Intolleranza 1960
2025 stock ** "Intolleranza 1960 was Luigi Nono's first work for the opera stage and is a flaming protest against intolerance and oppression and the violation of human dignity. The year in the title refers to the time of the work's origin. Nono himself said of this work that it "did mark a beginning for me, but in no sense did it constitute a tabula rasa or in response to 'divine inspiration'". It was commissioned for the 1961 Venice Biennale by its director Mario Labroca. The first performance …
GTM (Syntax) 2017
*2025 stock. 300 copies limited edition* A twelve CD box set of Anthony Braxton’s complete Syntactical Ghost Trance Music (SGTM) - the subset of Braxton’s revolutionary Ghost Trance Music compositional system written especially for the human voice. The recording also introduces the Tri-Centric Vocal Ensemble - a twelve member choir featuring some of the most exciting and accomplished singers in creative music. The recording is available digitally and in a limited edition 300-copy pressing, a del…
Trillium J
*2025 stock* Trillium J is a Braxton opera, and documents a surreal and witty installment in Braxton’s ongoing Trillium cycle. Available as a four-disc box set in both physical and digital forms and live performance video on Blu-ray disc, it includes a booklet with libretto, photos, and critical essays. Live performance recorded April 19, 2014 at Roulette, Brooklyn. Studio realization recorded April 21-22, 2014 at Avatar Studios, New York, NY.
Trillium E
*2025 stock* Trillium E is the first-ever studio recording of a Braxton opera, and documents a surreal and witty installment in Braxton’s ongoing Trillium cycle. Available as a four-disc box set in both physical and digital forms, it includes a 72-page booklet with libretto, photos, and critical essays. Each of Trillium E’s four acts features a different episode: a genie in a bottle, the invention of human cloning, interplanetary space travel, and the exploration of a jungle pyramid. The perform…
Amistad
“Amistad is an opera that was ten years in the making. Thulani and I first discussed the idea of making an opera on the Amistad Rebellion in 1986, after the premiere of our opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X. We were drawn to the drama of the story, a successful uprising of captives on a slave ship, and the implications of the Amistad incident in an understanding of ourselves and the American experience. Through the Amistad, we could revisit the story of the Middle Passage, the contradicti…
Fernando Grillo. Il Buddha del contrabbasso (Book)
* Italian Language Edition * 2024 Stock * Fernando Grillo (Foggia 1945 - Perugia 2013) contrabbassista e compositore, è stato tra i protagonisti dell'avanguardia musicale del '900, pioniere nell'esplorazione di nuove tecnichedi produzione del suono sul contrabbasso. Per lui hanno scritto compositori quali Salvatore Sciarrino, Iannis Xenakis e Luciano Berio. Karlheinz Stockhausen lo definì "il Buddha del contrabbasso", mentre Carmelo Bene, per il quale lavorò alle musiche dell'opera poetica "I ma…
New American Music, Vol. 3
*2024 stock. Custon CDr* Works by Talib Rasul Hakim, William Bolcom, Howard Swanson and Frederic Rzewski are presented here. Highlights include Bolcom’s "Whisper Moon" for chamber ensemble and three of Rzewski’s songs, whose lyrics are drawn from words by Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes and Guatemalan revolutionary Otto Rene Castille.
Tissues
Pan Daijing’s exhibition-performance Tissues premiered in the Tanks at the Tate Modern in autumn 2019. A five-part immersion in performance, sound, movement, space, and most of all emotion in its most distilled and conflicted states, Tissues engaged with the conventions of opera and tragedy to present a searing representation of the embattled human psyche in space and time. While the ambitious multi-sensory artwork made use of the range of Daijing’s artistic capabilities, music, particularly the…
Licht-Bilder
*2022 Stock. Includes a 56-page illustrated booklet in German and English.* Licht-Bilder, Licht Pictures, 3rd scene of Sonntag aus Licht (Sunday from Light), for tenor vocalist and basset-horn, with ring-modulated flute and trumpet (2002/03). Licht-Bilder is performed by a tenor soloist (Hubert Mayer), ring-modulated trumpet (Marco Blaauw), bassett-horn (Suzanne Stephens) and ring-modulated flute/alto-flute (Kathinka Pasveer), as they polyphonically explore variations on a backwards form of the …
Michaelion
*2022 Stock. Includes a 116-page illustrated booklet in German and English.* The choral action of Michaelion is first heard against a textural synth background, interspersed with melodic fragments in various instrumental timbres. Shortly afterwards, the live synth textures of Mittwochs-Gruss support the vocal and instrumental interaction. The bass soloist's shortwave radio part is actually a performance of Kurzwellen (representing his "language"). The other vocal soloists' noisemaker toys are us…
Welt-Parlament Vom Mittwoch Aus Licht
