Per Bloland - Shadows of the Electric Moon Shadows of the Electric Moon  seems like yet another work only 'cool' to other performers who have bothered to waste at least hundreds of hours to learn it. It takes extreme patience to sit and listen to this fifteen- minute long work for solo percussion and electronics. Per Bloland  clearly has an impeccable understanding of what sounds can be coaxed out of just a snare drum, cymbal, and crotale, but the piece itself it unbearably long for seemingly no reason. Shadows of the Electric Moon  seems like yet another work only 'cool' to other performers who have bothered to waste at least hundreds of hours to learn it (listen to it here ). On rare occasions, Bloland gives the audience a small taste of a groove onto which they can latch, but never for more than a few seconds at most. These sections allow the audience to actually hear all of the intricate and interesting changes the sound exerciser is making. I do wish that Blola...

 Mason Bates - Piano Concerto Bates' virtuosic piano writing, brilliant orchestration, and truly masterful use of percussion, comes to the forefront. Mason Bates , known for his work involving the 'intersection between music and technology', is not the first composer to come to one's mind when imagining who would compose a new, full-length classical piano concerto. It was just as much of a surprise to me to hear that Bates was jointly commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra , who premiered it in mid-January under the baton of Maestro  Yannick Nézet-Séguin , and the San Francisco Symphony  to create this half-hour long concerto for the Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov . Bates has written few concerti, and currently only has three works, one of which is the Piano Concerto , listed in his catalogue. In spite of this, Bates' virtuosic writing and elegant scoring resulted in quite the daring work for piano and orchestra. For too long, Mason Bates has been the epitome o...

 Sam Pluta - Neural Duo I      With an opening ‘whack’, Pluta ’s Neural Duo I is off and running. The work never lets up, with both the trumpet, minus a mouthpiece, and Pluta’s own Neural Net synths instrument bombarding the listener with fast, punchy rhythms for the entire seven and a half minutes.      Peter Evans ’ trumpet playing is that akin to a crazed virtuoso. The fact that a trumpeter is confident and strong enough to play their instrument in a percussive and unconventional manner is impressive. Evans’ convincing sense of rhythm is what really holds the piece together.      Despite this reflection, one really has to debate whether the trumpet itself adds anything to the work. Is Neural Duo I a duet for trumpet and NN synths, or simply a piece where Pluta needs any instrument with rhythmic capabilities to use as a basis for his electronic instrument? Even with that being said, it is important to note that even though the work was...

 Sam Pluta - Actuate/Resonate      Pluta has an uncanny ear for timbre when mixing electronics with a large ensemble. Picking out which sounds are electronic versus which are acoustic is borderline impossible for large swaths of the music, and the listener never gets too distracted by the integrated electronics until it is practically too late to ignore.       While Actuate / Resonate eerily creeps along for fourteen and a half minutes, a slumbering mechanical beast begins to awaken from within the group. The title, Actuate / Resonate , perfectly fits the work, with resonate being almost too heavy-handed of a pun between the musical and technical definitions.      By the end of the work, Pluta establishes what could be defined as an intensely rhythmic groove, with each and every hit being doubled by electronic and acoustic sounds. He truly created a work not for ensemble and electronics, but for a chamber ensemble which contains el...

Kyong Mee Choi -  Inner Space Kyong Mee Choi's Inner Space  for solo violoncello and fixed electronics, felt exploratory and experimental, as though Choi was simply seeing what sort of combination of acoustic and electronic sounds worked well together. The full aesthetic of the work was interesting to watch, however at times it felt constrained to some early clichés, specifically some of the extended techniques implemented in the cello. Many of these seemed more sound-focused than interested in the actual music.  The solo part was also incredibly simple, making it seem dependent on the fixed media for a majority of the piece’s interest (watch  here ).

 Kyong Mee Choi - Dawn and Dusk Kyong Mee Choi's Dawn and Dusk  for two pianos and electronics engages one the entire time. It is a great example of how electronics can enable an acoustic instrument to evolve into something new, without being overbearing or distracting. Most impressively, there were an awful lot of expressiveness to the performance, especially within the lyrical phrases. Even within the constraints of the electronics, the piece was composed to allow the performers to be musical (watch here ).

 Christina George - The Last Words The Last Words , while not literally programmatic, clearly and convincingly explores the multiple ways grief sounds to each and every one of us.  Christina George  dubs her new piece,  The Last Words ,    a 'break-up song' in three movements. Written for a subset of Radius Ensemble , clarinet, violin, double bass, and piano, George's music combines lyrical melodies, rhythmic grooves, and ambient thoughts, culminating in a profoundly emotional piece (watch the performance here ). The first movement "Remember how you left me" is in a short ternary form, begins with a propulsive groove in the piano and pizzicato bass. The intensely rhythmic drive grabs the audience's attention and allows the players to have fun with more intricate passagework in the violin and clarinet. George then opens up the space with high, sustained tones, only using slight pulses in the piano to tie the sections together rhythmically. With an explosion ...