Pavone, Jessica - Lull CD
SKU
39-CD-CHAIK-012
Jessica Pavone - composer/viola
soloists:
Brian Chase - percussion solo
Nate Wooley - Bb trumpet solo
Aimée Niemann and Charlotte Munn-Wood - violin
Abby Swidler - viola
Christopher Hoffman and Meaghan Burke - cello
Shayna Dulberger and Nicholas Jozwiak - double bass
“Jessica Pavone, eminent figure of NYC’s avant-classical scene, delivers Lull, a timely new album of transfixing sonic textures. Featuring a distinguished ensemble of New York-based musicians, including soloists Brian Chase (of indie rock legends Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Nate Wooley (highly acclaimed trumpet virtuoso), Lull’s instrumentation consists of an eight-piece string section augmented with percussion and trumpet. This album-length minimalist-inspired composition finds stillness amidst tension, and evokes impressions of landscape environments such as rolling waves, monochrome deserts and stars punctuating a dark empty sky.”
“Composer-violist Jessica Pavone was thinking about how music has the power to cause you to feel a range of emotions—depression, excitement, nostalgia—as she wrote the works that comprise Lull. She’s inspired by processes that center intuition and instinct, learning from sound healers and alternative healing practices to bolster her philosophical interests in the power of sound to illuminate hidden emotions. She channels all these ideas into compositions by focusing on the way music feels when it’s played and heard instead of what’s “right” and “wrong.” In writing music this way, she’s able to explore how sonic vibrations affect the body, weaving her many experiences as an instrumentalist into works that transcend time.
Lull directly reflects Pavone’s interests by centering flexibility rather than perfection—the music is meant to sit right in the body, not force the artists to cram their hands in positions that simply don’t work. Her score for Lull focuses on open pitches that players oscillate between at their own rate, taking advantage of the natural resonance of instruments. Lull also represents an expansion of Pavone’s practice—this is her first octet, which she was inspired to begin after writing a string quartet in 2017. After writing the quartet, she dreamed of writing a long-ranging, drone-focused solo work; eventually, that turned into Lull, a four-movement octet with two acclaimed soloists, Yeah Yeah Yeahs percussionist Brian Chase and trumpeter Nate Wooley.”
- LabelChaikin
- UPC634457062405