Ringmasters: Christopher Jones

Christopher Jones' music is marked by finely detailed textures and a strong command of unconventional forms.  It turns in unexpected directions, following well-sculpted orchestrations and distinctive sonorities toward uniquely expressive musical landscapes.  As the opening energies of Strange Loop fade, expressively disorienting violin glissandi open up a slowly unfolding chain of melody and harmonic underpinning that moves forward inexorably, yet sumptuously.  Click the link above and take a short, satisfying musical journey.

Currently on faculty at DePaul University, Chris is a welcome addition to Chicago's musical landscape.  His ear for sonic development beg the question: could he be the composer to save your alarm clock or ringtone from its trite fate?

Ringmasters: Andrew Tham

Andrew Tham is a partner in crime with us Spektrals.  He's our support when we need an extra hand on many occasions and his work with Parlour Tapes+ is helping bring our debut release to light next month.  Plus, he's got a one-of-a-kind twitter feed (or I'd say the perfect distillation of the medium)...check out his timeline.

Even better, he's also a massively creative and open-minded person.  You can follow his travels through the musical landscape of Chicago and beyond on his blog, and check out his intriguing sonic meditation "Daydream" here:

Ringmasters: Luke Gullickson

 The soulful, carefully stripped down, and no b.s. music of Luke Gullickson is always a joy to encounter.  Classically trained and skilled as a player and composer, Luke passes on the pretense and creates in an arrestingly direct style.  He can be seen around Chicago and increasingly beyond with the infamous Grant Wallace Band.  If you've never heard this freaky folk trio in action, check out the first track from their upcoming album:

And, Luke frequently releases tracks under the name Golconda.  Listen up and dive deep into some great tunes:

Ringmasters: Suzanne Farrin

 The incredibly creative and poetic Suzanne Farrin is an articulate voice for contemporary music and a composer with a uniquely substantive flair for the dramatic.  You can hear her talk in-depth about here about her recent disc of works centered around the poetry of Petrarca, which covers a wide range of expression and color.

Below, check out the spaciously grand "Gli Occhi Miei" with Suzanne providing a tour de force of sound playing inside the piano and singing. 

Gli Occhi Miei from suzanne farrin on Vimeo.

Ringmasters: Seth Boustead

Seth Boustead is one of the leading advocates for new music in Chicago, wearing many hats as a composer, administrator, and broadcaster.  He is the Executive Director of Access Contemporary Music, which engages in a wide variety of efforts to bring many composers and countless pieces to light.  He also plays the advocate for the wider new music scene through his show on WFMT, Relevant Tones.

A particularly popular effort of ACM is their "Sound of Silent Film Festival", which brings new music and strangely wonderful old films together.  Here's a work by Seth from a past festival:

Ringmasters: Katherine Young

In the spirit of full disclosure: Katherine Young is a close personal collaborator of mine.  I'll be premiering an evening-long work for solo violin(s) that we constructed over the course more than a year on September 27 in Chicago.  Our piece, like much of her work, lives at the intersection of improvisation and notated music as well as exploring the potential of sounds that might seem too small to be significant at first glance.

The quartet is very happy to name her as a good friend as well.  She plays bassoon in the band Pretty Monsters, who opened for us at The Hideout in June, and she's working on an arrangement of this lovely Arthur Russell tune for our Oct. 26 Album Release Party.  

But, until you can hear the results of her ringtone creativity, why not check out one section of Katherine and my project (called: Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight) and hear the gritty sound-world we created with a strangely prepared violin we bought on Amazon?

Ringmasters: Marek Poliks

Marek Poliks write music that "mines for expressivity in threadbare spaces, exhausted resources, and modes of interdiction." He lives on the edge of notated music, writing pieces that focus heavily on the performer's interaction with the score.  The complex, and visually beautiful notation inspires multiple modes of response from interpreters and the sonic results are similarly multivalent.

I had a real freak-out when I heard his string quartet "ordinances(B)".  The strangled shimmers and terrifying groans of the instruments create a haze of harmony that challenge my ear and imagination.  As the notes fade in and out of speaking, I wonder: "How much space can music occupy in the world, and in my mind?"

Ringmasters: Morgan Krauss

 Morgan Krauss has quickly emerged as a prolific and preternaturally talented composer, recently receiving 1st prize at the 2013 Orkest de ereprijs YCM competition.  She describes her work as aiming to "produce tactile explorations based on ones physical awareness and elements of sensuality."

Her pieces live up to this description, hovering at the edge of incredible expectation here...

