Cordâme
Wonderful recording! Inspired writing by 6 composers in a wide variety of styles. The playing is superb as well and beautifully recorded. Love it!
Favorite track: Still Point [composed by Judd Greenstein].
Joost de Wall
Wonderful album that will end up high in my 'best of 2023' list. Code is probably the most beautiful piece that I have heard this year.
Favorite track: Code [composed by Paola Prestini].
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Internationally acclaimed pianist Awadagin Pratt announces his new album STILLPOINT
On Friday August 25, 2023, the internationally acclaimed pianist Awadagin Pratt, known as “one of the great and distinctive American pianists and conductors of our time” (NPR All Things Considered), and praised for his “enormous dynamic range [that] encompasses grave quiet to immense thunder” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), will release his new album, STILLPOINT, via New Amsterdam Records. STILLPOINT is a collection of six newly-commissioned works of profound grace, power, and depth, composed by a group of stylistically diverse composers for piano (Pratt), string orchestra (A Far Cry), and vocal ensemble (Roomful of Teeth).
STILLPOINT is a departure from — and a re-imagining of — Pratt's decades-long artistic journey, as he engages with and questions the long established genre-specific norms of classical music. By uniting T.S. Eliot's prescient poem The Four Quartets with his own pioneering musicianship, and with the creative voices of his chosen composers, Pratt explores, in his words, Eliot’s “expression of a particular kind of tension, an understanding of a duality that can exist in life, the struggle for balance, and an acknowledgement of the inexpressible–that which cannot be tidily communicated” as a pathway to ideas not particular to one’s own experience, but universal to the human condition.
The album is a collaboration between Pratt; the Grammy-winning vocal band, Roomful of Teeth; the democratically run string orchestra, A Far Cry; and a stellar array of composers including Alvin Singleton, Jessie Montgomery, Judd Greenstein, Paola Prestini, Pēteris Vasks, and Tyshawn Sorey.
Pratt’s virtuosic performance and unmistakable touch weaves together the disparate voices of the composers and ensembles throughout STILLPOINT. His masterful musicianship and unique voice casts each piece as a part of the greater whole — uniting the ensembles, composers, and philosophical inquiry into one temporal universe where his piano sits at the center.
credits
released August 25, 2023
Executive Producer: Mark Rabideau
Producers: Mark Rabideau, Judd Greenstein, Jesse Lewis
Recording Engineer: Francisco Gonzalez Navarro
Engineering Assistant: Christopher Moretti
Editing Engineers: Christopher Moretti, Shauna Barravecchio
Mixing Engineer: Jesse Lewis
Mastering Engineers: Christopher Moretti, Shauna Barravecchio
Awadagin Pratt - pianist, pedagogue, conductor, and curator-of-artistic-moments - is actively inventing the musical world he hopes to live in. And you’re invited.
Another part of this project's extensive dedication to the works of the truly great Julius Eastman, whose legend and status as one of America's major composers grows expidentially with the passing of each and every year. Gavin Hellyer
A work of wondrous astonishment and glorious bedevilment.
Roomful of Teeth - Rough Magic
In retrospect my absolute favourite release of 2023 Giacomo Bruzzo
The stunning new record from London pianist BEATRICE is a celebration of Black composers, every moment intoxicating. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 13, 2024
Revered Indian vocalist unveils a contemporary vision of Dhrupad, an ancient form of Hindustani classical music that emphasizes breathwork. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 30, 2024