ODYSSEIA

I am pleased to announce the release of ODYSSEIA.

This recording features new music from Greek and Greek-American composers. The compositions offer an overview of works from several generations. Composers featured on the recording include George TSONTAKIS, Theodore ANTONIOU, Christos SAMARAS and Nickitas DEMOS. Performers on this recording include members of the Georgia State University School of Music faculty as well as guest artists from Greece: W. Dwight Coleman, baritone; Nevart-Veron Galileas, flute; Christos Galileas, violin; Ken Long, clarinet; Brandt Fredriksen, piano; and Theofilos Sotiriadis, saxophone.

For more information and to order this CD, please visit: http://www.albanyrecords.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=AR&Product_Code=TROY1413&Category_Code=a-NR

TERMINUS ENSEMBLE returns May 19th!

Terminus Ensemble

Sunday, May 19th, 2013

3:30pm

2nd Ponce de Leon Baptist Church





Dear all,

Terminus Ensemble, dedicated to performing music by Atlanta-affiliated composers, will present the first concert of their second season on Sunday, May 19th.

This concert will feature works by: Nickitas Demos, Sarah Hersh, Tim Jansa, John Anthony Lennon, Brent Milam, and Natalie Williams.

The concert is FREE and we look forward to seeing you there! 

Press Release: Brian Skutle Explores “Arpeggiations & Atmospheres” With a New EP

In January 2011, Atlanta-area composer Brian Skutle had an idea for an EP that would return to the more exploratory type of musical craft he did in his years at Georgia State University. The result is his sixth release, and first digital-only album, “Arpeggiations & Atmospheres”.

Inspired by electronica artists such as BT and Daft Punk, Skutle wanted to try his hand at something more in keeping with “popular” notions of Electronic music, rather than the more classically-influenced structures he had been composing in since his first pieces in 1998. The ideas that would become “Arpeggiations & Atmospheres” first took hold in January of 2011: that the album would utilize only electronic sounds (no live percussion or acoustic instrument simulators); and that each of the album’s seven tracks would be based around one note of the standard chromatic scale (A-G). The third “big idea” behind the album was that the entire thing would be completed over the summer of 2011, and be released shortly after “Storytelling”, his fifth album.

All of these ideas were easily accomplished, with Skutle knocking out all seven tracks in June and July of 2011, and debuting one of them-- set to a video of he and his home studio at work --on his 34th birthday that August. The big stumbling block came when it took a little longer to get “Storytelling” released than Skutle had hoped, although with that album’s release in January of this year, the time had come to planning “Arpeggiations & Atmospheres’s” debut. However, Skutle didn’t want to just make this another release like his previous albums, with CDs pressed, and sent off to CDBaby to languish on the shelves. Instead, Skutle decided to bypass CDBaby entirely for this release, opting instead to make the album a digital-only release, and the first major such release, on his newly-formed Bandcamp site, where it is available for the low price of $5, most of which will come back to him personally.

As for the music itself? Well, though it’s definitely a far-cry from acknowledged influences like BT and Daft Punk in terms of commercial potential, but it definitely has a groove and mood that, while in keeping with Skutle’s overall musical aesthetic, is unlike anything the composer has done to date. It’s a fresh musical experience that signals exciting new possibilities for Skutle in the years to come.

Thanks for listening,

Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
brianskutle.bandcamp.com
"Creative Beginnings" at CDBaby
"Dark Experiments" at CDBaby
"Sonic Visions of a New Old West" at CDBaby
"Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey" at CDBaby
"Storytelling" at CDBaby
"Arpeggiations & Atmospheres" on BandCamp

Press Release: Brian Skutle is "Storytelling" Through Sound on His Fifth Album

After the ambitious scope displayed in his last two albums, Atlanta-area composer Brian Skutle returns to the more compilation-like approach of his first two albums with "Storytelling".

The original title of his fifth album ("Storytelling Through Sound," later shortened to just, "Storytelling") was inspired by an "artistic mission statement" Skutle wrote in 2006, in which he said, "As early as my first compositions back in 1998, a common thread connected most of my pieces. Film music has been a dominant inspiration to me dating back to even before I began composing. There was a passion and feeling that came through the greatest film scores, turning the composers into storytellers in their own right. They were telling their own stories on top of the one the director told on-screen. This aesthetic would creep into my own music, with each piece taking the listener on a musical journey by tapping into a sort of emotional truth that may be abstract in execution, but palpable in its specificity."

