Don Freund - Test of Time The music becomes so kitschy so quickly, it is almost impossible to take Freund seriously. Don Freund 's 2009 large ensemble work, Test of Time , was performed again and recorded at the 2022 Mizzou International Composers Festival at the University of Missouri (watch the YouTube recording here ). Performed by Alarm Will Sound  with some additional personnel, the ensemble does a solid job navigating Freund's intense micromanagement of rhythm and tempo, very much thanks to stellar conductor Alan Pierson . Opening with a sacred sounding tuba solo (played less than gracefully by a guest performer), Test of Time  creates an atmosphere of exoneration, before Freund quickly smacks the listener across the face, adding a cheesy spring drum (thunder tube) and harp pedal buzz just to rub it in. One or twice and such an effect can be meaningful, but the entire fifteen minutes is filled with pathetic attempts at similar jump scares. Maybe Freund thinks his ...

  "Widening Circles: New Works for Tuba" -  Album Review ft. Daniel Rowland and Kaju Lee While wide-ranging,  Widening Circles  conventional works come across as more refined in terms of composition, performance, and recording quality.  Despite the unfortunate album title, tubist Daniel Rowland , along with Kaju Lee on piano (both are on faculty at the University of Wisconsin - Platteville), brings together a pleasant assortment of new short and lyrical pieces featuring the uncommon solo instrument. Rowland's programming on this album includes traditional sounding works for tuba and piano, computerized pieces for tuba and electronics, and the mysterious, lugubrious timbre of Jessica Rudman's writing for unaccompanied tuba in Two Portraits of Nyx . While wide-ranging, Widening Circles  conventional works come across as more refined in terms of composition, performance, and recording quality. The first and last pieces on the album, Metal Monday (2019) ...

 Max Vinetz - sear sear  calls to mind the unpleasant heat of cooking over a hot stove in the summer, but once you start, you already know it's too late to stop. Max Vinetz , a composer and current doctoral fellow at Princeton, knows how to create scores well-suited to the now standard model of a contemporary classical ensemble. sear , written for and recently premiered by Alarm Will Sound , is filled with close, Penderecki-esque string whines and shockingly loud blips from the brass and bass drum. Ending with an incessant, out-of-tune drone, Vinetz successfully finds a way to capture his audience, while also making them uncomfortable. Vinetz's music falls prey to similar shortcomings of large ensemble works of the genre. While slightly intriguing upon first listen, sear  becomes familiar and cliché well before the halfway mark. Vinetz's writing is effective, but also incredibly basic in terms of new music. Alarm Will Sound performs dozens of these student works a year, m...