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Elliott Sharp: The Boreal

by Starkland

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Comes with an 8-page insert including the composer's program notes and an Introduction by Frances-Marie Uitti.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Elliott Sharp: The Boreal via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days

      $14 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Comes with a 8-page insert including the composer's program notes and an Introduction by Frances-Marie Uitti
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9 USD  or more

     

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Oligosono: 1 06:09
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Oligosono: 2 08:52
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Oligosono: 3 04:36
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about

Radiant, ethereal, alluring and overwhelming. A magnificent disc.
– 5 against 4

Exceptionally fascinating … Strongly recommended.
– Classical-Modern Music Review

Very rewarding … As usual with Starkland the recording is of very high quality.
– New Music Buff

This CD presents the premiere recordings of four works – for solo piano, string quartet, chamber ensemble, and full orchestra – by Elliott Sharp, who has been a central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s.

“Incandescent, burning and etching new paths through the neural strata of the listener.”
– Frances-Marie Uitti

The Boreal was composed for and premiered by the widely acclaimed JACK string quartet. For this work, Sharp created exotic alternate bows, substituting ballchain and metal springs for the traditional horsehairs. Reviewing a performance in Seen and Heard International, George Grella remarked that these invented bows produce “sounds that I have truly never heard, via any means or in any situation. Much of it sounds like a scream traversing a wind tunnel, the aural sense of great energy and color shimmering in space.” Grella concluded this “always interesting and powerful” composition is “a great piece, a notable signpost in the road of experimental music that parallels the standard classical tradition.”

Commissioned and premiered by pianist Jenny Lin, Oligosono uses extended techniques that include sounds made directly on the piano strings, permutative rendering of short loops, and fingerings of motoric rhythms that enhance the generation of harmonic overtones. Lin notes this “virtuosic tour-de-force” takes “listeners through a thrilling and provocative sonic world.”

Proof of Erdös, an homage to the mathematician Pal Erdös, reflects that mathematics, especially fractal geometry, chaos theory, Fibonacci numbers, and bio-genetic concepts, play an important role in Sharp’s formal constructions. Conductor David Bloom writes, the piece “is a gripping juggernaut that builds white-hot walls of sound, overtaking listeners before leading them to even denser ones.”

The CD ends with On Corlear’s Hook, inspired by the diverse sights and sounds near Sharp’s apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side known as Corlear’s Hook – bridges, loading docks, ferry landings, river traffic, birds, helicopters, planes. Uitti writes that the work employs “independent cells progressing at different speeds – lining up briefly and splitting off again.” It is performed here by the Janácêk Philharmonic, conducted by Peter Rundel.

ABOUT ELLIOTT SHARP

Elliott Sharp, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer who has pioneered methods of applying mathematics to musical composition, also leads the projects Carbon, Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics, and Terraplane. A 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, he has released over 85 recordings of orchestral music, blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music; has composed scores for feature films and documentaries; and has produced sound installations in art galleries and museums including New York’s Whitney Museum. In 2010, Sharp wrote, composed, and directed About Us, a science-fiction opera for all-teenage performers at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. His composition Storm Of the Eye appears on violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn’s 2014 Grammy-winning album “In 27 Pieces.” A featured guest on NPR’s All Things Considered, Sharp is also the subject of a documentary “Doing The Don’t” by filmmaker Bert Shapiro. His collaborators have included pop singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Kronos String Quartet; Ensemble Resonanz; cello innovator Frances Marie Uitti; pipa virtuoso Min-Xiao Feng; and multimedia artist Christian Marclay.

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released October 30, 2015

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Starkland Boulder, Colorado

Starkland releases engaging, compelling recordings of alternative classical, experimental, and avant-garde music.

“Always worth exploring.” – New Music Box

“For anyone with open ears, Starkland is essential listening.” – John Luther Adams

“Great avant-garde recordings… a new music force.” – Sequenza21

“Challenging and beautiful and provocative and powerful music.” – David Lang
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