Flex Ensemble - Inside Eroica - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Flexible Music is Haruka Fujii percussion Dan Lippel guitars Tim Ruedeman saxophones Eric Huebner piano Hout- Louis Andriessen Flexible Music- Nico Muhly Around the Bend- John Link Closing Time- Ryan Streber Sustenance Variations- Orianna Webb Throw Down or Shut Up- Vineet Shende 'The quartet known as Flexible Music derives it's name from the title of the Nico Muhly piece that the group plays on it's new disc. Like that score, the program's other works by Louis Andriessen, John Link, Ryan Streber, Orianna Webb, and Vineet Shende take percussion, piano, saxophones, and guitars through fascinating textural, rhythmic, and coloristic terrain. The results are varied and vital, a feast of intimate musical possibilities. The disc's springboard is Andriessen's beguiling Hout, which has been recorded by several other ensembles. Dutch for 'wood', the piece is a canon that finds the instruments chasing each other at pell-mell speed, occasionally stopping in their tracks amid the hypnotic activity, sensual gestures and group exclamation points. Muhly's Flexible Music is exactly that. Inspired by video games, it's energy is relentless, with swirling, punching ideas momentarily relaxed with lyrical lines. In Link's Around the Bend, something surprising is always lurking, from exotic tambourine sighs to quickly shared fragments, dreamy piano lines and sudden outbursts. An electric guitar broods in Streber's Closing Time, which is animated through saxophone flights and feisty interaction. Tidbits emerge from hushed moments, and the saxophone and guitar have extended solos before the music fades away. The aura veers from the frisky to the still in Webb's Sustenance Variations, whose punchy chords and confrontational episodes find a keen balance amid lines of haunting poetry. Shende pays homage to James Brown in Throw Down or Shut Up, whose vigorous activity includes vocal grunts,

Flex Ensemble writes InchOur second album highlights three different genres of French music A youthful work by Faure, written in the late romantic piano quartet tradition, character pieces by Ravel in a new arrangement for piano quartet and an eclectic mix of contemporary interpretations of French Chansons from Claude Le Jeune up to Georges Brassens. It all began with Faure... his C minor Piano Quartet is one of the earliest works that we learned as an ensemble. We immediately formed a personal connection to the quartet, perhaps one of Faure's most popular chamber music works. With it's emotional core, instrumental color, flowing but clear form, and the fascinating story behind it's creation, we embraced the challenge of exploring our sound and furthering our comprehension of French musical literature. Some years later we received an unexpected gift The first movement of Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye arranged for piano quartet by our friend Shintaro Sakabe. 'Try it,' he said, 'I think it might work'...Inch Album Tracks 1. Ma Mère l'Oye~1. Pavane de la belle au bois bormant 2. Ma Mère l'Oye~2. Petit poucet 3. Ma Mère l'Oye~3. Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes 4. Ma Mère l'Oye~4. Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête 5. Ma Mère l'Oye~5. Le jardin féerique 6. Plus blanche 7. Au Suivant 8. Chanson Ruée 9. Rentrez soupirs 10. Flambée Montalbanaise 11. Piano Quartet in C Minor Op. 15~I. Allegro molto moderato 12. Piano Quartet in C Minor Op. 15~II. Scherzo. Allegro vivo - Trio 13. Piano Quartet in C Minor Op. 15~III. Adagio 14. Piano Quartet in C Minor Op. 15~IV. Allegro molto

Flexible Music - Rube Goldberg Variations [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/19/2018