National Sawdust – Night After Night

September 8, 2023

“Love Songs: A Creation Story in Four Acts and Four Voices”

John Zorn (Photograph courtesy National Sawdust) "Love Songs: A Creation Story in Four Acts and Four Voices"National SawdustSept. 8, 2023 "We prefer pieces that play with the style and format of traditional profiles," the kind folks at National Sawdust told me when I agreed to write a preview story ahead of Love Songs, the new

Happy Birthday, Philip Glass.

A warning, in advance, that what follows is a sentimental wallow. I first came to know the music of Philip Glass in 1983, when – as an ambitious 17-year-old autodidact subscriber to the classical-music division of the RCA Music Club – I forgot to send back the "ship nothing" reply card one fateful month, and

Noteworthy.

The first recording I was moved to listen to in 2018 is Hidden, a new Wergo album featuring two dynamic, disparate compositions by Chaya Czernowin. Adiantum Capillus-Veneris (2015-16) is a three-part composition designated "for voice and breath" – the first and second parts involving amplification, the last adding electronics – performed with intimacy and vitality here