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Posts tagged 'Nonesuch Records'

WERGO Re-Releases Morton Subotnick's Landmark Recordings from the 1980s

Morton Subotnick, the legendary electronic musician and composer, will see several of his landmark recordings from the 1980s re-released on WERGO. After his pioneering album Silver Apples of the Moon, which Subotnick created using the Buchla modular synthesizer, Subotnick continued to compose and create new music both for electronics and acoustic instruments. Throughout this stage in his career, Nonesuch Records released several albums of Subotnick's music, in addition to several records released by Columbia Masterworks. As sound technology advanced throughout the 1970s into the 1980s, Subotnick began to experiment with digital technology to enhance and interact with acoustic instruments; his "ghost electronics", present in several works from the 1980s, provides a spectral accompaniment to live performers. 

Many of these works were recorded and released on albums by Nonesuch, though after the initial pressings of LPs, these recordings have not been commercially available. Now, for the first time in over 20 years, WERGO has digitized, re-mastered, and re-released many of these crucial recordings on CD. Their first re-release contains recordings of The Wild Beasts and After the Butterfly; the second volume will contain recordings of A Fluttering of Wings, Ascent into Air, The Last Dream of the Beast, and Axolotl. Scores and performance parts for many of these works are also available directly from PSNY. 

As Subotnick becomes more and more recognized for his pioneering compositions, these re-releases document a crucial moment in his career, incorporating electronics into composition for acoustic instruments. These works are accessible, portable, and performable by any new music ensemble, and these recordings will shed light on a brilliant chapter in Subotnick's oeuvre. Check out an interview with the Red Bull Music Academy below. 

Lecture: Morton Subotnick (Madrid 2011) from Red Bull Music Academy on Vimeo.

Two-Piano Works from Tobias Picker & Timo Andres

Spring is in full swing, and for the past four years that means that the Ecstatic Music Festival is well underway in New York. This year, Timo Andres presents a new song cycle, "Work Songs", to be performed by Gabriel Kahane, Ted Hearne, Becca Stevens, Nathan Koci, & Andres himself. Be sure to check out the concert on March 19th, co-presented by WNYC's New Sounds!

If that doesn't satisfy your Timo fix, we have two more of his works now available from PSNY: his re-composition of Mozart's "Coronation Concerto", which he brilliantly premiered with the Metropolis Ensemble, and his concert-length, two-piano work, Shy and Mighty, which he released as an album on Nonesuch Records. 

Another two-piano work that pianists should not miss is Tobias Picker's Keys to the City, commissioned by the City of New York in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. Originally a piano concerto, Picker premiered the two-piano version in 1996. This work has been recorded on Chandos and Wergo. Check out an excerpt of the two-piano version here, performed by Picker and Ursula Oppens: 

Morton Subotnick on PSNY

         

For the first time ever, the music of Morton Subotnick – complete digital editions, with scores, parts, software, and samples – are available for immediate download. Subotnick, widely considered one of the first and most eloquent voices of electronic music, has made six of his works available through Project Schott New York. Though these works have been available from Schott in the past, the PSNY edition allows for immediate download of all materials, including standalone software applications, and patches for Max/MSP and Ableton Live.

The works include Axolotl, A Fluttering of Wings, In Two Worlds, The Key to Songs, Passages of the Beast, and Then and Now and Forever. More information and excerpts after the jump...

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