Performed, recorded, and edited by Gleb Kanasevich.

Two Pieces for Bass Clarinet and Gameboy [2021]

Recorded in Pollack Hall, Montreal, QC. October 22nd 2016. 

Kate Maloney - violin I 
Frédéric-Alexandre Michaud - violin II 
Lauren Tyros - viola 
Thomas Beard - cello
Austin Stawowczyk - recording technician, mix and master

In the Wave-Strike Where the Brightness Bursts and Enacts Its Rose (2016) for string quartet

Performed by Mivos Quartet and Charles Rudig. Scored for String Quartet, Transducers, Objects, Sine Waves. Premiered March 14 2018. Recorded & mixed by Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie. Image by Manny Hernandez.

OVERTOW [2018]

"...of unnoticed charm" was commissioned by the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society, and is based on a series of 7 images taken in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood in Baltimore. Each movement is a response to one of the images. 

Jesse Washburn - Guitar

"Made in Baltimore"

...of unnoticed charm

Last year, I received an email from an artist and protester in the year 2217 with a dire warning of the future. His email is below.

Hello Solomon,
My name is Tsoulumenn Phrancke and I come from the year 2217. This inter-temporal email has been sent at great cost. 
I have an important warning for you about the dire state of your future world and an imperative task for you that will instigate great change in our present. I apologise, some words may be redacted, CADP has strict censorship measures which [REDACTED] organisation has mostly bypassed. This email is cloaked as a collaborative musical email artwork.
Let me first explain the historical context of our present situation.
After the gay agenda-Alt left-Political correctness alliance militia seized
control of the world in 2053 in a devastating coup, society fell under the
control of the Curators for Artistic Development Party (CADP). Since the late 21st century the world has suffered under the brutal
oligarchical rule of CADP. With a fully automated world by the year 2057, the only means of meaningful existence was art, as decreed by the CADP; it was legislated that all people must make art and the presentation or acknowledgement of old art was prohibited. Gradually the great art of the past was purged from the world. 
All new art is systematically destroyed after one year of existence. The possession of contraband art is punishable by death. The CADP’s secret police force, the Militia for the Prevention of Generic, Hackneyed and Pastiche Art is ruthless in its pursuit of contraband material and artistic appropriation. 
The money system was abolished in 2088 and social status was determined by the quality of one’s art as assessed by the CADP curatorial committee. All forms of education except art were prohibited; maths, science and business were systematically written out of the syllabi. 
Our organisation has, at great risk, learnt the utilitarian skills of the past that have been designated to machines. Sport was banned in the 2062; there have been massacres at underground rugby matches where the Militia have brutally murdered players and spectators.
Art is a prison for us, it has no meaning, no use and the brutal taste of the CADP determine the paths of our lives.
Bearing our grievous present in mind, I have an important task for you. We imagine the great artworks of the past and pour over the few remnants of art books that remain hidden. One name that looms large over all others in music is Beethoven. We have [REDACTED] no surviving audio of his works. We see references to the fame of his fifth symphony but we cannot hear it.
We have selected you, Solomon Frank of 2017, as our inter-temporal messenger to bring us Beethoven’s fifth symphony as many times as possible. Find and compile as many recordings of the work (only the first movement, because that’s the famous one)and bury them in a disclosed location.
Let this past celebrity masterwork be a rallying call to overthrow our artistic dictators in 2217. We seek to return to a world of artistic indifference; where the arts are secondary to business, the economy and sport. We seek the sweet release of familiarity in the small amounts of conventional art we do consume. Let art seep to the fringes where it once was letting society function in aimless utilitarianism.
In your time, let this action be an artwork and my message, a dire warning of the inevitable future.
When I say as many recordings as possible, I mean every single performance available; the more versions we have, the more we can instigate artistic longevity, which our society no longer allows for.
Circulate my message to everyone you know and publish it on the internet.
Yours [REDACTED], Tsoulumenn Phrancke
The year 2217

For this interpretation of Phranke’s instructions I have compiled 228 recordings of Beethoven’s fifth symphony movement 1.
Full performers list: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c8ly8d3xpyo2twr/Performers.pdf?dl=0

Beethoven Symphony No. [REDACTED]

Performed by Ensemble Proton Bern
Matthias Kuhn, conductor

Berkeley, CA - 14 March 2018

Rut (2018) - for eight musicians

Alicia Choi, violin
Suren Barry, piano

Commissioned by the Royal Conservatory/Koerner Hall for the 21C Festival (2017)

Winter Rings

Spacious Euphony

for cello and four performers.
Jack Quartet
Elebash Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, 03/19/19

ξ-quartet-ρηξ, ksi-quartet, from [unity] (2019)

JACK Quartet:
Christopher Otto, violin 1
Austin Wulliman, violin 2
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, cello

Recorded and mixed by Jacob Sachs-Mishalanie

Performed on March 19, 2019 in Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center

(re)voicings II is the continuation of an ongoing creative project through which I explore the mimesis of avian vocality. Throughout this piece, I employ techniques of timbral integration and fusion between instruments in an attempt to construct complex synthetic “voices,” which mark an assemblage of actors involved in always shifting relations. In so doing, I aim to challenge the listener’s relation to the familiar tradition of attaching connotations of vocality to the sounds of individual instruments. By locating an emergent vocality between instruments, unfamiliar voices may present themselves in the foreground of our aural attention. The medium of the string quartet, with its potential for timbral matching and sharing of techniques across the ensemble, allowed for the versatile and highly dynamic instrumental roles which shape the unfolding of the network of emergent “vocal” interactions.

(re)voicings II [2018–19] for string quartet

Einat Aronstein - Voice
Oded Geizhals - Percussion and Toys

Live recording - Herrenhaus Edenkoben 17.11.2019

In the Wave-Strike Where the Brightness Bursts and Enacts Its Rose (2016) for string quartet

Stephen Spencer

Related tracks