguments attempting to document it accurately.

Thirteen hours of unreleased and ultra-rare music. The Eternal Myth Revealed is a 14 disc docu-biography of Ra's life and career, from his birth in 1914 up to 1959. In addition to his own music, it includes music he was influenced by, and a lot of stuff he may or may not have had a hand in as arranger, vocal coach, pianist or something else. Sun Ra's output was as prolific as Ellington's, and discographers have had nightmares and arguments attempting to document it accurately.