Showing posts with label Meredith Monk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meredith Monk. Show all posts

Friday, June 15, 2012

New York's Spectrum Presents Surround Sound from Starkland

New York's new Spectrum venue, a technology-intensive site for innovative music and multimedia, has invited me to present a Starkland evening there on Monday June 18. Naturally my first thought was: Surround Sound. Fortunately I knew that Spectrum's overlord, the energetic Glenn Cornett, was a surround sound enthusiast.

The concert will focus on electroacoustic surround sound music I commissioned for two DVDs. (Starkland has likely commissioned more surround sound music for DVD than any other label in the world.)

The audience will hear a tidal wave of hyperdense bells, a trumpet reverberating for 7 seconds in a huge underground water tank, a spaced-out Ethel Quartet, West African balafons, a 14-foot long Quadrachord, a ghostly wailing wall, a weird madrigal, and 15,000 African parrots.

Commissioned composers include: Paul Dolden, Paul Dresher, Ellen Fullman, Phil Kline, Lukas Ligeti, Ingram Marshall, Merzbow, Meredith Monk, Bruce Odland, Pauline Oliveros, Maggi Payne, Carl Stone, and Pamela Z.

The concert will open with selections from Starkland's Immersion DVD-Audio, recognized by sources such as Pro Sound News and Billboard as the first such recording in history. Sound & Vision wrote:

"Not only a fascinating array of musical innovation but a persuasive exploration of the possibilities of surround sound... The care that went into this disc is carried through to the stylish onscreen graphics [and] the excellent printed program notes."

The second half of the concert will play most/all of Phil Kline's Around the World in a Daze DVD, a major 65-minute work commissioned by Tom as a followup to Immersion. (Another first-of-its-kind recording.) Phil's imaginative, rich use of surround sound space has dazzled many:

The New Yorker: "A special-project disk in which Kline created, out of extravagant electronic means... an audio-visual feast that balances hipster zen with the seriousness of Bach and Wagner."

Stereophile: "This adventurous music... ranges widely from ambient recordings that are surprisingly musical, to complex constructions that emerge as lyrical."

New York Magazine: "A set of sensational etudes."

Sequenza21: "Imaginary vistas that envelope, even overwhelm... Our always adventuresome friends at Starkland have outdone themselves this time."

An Extras DVD in the Daze release features a lengthy interview with Phil by John Schaefer. Time permitting, some of these sections may be shown.

The concert will feature a high quality surround playback system, installed by techmaster Lawrence de Martin.

Read more here.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Sound + Vision Praises Surround Sound, Starkland

The most widely read consumer electronics magazine in the world, Sound + Vision, focuses on surround sound and compliments Starkland's 2 surround DVDs in the new December issue. Their editorial comments include:
"We here at S+V continue to wholeheartedly embrace music in surround... Groundbreaking surround-sound releases are still coming from the likes of King Crimson, Porcupine Tree, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and Genesis... Music in surround is here to stay."
They add that Phil Kline's Around the World in a Daze is one of the new "multi-channel titles that deserve a shout-out." Daze has also been praised in The New York Times, Stereophile, New York Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, and over a dozen other publications.

We are also quite pleased that Entertainment Editor Ken Richardson ranks Starkland's Immersion DVD as a "landmark" surround sound release. We agree! Immersion was the first commissioned hi-res surround recording, as well as being the first new music hi-res surround recording.

For the Immersion DVD, Starkland commissioned new surround works from Paul Dolden, Paul Dresher, Ellen Fullman, Phil Kline, Lukas Ligeti, Ingram Marshall, Merzbow, Meredith Monk, Bruce Odland, Pauline Oliveros, Maggi Payne, Carl Stone, and Pamela Z.

Pro Sound News declared that Immersion is the "first DVD-A released featuring works composed specifically for the new surround medium." Over a dozen publications praised the DVD, including Billboard, Stereophile, and Fanfare.

Tomlinson Holman, one of the world's leading surround sound authorities, stated "this fascinating disc" is among the first "to show composers stretching the boundaries of recorded sound by exploring the new possibilities inherent in DVD-Audio."