*2022 Stock. Includes a 32-page booklet in German and English.* Welt-Parlament Vom Mittwoch Aus Licht (World Parliament, 1st scene of Wednesday from Light) for choir a cappella (1995). Welt-Parlament is the 1st Scene from the opera Mittwoch Aus Licht (Wednesday from Light). After the introduction (which includes some incidental hand percussion and a forest of clicking metronomes), 12 vocal groups and soloists engage in a dynamic dialogue, representing a world congress in polyphonic "song-babble"…
Freitag Aus Licht
*2022 Stock.* This 4 CD set contains the complete staged version of Freitag Aus Licht (Friday from Light), with all three layers presented: Weltraum (ambient background sound textures), the 12 Sound Scenes" created from the Paare vom Freitag (electroacoustic/concrete vocal duets) and the 10 "Real Scenes" (live performances with vocals, choir, children's choir, bassett-horn, flute, synth). This electro-acoustic opera especially stands out for it's use of opposing children's choir groups. - Stock…
Elektronische Musik Mit Tonszenen Vom Freitag Aus Licht
*2022 Stock.* Elektronische Musik Mit Tonszenen Vom Freitag Aus Licht, this 2 CD set contains the dark ambient electronic music (Weltraum, or "Outer Space") from the opera Freitag Aus Licht (Friday from Light), combined/mixed with the Paare vom Freitag (Couples of Friday) "Sound Scenes" (heard as isolated duets on Paare vom Freitag, The Stockhausen Edition no. 48). In other words, this is the "tape" parts of the opera without the live performers. The electronic music is also used as the ambient …
Paare Vom Freitag
*2022 Stock.* Paare Vom Freitag (Couples of Friday) with soprano, bass, electronic instruments (signal processing and samples) (1992/99). The Stockhausen Edition no. 48 contains 99 tracks of the isolated electro-acoustic/concrete vocal duets from the opera Freitag aus Licht (Friday from Light). In the opera these brief duets are sequenced and layered into 12 "Sound Scenes" spread throughout the opera, but on this disc they are presented as isolated events. These short vocal duets featuring the v…
Geburts-Arien / Mädchenprozession
*2022 Stock.* The Stockhausen Edition no. 38, Geburts-Arien / Mädchenprozession mostly contains excerpted highlight scenes from the 1st and 2nd Acts of the opera Montag aus Licht, with some additional arrangements for a cappella girls' choir and solo piano. The first 16 tracks are the two "Geburts-Arien" (Act 1, Scene 3, also found on The Stockhausen Edition no. 36b). Tracks 34-53 contain the "Mädchenprozession", "Befruchtung mit Klavierstück", and "Wiedergeburt" scenes from Act 2 (found on the …
Geburtsfest
*2022 Stock.* Geburtsfest = Festival Of Birth presents the mixed choir layer of the entire first Act of the opera Montag aus Licht (with some embedded musique concrète elements). This a cappella version, the "Geburtsfest", allows the listener to experience a specific facet of the opera without the soloists. Waves of choral voices can be heard, layered in various renditions/atomizations of the Licht super-formula. - Stockhausenspace.blogspot.com
Montag Aus Licht
*2022 Stock.* Montag Aus Licht is the 5 CD, fully-staged version of the 3rd Licht opera, Montag aus Licht (Monday from Light). This massive work is comprised of 3 Acts and framed by 2 electro-acoustic installation pieces ("Begrüßung" and "Abschied"). In contrast to Samstag aus Licht (which was highly instrumental in nature), this opera is structured around mixed vocal combos and choir groups. The work features vocalist Nicholas Isherwood, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the WDR Cologne Choir, the…
Samstag Aus Licht
*2022 Stock.* Samstag aus Licht is the second opera written for Licht, Samstag aus Licht. This is a darkly humorous 4 act opera on 4 CDs, featuring flute, piano, wind (jazz) band and male choir. The 3rd Scene is presented in both the complete version and as the aborted strike version. In the latter case, the performance is halted before its completion by a revolt from the wind band members (for playing past contracted working hours). If you only get one Licht opera, this is the one I'd recommend…
Halleluja / Alle Vittime Senza Nome
*2022 stock* 'Halleluja, Peter Eötvös’s “stuttering oratorio”, with a text by the novelist Péter Esterházy, was first performed in 2016. It’s built around the historical figure of Notker Balbulus, Notker the Stammerer, a ninth-century Benedictine monk who was a chronicler and composer. But, Eötvös insists, “It is not so much a portrait of Notker as of the times in which we live … At first the choir represents a society that says ‘hallelujah’ to everything: they have to be satisfied with everythi…
Cycle & Song
Jack Symonds is a composer, conductor, pianist & the Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Opera. SCO is a resident company at Carriagworks, Australia’s answer to The Park Avenue Amoury. His productions are always daring, both musically & theatrically. They tend to garner 5-star reviews and affronted walkouts in equal measure. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London & the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he received the university medal. He has written pieces for Jane She…