#5144, Mixed Messages
Hear works that combine Renaissance polyphony and prog rock, art-rock, and/or thrashy noise rock by Brooklyn-based Simon Hanes; composer/guitarist Andrew McKenna Lee and the Brooklyn art rock ensemble The Knells; and composer, vocalist, and writer Kate Soper.
Photo of Simon Hanes by Walter Wlodarczyk.
Hear a portion of GARGANTUA by California born, Brooklyn-based composer, performer and arranger Simon Hanes (of Tredici Bacci), a disorienting, challenging, and beautiful work with intertwining lines of brass teams, bass foundations, and drum battalions, topped - nay - playfully decorated with a pop-leaning / (pop-flirting?) trio of polyphonic voices. One might imagine Tibetan long horns or royal brass flourishes and chattering trombone melees, all kinds of percussive assaults, waves of torso-rattling bass, and moments that look to American Minimalism, European modernism, heavy noise rock and much more.
There’s also music from composer/guitarist Andrew McKenna Lee and the Brooklyn art rock ensemble The Knells, which uses three singers and Renaissance polyphony. Their Bandcamp bio makes mention of their hybrid of 1000 years of western classical music together with progressive, psychedelic, and experimental rock.
Listen to music with a blend medieval and renaissance polyphony with abstract modernism, minimalism, and rock in Kate Soper’s two-act opera The Romance of the Rose. The original libretto is inspired by the medieval French poem Le Roman de La Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de -Meun. Along with the Wet Ink Ensemble, for whom the opera was written, Kate Soper herself sings on the album, playing the role of Shame, with other allegorical characters The Lover, Lady Reason, Pleasure, and The Dreamer. Hear some selections from the opera.
Plus, listen to an electroacoustic work for violin and fixed media by American composer and educator Eric Chasalow called The Wings That Bear the Night Away, inspired by the myth of Icarus and Daedalus. - Caryn Havlik
Program #5144, Mixed Messages (First aired 5/21/26)
ARTIST: Simon Hanes
WORK: I Am [1:33]
RECORDING: Simon Hanes: GARGANTUA
SOURCE: Pyroclastic Records
INFO: https://simonhanes.bandcamp.com/album/gargantua
ARTIST: Simon Hanes
WORK: A Series Of Waves Tremble In A Sea Of Blood [7:12]
RECORDING: Simon Hanes: GARGANTUA
SOURCE: Pyroclastic Records
INFO: https://simonhanes.bandcamp.com/album/gargantua
ARTIST: Simon Hanes
WORK: Knockandrow [5:26]
RECORDING: Simon Hanes: GARGANTUA
SOURCE: Pyroclastic Records
INFO: https://simonhanes.bandcamp.com/album/gargantua
ARTIST: Simon Hanes
WORK: I Am [5:29]
RECORDING: Simon Hanes: GARGANTUA
SOURCE: Pyroclastic Records
INFO: https://simonhanes.bandcamp.com/album/gargantua
ARTIST: Andrew McKenna Lee/The Knells
WORK: Andrew McKenna Lee: First Song [4:41]
RECORDING: The Knells II
SOURCE: Still Sound Music
INFO: theknells.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Andrew McKenna Lee/The Knells
WORK: Andrew McKenna Lee: Interlude I [2:31]
RECORDING: The Knells II
SOURCE: Still Sound Music
INFO: theknells.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Andrew McKenna Lee/The Knells
WORK: Andrew McKenna Lee: Final Breath [3:36]
RECORDING: The Knells II
SOURCE: Still Sound Music
INFO: theknells.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: The Dreamer: Lucas Steele, tenor | The God of Love: Phillip Bullock, baritone | Lady Reason: Anna Schubert, soprano | Shame: Kate Soper, soprano |The Lover: Devony Smith, mezzo-soprano | Idleness: Ariadne Greif, soprano | Pleasure: Ty Bouque, baritone | Wet Ink Ensemble
WORK: xi. Lady Reason's Symmetrical Virelai [3:24]
RECORDING: Kate Soper: Romance of the Rose
SOURCE: New Focus Recordings
INFO: https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/the-romance-of-the-rose
ARTIST: The Dreamer: Lucas Steele, tenor | The God of Love: Phillip Bullock, baritone | Lady Reason: Anna Schubert, soprano | Shame: Kate Soper, soprano |The Lover: Devony Smith, mezzo-soprano | Idleness: Ariadne Greif, soprano | Pleasure: Ty Bouque, baritone | Wet Ink Ensemble
WORK: xii. Reason vs. Love I [4:46]
RECORDING: Kate Soper: Romance of the Rose
SOURCE: New Focus Recordings
INFO: https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/the-romance-of-the-rose
ARTIST: The Dreamer: Lucas Steele, tenor | The God of Love: Phillip Bullock, baritone | Lady Reason: Anna Schubert, soprano | Shame: Kate Soper, soprano |The Lover: Devony Smith, mezzo-soprano | Idleness: Ariadne Greif, soprano | Pleasure: Ty Bouque, baritone | Wet Ink Ensemble
WORK: v. Reason vs. Love II [2:59]
RECORDING: Kate Soper: Romance of the Rose
SOURCE: New Focus Recordings
INFO: https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/the-romance-of-the-rose
ARTIST: Mari Kimura, violin
WORK: Eric Chasalow: The Wings That Bear the Night Away [3:42]
RECORDING: arching, reaching, breathless
SOURCE: New Focus Recordings
INFO: https://www.newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue/eric-chasalow-arching-reaching-breathless
