Amy Gordon is a composer that lives in Los Angeles. Join us to hear Amy's choral music,  from the cheerful Alleluia to  the COVID related In Times of Hibernation. 

In this episode, Joshua and I chat about his music and we listen to some his choral compositions. Stay tuned and you will hear some beautiful works. 

Carol Barnett's music is accesible and contemporary at the same time. The essence of her modernity is not the use of harsh, dissonant chords but the weaving of chords we are familiar with in unfamiliar patterns that make the music at the same time fresh and agreeable to the ear. 

Forrest Pierce's music is ethereal  and explores sacred and trascendental topics. He draws inspiration from Christianity sacred texts as well as from texts of other traditions and he has a way of setting these texts that can transport you somewhere else, which is always a very nice sensation. We talked about his writing and about music in general, exchanging frank opinions about the use of different musical languages in our works.

In this conversation we cover a chamber music work of Katerina which is wholly aleatory and 2 choral pieces which have aleatory elements. I found fascinating the structuring of a whole piece of instrumental chamber music, Rain on a Tin Roof, on 22 small segments of music, each containing from 2 notes to 10 notes, called "cells" which the instruments repeated, or not, as they advanced from cell 1 to cell 22 and back. And then we talk about  the use of syllables in choral music which have no meaning, in the work Fire, and yet which add to the effect of the work. Spend some time with us and enjoy the music!

Aleatory means, basically, improvised. It is a type of music where you write some musical guidelines for the performers to follow but you don't write every note, every beat of the music. It gives us different possibilities for the same music, to a degree. All three pieces have elements that are not fully notated, but the first one is the one that is 97% aleatory. There is also an element of social justice in her music as the work Uprooted takes us to the interment of American citizens of Japanese descent in camps during World War II. And of sacred music, as the third piece we hear is based on the Mater Dei. 

In this episode we listen to an oboe concerto, a work for two sopranos and a piano solo piece and we get to experience life through David Dies musical language, which borders in the atonal and gives us a challenge, but with great rewards if we accept it. I find that with commercial music, for example, you can wait for the music to come to you and move you or not, but it doesn't require great participation. Contemporary classical music, on the other hand, requires for you to actively strip yourself of preconceptions and dive into the unknown with the hope to experience something new. I found that David's music did give me a new experience and communicated very well what it was trying to convey. 

Join Jordan and me in a chat about his projects of writing new music based on the standards of the American Songbook. Listen to Jordan's take on Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, Tea for Two and Begin the Beguine, as interpreted at the piano by pianist Tom Kotcheff of the piano duo Hocket.

Gregory composes choral music and has his own style. The texts he used are very interesting and you will learn something about contemporary choral music if you listen to this conversation.

I met Kile Smith through his choral music. He was nominated for a 2020 Grammy for his work The Arc in the Sky, of which we will hear the first movement. Kile writes music in his own singular style and I think you will find enlightening to listen to his music preceded by own commentary about it.  As with all my podcasts, feel free to join us for all of it or for only part of it. These podcast do not try to make a point or explain a concept but they are a vehicle to leisurely listen to music and enjoy it while talking about it.