Biggs / American Modern Ensemble / Goodman - Onyx [CD]

The 29th edition of the acclaimed Society of Composers, Inc. CD Series and the fifth SCI release on the label. Founded in 1965, SCI celebrates their 50 year anniversary with the release of this album, marking their continued dedication to the promotion, performance, understanding, and dissemination of new and contemporary music. This offering in the series features works by ten SCI composers: Christopher Biggs' Greed offers a musical reflection on the depravity of the same name; Federico Bonacossa's Rivir for solo viola was written for violist Vivian Torres, using letters from her name to form a palindrome; Kai-Young Chan's Ignis Fatuus is a musical portrait of the elusive and flickering phenomena of a pale, green light commonly seen in marshes or around graveyards; Kyong Mee Choi and Timothy Ernest Johnson's Tensile Strength focuses on the intersection of the harsh and the harmonious; Shawn Crouch's Adolescent Psychology is an impressionistic scene of youth; Ferdinando DeSena's Between Logic and Rhetoric presents the distinction between logical and rhetorical arguments; Chi-hin Leung's Utmost Attack captures the fleeting moment of shooting an arrow; Anne Neikirk's Gangrel offers a musical narrative illustrating the onset of a terrifying thunderstorm; andrián Pertout's Echoes from the Past presents a study on extended flute techniques, such as multi phonics, progressive vibrati, and broken sounds; and Mark Zanter's Persistence of Memory, commissioned by WVSO Principal Flautist Lindsey Goodman, explores how a piece of music might attempt to form memories of itself. This compilation reflects the diversity and originality of techniques coming from some of today's most talented composers.