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The Consent of Sound and Meaning
The Music of Eric Richards on new focus records
AMAZON ::: NEW FOCUS ::: iTUNES
Album info:
Artist: loadbang
Title: The Consent of Sound and Meaning - Music of Eric Richards
Label: New Focus Records
Release: January 20, 2023
Track Listing:
Eric RICHARDS A Fanfare for Diebenkorn
Wingsets
The Mouth of the Night
Rocks; gardens
Owls, too
Fire, fire!
Hymn to Santa Muerta (Rotting Christ)
The Consent of Sound and Meaning
Title: The Consent of Sound and Meaning - Music of Eric Richards
Label: New Focus Records
Release: January 20, 2023
Track Listing:
Eric RICHARDS A Fanfare for Diebenkorn
Wingsets
The Mouth of the Night
Rocks; gardens
Owls, too
Fire, fire!
Hymn to Santa Muerta (Rotting Christ)
The Consent of Sound and Meaning
Notes:
Composer Eric Richards shared a penchant for deconstructing musical elements with his modernist contemporaries. And, like many of them, he used technology as a tool to examine and consider subtleties of sound and expression. But unlike his peer composers who then proceeded to write electronic and electro-acoustic music, Richards primarily used his chosen tool, the tape recorder, to conduct research on sound. After pondering it from many angles, he returned to the acoustic medium to produce works that reflect a prismatic stance on musical ideas, presented with almost scientific detachment and wonderment in the same breath. This collection of Richards’ works was co-curated by loadbang and Ekmeles, two ensembles with a deep dedication to advocating for under-appreciated gems of the avant-garde.
The Consent of Sound and Meaning opens with the declamatory A Fanfare for Diebenkorn for three trumpets, all played by loadbang’s Andy Kozar. Richard Diebenkorn was an abstract expressionist painter based in California; one can hear Richards capturing the austerity of reorganized visual elements in the pointed staccato notes followed by a sustained tone. Wingsets is the largest work on the album in terms of instrumentation. Written for a vibrantly colorful ensemble of nine instrumentalists and nine singers (including the baritone soloist, here Steve Hrycelak), it sets two simultaneously overlaid texts drawn from the Catholic liturgy. Richards contrasts clusters with wide leaps of a ninth in the solo part, and the short work evokes Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles in its spare, direct quality.
Credits:
Personnel:
Recording Engineer: Ryan Streber
Mastering: Ryan Streber
Producers: Jeffrey Gavett and Andy Kozar
Cover Art: Larry Schulte and Alex Eckman-Lawn
Album Design: Alex Eckman-Lawn
Recording Dates and Locations:
February 28, 2021 - a fanfare for diebenkorn and The Mouth of the Night at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)
September 18-19, 2021 - The Consent of Sound and Meaning, Fire, fire!, Owls, too, Wingsets, and Hymn to Santa Muerte (Rotting Christ) at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)
October 5, 2021 - rocks; gardens at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)
This project was made possible through generous donations by David Brown, Sally Condon, Eleanor Engelman, Tom Hamilton and Jacqueline Martelle, Eileen Jones, Hettie Jones, Paul Paccione, Kay Stonefelt, Paul Schiavo, Sara Winter, and Larry Schulte and Alan Zimmerman.
Composer Eric Richards shared a penchant for deconstructing musical elements with his modernist contemporaries. And, like many of them, he used technology as a tool to examine and consider subtleties of sound and expression. But unlike his peer composers who then proceeded to write electronic and electro-acoustic music, Richards primarily used his chosen tool, the tape recorder, to conduct research on sound. After pondering it from many angles, he returned to the acoustic medium to produce works that reflect a prismatic stance on musical ideas, presented with almost scientific detachment and wonderment in the same breath. This collection of Richards’ works was co-curated by loadbang and Ekmeles, two ensembles with a deep dedication to advocating for under-appreciated gems of the avant-garde.
The Consent of Sound and Meaning opens with the declamatory A Fanfare for Diebenkorn for three trumpets, all played by loadbang’s Andy Kozar. Richard Diebenkorn was an abstract expressionist painter based in California; one can hear Richards capturing the austerity of reorganized visual elements in the pointed staccato notes followed by a sustained tone. Wingsets is the largest work on the album in terms of instrumentation. Written for a vibrantly colorful ensemble of nine instrumentalists and nine singers (including the baritone soloist, here Steve Hrycelak), it sets two simultaneously overlaid texts drawn from the Catholic liturgy. Richards contrasts clusters with wide leaps of a ninth in the solo part, and the short work evokes Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles in its spare, direct quality.
Credits:
Personnel:
- a fanfare for diebenkorn
Andy Kozar, trumpets - Wingsets
Laura Cocks, flute; Andy Kozar, trumpet; Olivia De Prato and Curtis Stewart, violin; Hannah Levinson, viola; Chris Gross, cello; Robert Black, bass; Caitlin Cawley and Jude Traxler, percussion; Ekmeles: Charlotte Mundy and Madeline Apple Healey, sopranos; Elisa Sutherland and Kate Maroney, mezzo sopranos; Brian Giebler and Steven Bradshaw, tenors; Joe Chappel and Philip Cheah, basses; Steve Hrycelak, solo bass; Jeffrey Gavett, conductor - The Mouth of the Night
Jeffrey Gavett, voice - rocks; gardens
Andy Kozar, trumpet(s); Steve Beck, piano - Owls, too
Ekmeles: Corrine Byrne, Madeline Apple Healey, Charlotte Mundy, and Joy Tamayo, sopranos; Kate Maroney and Elisa Sutherland, mezzo sopranos; Jeffrey Gavett, conductor - Fire, fire!
loadbang: Jeffrey Gavett, baritone; Andy Kozar, trumpet; William Lang, baritone; Adrián Sandí, bass clarinet - Hymn to Santa Muerte (Rotting Christ)
Jeffrey Gavett, baritone; Jude Traxler, percussion - The Consent of Sound and Meaning
Robert Black, basses; Andy Kozar, trumpets
Recording Engineer: Ryan Streber
Mastering: Ryan Streber
Producers: Jeffrey Gavett and Andy Kozar
Cover Art: Larry Schulte and Alex Eckman-Lawn
Album Design: Alex Eckman-Lawn
Recording Dates and Locations:
February 28, 2021 - a fanfare for diebenkorn and The Mouth of the Night at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)
September 18-19, 2021 - The Consent of Sound and Meaning, Fire, fire!, Owls, too, Wingsets, and Hymn to Santa Muerte (Rotting Christ) at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)
October 5, 2021 - rocks; gardens at Oktaven Audio (Mt. Vernon, NY)
This project was made possible through generous donations by David Brown, Sally Condon, Eleanor Engelman, Tom Hamilton and Jacqueline Martelle, Eileen Jones, Hettie Jones, Paul Paccione, Kay Stonefelt, Paul Schiavo, Sara Winter, and Larry Schulte and Alan Zimmerman.