Set (2023) by Dana Jessen and Taylor Brook on New Focus Recordings
Set is a collaborative work that combines through-composed material with electroacoustic improvisations, resulting in an immersive musical experience.
Winter Chapel (2020) on Carrier Records
In her second solo album, Winter Chapel explores the physicality of music through improvisations that are informed by acoustic space and the resulting physical experience of sound.
"A remarkable album of disruptive beauty" - Avant Music News
George Lewis’ Recombinant Trilogy (2021) on New Focus Recordings
George Lewis’ new album features solo works with interactive electronics written for Claire Chase, Seth Parker Woods, and Dana Jessen. Seismologic (2017) for bassoon and four-channel sound is inspired by the seismic movement of massive faults.
Carve (2017) on Innova Records
Debut solo album featuring premiere recordings of works for bassoon and electronics by Paula Matthusen, Sam Pluta, Peter V. Swendsen, and Kyle Bruckmann.
"Hers is an expressive presence with a warm tone and a refined vibrato, both of which preserve a humanistic heart in the midst of technological embellishment...In the end, it's Jessen's appealing musical personality that animates this outstanding collection of work." - Avant Music News
Hypothetical Islands (2019) on New Focus Recordings
Splinter Reeds presents a bracing program of new works written for the group by composers Sky Macklay, Matthew Shlomowitz, Cara Haxo, Eric Wubbels, Theresa Wong, and Yannis Kyriakides. All of the works display an envelope pushing impulse that stretches the boundaries of this traditional instrumental format, carving out new repertoire and provoking new aesthetic perspectives.
“On their second album, this agile quintet of single and double reed instruments embrace a more challenging and rigorous set of pieces… It’s hard to think of another reed ensemble project that drives so relentlessly.”- Peter Margasak, Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical
Ingrid Laubrock’s Contemporary Chaos Practices (2018) on Intakt Records
Recording of Ingrid Laubrock’s two works, Contemporary Chaos Practices and Vogelfrei. Ingrid’s many reviews can be found HERE. Additionally, Vogelfrei was included in the NY Times Best 25 Classical Tracks of 2018.
Solo Songs For Instruments (2020) on
Wig and Catalytic Sound
Recording of Ig Henneman's Hardwood Floorboards for improvising bassoonist that incorporates the poetry of Sarah Lawson.
Rushes (2014) on Cantaloupe Records
Recording of Michael Gordon's Rushes, an hour-long piece for seven bassoons.
"These bassoonists make absolute light of the formidable challenges of technique, ensemble, and pitch that this music presents. They somehow achieve a luminous, unified glow that would not be possible with lesser forces or lesser players." - Q2 Music Album of the Week Review
Billy Martin’s Meshes (2020) on Amulet Records
Recording of Billy Martin’s Meshes, a suite of conducted improvisations for ensemble.
Got Stung (2015) on Splinter Reeds Recordings
Debut album from Splinter Reeds featuring new music by Marc Mellits, Ryan Brown, Ned McGowan, Erik DeLuca, Kyle Bruckmann and Jordan Glenn.
"With this release of six new and recent works, Splinter Reeds, a quintet from the San Francisco Bay area, reveals the richness of color inherent in a small, all-reed ensemble." - Avant Music News
Allusions to Seasons and Weather (2014) on Oberlin Music
Recording of Peter V. Swendsen's Northern Circles for bassoon, saxophone and electronics.
"The music's greatest strength here is, well, its musicality. The field recordings and electronics are balanced powerfully with traditional musical elements – harmonic movement, fragmented folk figures, sounds of wind and water that coalesce into hypnotic stretches of rhythmic regularity." - Q2 Music Album of the Week Review
Mythical Spaces (2018) on Ravello Records
Recording of Steven Kemper's In Illo Tempore for saxophone, bassoon, AMI: Automated Monochord Instrument, and CARI: Cylindrical Aerophone Robotic Instrument.
Gramophone Review can be found HERE.
Music of Dan Blake, Taylor Ho Bynum, & Ingrid Laubrock: Agora, Questions of Transfiguration, Vogelfrei (2016) on Tri-Centric
Live recording of original compositions by Taylor Ho Bynum and Ingrid Laubrock with the Tri-Centric Orchestra, conducted by Taylor Ho Bynum.
CalefaXL (2011) on RIOJA
Music by Bach, Ter Doest, Ravel, Reich, Strauss, Vleggar and Wagner arranged for 12 Reed Instruments.
"CalefaXL juggles with notes, and keeps these in the air in a grand manner."- De Volkskrant
"As CalefaXL, the twelve reed players shone...with new compositions and inventive arrangements."- Lonneke Regter
U-EX(perimental) (2011) on Evil Rabbit Records
Improvisations with Meinrad Kneer, Mark Alban Lotz, Jodi Gilbert, Alfredo Genovesi, Guillaume Heurtebize, Mary Oliver, Yedo Gibson, Felicity Provan, Joost Buis, Koenraad Ecker and Maraatsj ten Hoorn.
Several reviews linked HERE.
Anthony Coleman: Lapidation (2007) on New World Records
Recording of I Diet On Cod perforomed by the Retake Iowa Ensemble.
"The five pieces included were written over the span of the last decade, ranging from a piano solo to horn-heavy tentet, but despite the span of time over which they were composed, they show a strong and coherent voice, coming together something like a suite rich with Schoenberg-ian swells and instrumental tensions." - All About Jazz