By the time he wrote these words, Skutle had already composed (or thought of) the majority of the pieces that would eventually find their way on "Storytelling". In 2002, inspired by the comics series, "Fray", created by Joss Whedon, Skutle wrote down the basic motivic ideas and implanted the "feel" he would later accomplish in the tone poem, "Calling of a Warrior" In 2005, Skutle would find a new way for himself to further explore experiments in musical structure and the evocation of intimate feelings in his five-piece cycle "Passionate Illusions." As he wrote about the cycle in liner notes (available in their entirety on www.sonic-cinema.com), "For me, the five pieces of 'Illusions' represent musical illustrations of sensuality, and not in the way that may be best known. These are more abstractions inspired by dreams, fantasies, and feelings. Artists throughout the ages have been exploring these very ideas in music, film, books, and theater. It is their work- and my own feelings on the subject (which have been influenced by these works many times over the years)- that has inspired this cycle." Among the artists whose work had the strongest influence on Skutle in creating "Passionate Illusions" are the scores of Ennio Morricone ("Lolita"), Cliff Martinez ("Solaris") and Jocelyn Pook ("Eyes Wide Shut").

But it wasn't just the images in a cult comic book series or the scores for unique and powerful films that took very original looks at the world of erotic and romantic feeling that inspired Skutle in the compositions on this album. In 2003, Skutle (who has also written several hundred movie reviews, also available on Sonic Cinema) began an annual tradition of watching almost-exclusively all horror movies during the month of October, and blogging about his choices at the end of each "marathon." In 2004, Skutle was so inspired by not just the haunting images he saw but the sounds he heard to create his own musical descent into the macabre with "Otherworldly March". The next two years also inspired Skutle's creative side, which he turned into unique and unnerving music works all their own in "Gothic Twilight" and "Darkness". His artistic sensibilities would be challenged again in 2009, resulting in his most experimental work in music terror yet, "The Hour of the Wolf", the title of which came from Ingmar Bergman's experimental foray into cinematic horror 1968.

While the pieces contained on "Storytelling", which is the third consecutive album of Skutle's that features bold and evocative artwork by Carrie Stribling, lose some of their context in the composer's career by coming after the albums "Sonic Visions of a New Old West" (2007) and "Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey" (2010), all one has to do in listen to them compared to the pieces on Skutle's first two albums, "Creative Beginnings" (1999) and "Dark Experiments" (2000), and see that Skutle has not only come a long way in his artistic development, but could also have his best work ahead of him.

"Storytelling", like all of Skutle's albums, is available online at www.cdbaby.com, as well as other online vendors such as Amazon and iTunes.

Thanks for listening,

Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
"Creative Beginnings" at CDBaby
"Dark Experiments" at CDBaby
"Sonic Visions of a New Old West" at CDBaby
"Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey" at CDBaby
"Storytelling" at CDBaby

World Premiere of Curtis Bryant's opera THE SECRET AGENT

Atlanta's Capitol City Opera Company will stage the world premiere of THE SECRET AGENT, an opera based on the 1907 novel by Joseph Conrad with music by Atlanta composer Curtis Bryant and libretto by New York forensic psychiatrist Allen Reichman.  Performances will be at the Conant Performing Arts Center on the Oglethorpe University campus on March 15-17.  The production directed by Michael Nutter with musical direction by Catherine Giel will feature a performing ensemble of nine principals, a chorus, and an 18 piece chamber orchestra.  Atlanta baritone Wade Thomas stars in the role of Verloc (the secret agent) with soprano Elizabeth Claxton in the role of Winnie, Verloc's wife.  Don't miss this engaging performance!!!

Riverside Chamber Players to premiere Gresham's Piano Trio, Sunday, March 3

The Riverside Chamber Players will premiere Mark Gresham's new Piano Trio on Sunday, March 3 at 3pm, at Bridge to Grace Church, 2385 Holcomb Bridge Road in Roswell, Georgia. The program will also include music by Osvaldo Golijov, plus music by Bach and Handel in updated arrangements. A wine, cheese and dessert reception will follow.

Commissioned by Riverside Chamber Players, this 16½-minute, four-movement work is Gresham's first for piano trio. The performers for the Trio will be violinist Kenn Wagner, cellist Joel Dallow and pianist Tim Whitehead. Other performers on the program will be Joseph McFadden (bass & guitar), Jonathon Colbert (bass) and Charles Settle (percussion).

Adults $15, Seniors (55+) $10, Children/Students/Music Educators FREE. Tickets available on-line at www.riversidechamberplayers.org or at the door.

To see a web version of Riverside Chamber Players' complete e-mailed promotion, click here.

• • •

Sonic Generator presents "Four Under Forty"

innovative contemporary music by the world's leading young composers

Tuesday, January 29th at Rich Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center

1280 Peachtree Street (directions)

Concert begins at 8 p.m. Free admission.

Georgia Tech’s contemporary chamber music ensemble-in-residence, Sonic Generator, features music by Nathan Davis, Mario Diaz de Leon, Michel van der Aa and Daniel Wohl in a free performance at the Woodruff Arts Center. The concert showcases innovative contemporary music by some of the world’s leading young composers.
 

Read more about the concert 
RSVP on Facebook

Sonic Generator is the contemporary music ensemble-in-residence at Georgia Tech dedicated to using technology to transform the ways in which we compose, perform, and listen to music.

Presented by the Georgia Tech School of Music and Center for Music Technology in partnership with the Woodruff Arts Center, the Georgia Tech GVU Center, and the Georgia Tech College of Architecture.