Somewhere
Andrea Cheeseman, clarinet/bass clarinet
Ravello Records 8018
Total Time: 52:27
Recording: ****/****
Performance: ****/****
Somewhere is a collection of modern electroacoustic music featuring the clarinet, and/or bass clarinet. Soloist Andrea Cheeseman lives in Columbia, South Carolina, having taught at Appalachian State and Delta Universities. Here she introduces listeners to seven new works that explore possibilities of blending electronics and clarinet timbres.
Arioso/Doubles (2002) opens the album. Benjamin Broening’s little work features a gradually expanding melodic line that reaches upwards with some occasional ethereal sounds blended with the solo line. A sense of variation also works to further explore this sense of melody in a rather mystical work. The work which lends the album its title is by Matthew McCabe and features breathy sounds that surround the solo line in an almost creepy way. Written for Ms. Cheeseman in 2015, McCabe explores how a reading of an e.e. cummings poem can be assigned pitch material which is then transferred to this non-verbal expression. Mark Snyder’s Messy (2008) is a musical homage to the performer’s mother and her art studio. Ultraviolet (2007), by Kirsten Volness, is an exploration of pre-recorded samples that are then manipulated to increase other possible timbres. These are layered against the solo line. The sounds of weaving looms are manipulated and transformed in Judith Shatin’s Penelope’s Song (2008). The concept here takes inspiration from the character appearing in Homer’s The Odyssey. In Breath (2005), Joseph Harchanko integrates a computer into the performance and focuses on this important aspect of phrase shaping. Finally, the album concludes with Favorable Odds (2018). Mark Phillips’ expands on this concept with pre-recorded sampling of bass clarinets and non-traditional sounds achieved on a clarinet and then processes these in a variety of ways to create new material. It is a rather stunning work that makes a beautiful close to this fascinating musical journey which adds computer sounds to move into a rather quirky realm.
One can get a sense for the way each of these composers is expanding our concepts of what constitutes musical sound and the parameters that these connect us to in new ways. Cheeseman’s consistent tone and shaping of phrases here adds a rather beautiful warmth to these mostly accessible modern musical experiments.
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