'Stray-in-Place Song Cycle' Gene Pritsker & Erik T. Johnson

'Stray-in-Place Song Cycle' is an album of six eclectic songs by Gene Pritsker, based on the poetry of  Erik T. Johnson and inspired by the lockdown of 2021. Three of the songs are rock-influenced and the others have jazzier roots. All are performed by world-class musicians.

A variety of singers add their unique styles to six pieces, giving the recording an extra-eclectic flavor. They are: Stefanie Egger (Austria); Sophie Dunér (Sweden); Berzan Önen (Turkey); Yelena Dudochkin (USA); and Stefanie Schlesinger (Germany).

Everything on this album was recorded remotely during the height of the pandemic shutdown, including all of Gene Pritsker’s guitars (New York City); Clemens Rofner’s bass (Vienna), and the drums of Simon Springer (Austria); Francesco Coppola Bove (Italy); and Philipp Bernhardt (Germany).

'Stray-in-Place Song Cycle Sampler

Composer/guitarist/rapper/Di.J./producer Gene Pritsker has written over 900 compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. All of his compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles and are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures.
	He is the founder and leader of Sound Liberation; an eclectic hip hop-chamber-jazz-rock-etc. ensemble and co-director of Composers' Concordance. Gene's music has been performed all over the world at various festivals and by many ensembles and performers, including the Absolute Ensemble, Adelaide Symphony, MDR Symphony, The Athens Camarata, China Philharmonic Orchestra, Brooklyn, Shanghai and Berlin Philharmonic, Sinfonietta Riga, Orchester des Pfalztheaters, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Anhaltische Philharmonie, ensembleKONTRASTE as well as such soloists as Anne Akiko Meyers, Lara St. John, Kathleen Supove, Sarah Chang, Martin Kuuskmann, Tim Fain, Borislav Strulev and Simone Dinnerstein. He has worked closely with Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies, Including 'Cloud Atlas', for which he wrote additional music and composed his ''Cloud Atlas Symphony’.
	The New York Times described him as "...audacious...multitalented." Joseph Pehrson, writing in The Music Connoisseur, described Pritsker as "dissolving the artificial boundaries between high brow, low brow, classical, popular musics and elevates the idea that if it's done well it is great music, regardless of the style or genre". Classical Music Sentinel writes:  "His expressive reach is so wide as to encompass everything from ethno/techno, rock/jazz fusion, classical opera and more, and it all seems to be effortlessly integrated within his anima and comes out through different facets of his persona. You could almost see him as a modern day renaissance man.” 
	Raul DaGma writes in his article ‘Gene Pritsker: Varieties Of Musical Experience’: "Gene Pritsker is a modernist at heart. If there is something new to be said to describe an old form or even a formless old thing – as old as yesterday, that is – this extraordinary musician will be among the first to say it…All of his music is of the highest quality, audacious and witty, joyous and elevated, and incomparable to anything written and recorded. In all of this Gene Pritsker has created a singular vocabulary, spoken not only by someone deeply schooled in music, but also in history, theology and philosophy."
	Organizations he is associated with include:  Co-director of Composers Concordance & Composers Concordance Records, co-founder/guitarist of Absolute Ensemble and artist-in residence at the Austrian Outreach Festival. Gene Pritsker's music is published by: Falls House Press, Gold Branch Music, Periferia Sheet Music & Calabrese Brothers music. Recorded on: Col Legno, Enja, Eutrepe, Wergo, Innova , Composers' Concordance Records, SONY Classical, and Capstone record labels.

'Stray-in-Place Song Cycle Sampler

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