03/25/2025
"Percussionist Christopher Clarino interprets work by five composers on Parlando. The three-part title piece, by Igor Santos, is a duo for vibraphone and synthesizer, the latter played by Shaoai Ashley Zhang; the sharp metallic strikes are swaddled and countered by gentle drones and shimmers, rendering the whole thing oddly blissful, even when Clarino unleashes a burst of clanking. Barbara Monk Feldman’s “Glockenspiel” is only two minutes long, but has the spaciousness and meaningful intervals of both Morton Feldman (to whom she was married) and Thelonious Monk. It leads seamlessly into Thomas DeLio’s “jeu de timbres”, which features a range of instruments including orchestra bells and what sounds like a drum kit. The pauses between eruptions are sometimes long enough to suggest Clarino’s walking across the room from one instrument to another. There are two other long pieces, Anthony Donofrio’s “Meditation on Italo Calvino’s ‘The Castle of Crossed Destinies’” and Michael Pisaro-Liu’s “The Narrow Path”, which require the listener to focus, lest the whole thing drift away. Even at its most melodic, solo percussion music can be a challenge to the listener, but Parlando is worth the effort."
Burning Ambulance
https://burningambulance.substack.com/p/5-new-classical-albums-you-need-to
Pushing The Envelope 30 years of broadcasting the finest in the outer realms of contemporary music f