...and with this overwhelming texture of obscured language and secret messages: 

Ringmasters: David Skidmore

Deep grooves and beautifully resonant harmonies typify David Skidmore's "Common Patterns in Uncommon Time", which you can hear an amazing clip of on here.  It's not every day that you find a performer capable of playing in a group as busy, cohesive and polished as Third Coast Percussion that also finds time to write excellent music.  We can't wait to see what he'll do once he gets his hands on the string quartet!

Oh, and check him out in action with Third Coast here...this is awesome:

Museum of Modern Art - John Cage Day - Third Coast Percussion - August 9, 2012 from Third Coast Percussion on Vimeo.

Ringmasters: Sarah Ritch

Sarah Ritch is the closest of close friends to the Spektral Quartet.  Before we'd even fully formed as a quartet, Aurelien and I got together on a Tuesday afternoon to read duets, drink a little vodka, and get to know each other.  Sarah was there, and the first to let us know that we had a long way to go if we were going to learn to match sounds in a string quartet.  Why was she there?  Oh yeah, she's married to Aurelien.

She's a savvy tech-expert and capable of wearing many hats: from composer, to Google Glass pioneer, to Director of Educational Outreach at the Beethoven Festival...and she gives a great interview involving music and technology.  Plus, here's another interview between her and another good buddy of the quartet, Andrew Tham.

I think this duo (with a very old-school Aurelien look going on) depicts how she may have hoped Aurelien and my reading session had ended:

Ringmasters: Bernard Rands

It's an honor to include the Pulitzer Prize-winning Bernard Rands in the killer stable of  composers for our Mobile Miniatures project.  He's worked with countless top artists, lauded in the press and received countless awards.  But, the most exciting part of working with him on this project is to experience his great sensitivity to line and poetic sensibilities as we develop his miniature musical moment.

2014 marks Bernard's 80th birthday, and we also have performances of his Second String Quartet to look forward to.  This is a finely sculpted piece with a great understanding of the quartet as a medium.  To hear a masterful composer in full command of a genre and wringing deep expression from string instruments, take a listen.  We can't wait to learn it!

Ringmasters: Julia Holter

I've known Julia Holter since my undergraduate years at the University of Michigan.  While I didn't know her well back then, I've followed her amazing progression into an indie sensation after her move to Los Angeles for grad school at Cal Arts.

Among several good friends of the quartet (and in the spirit of full disclosure: fellow Michigan alums Chris F-L and on our blog Alex Temple), long discussions were had about her intriguing and labyrinthine song Marienbad.   And I've been nothing short of enthralled with her new album Loud City Song.  I'm pretty confident I've listened to Into The Green Wild at least 30 times.  Check it out now:

Ringmasters: Jay Alan Yim

I've known Jay Alan Yim since my time as a graduate student at Northwestern University.  I had a fantastic time in his "Music Since 1975" class, including sprawling conversations about aesthetic issues that somehow wound up talking about initially unrelated issues and being forced to engage with music I thought (and continue to think, in some cases) that I hated.

Jay is a composer of incredible intellect and wide-ranging interests.  His scores can range from the carefully constructed and sculptural "Blue Voice of Air" (that you can check out below) to this spacious multi-layered structure with elements of improvisation I was a part of performing back in 2009.

I always imagine a bold, geometrically bristling modern sculpture when I hear this piece.  Also, fish making music...c'mon!

Ringmasters: Jen Wang

I first became acquainted with Jen Wang's music in Darmstadt last summer.  As a recipient of a "Staubach Honorarium", she had composed a new work for New York's excellent Talea Ensemble.  It was a great moment in the festival from my perspective as it showed that even in a place as famously rarified as Darmstadt, the zeitgeist has shifted toward acceptance of a wide range of musical aesthetics.

I've kept an eye on what she's been up to ever since with keen interest in what's happening in the Bay Area.  Jen is incredibly active as a composer and administrator as a co-Director of the Wild Rumpus collective and as curator at the Center For New Music.

A wonderfully sonically aware composer, Jen's sense for the development of sounds is on full display in this wonderful percussion quartet (make sure to click through to the second half):

Ringmasters: Liza White

We've gotten to know Liza White well since this last spring.  We premiered her "Zin Zin Zin Zin" (a raucous short work based on a scat by Mos Def) back in May, and had a fantastic time getting all its moving parts and criss-crossing lines into place for our debut disc.  You can look forward to the full piece then, and in the meantime we'll be working with her on a brand new ringtone.

Were you wondering if Liza knows how to put together an exciting and energetic piece of music?  If so, you haven't heard "Zin", but check out "Freestyle" on her website...each section of this barn-burner is based on different hip-hop dance moves!

And, because great music is great, check out Mos Def with The Roots...ZIN ZIN ZIN ZIN!