Best Of 2024: Classical

A stellar selection from a typically robust year!

As my podcast listeners know, the work of living composers (contemporary classical? We need a new name) is an important part of my musical diet. If it’s not a realm you delve into often, take it from me that whatever surprises and delights you about the music you listen to the most, those same satisfactions can be found here. Here are my picks from a typically robust year, starting with anything previously covered. I invite you to listen to the playlist as you read and dive deeply into what sounds good.

A Song For Friday

David Crowell - Point / Cloud “…on Point / Cloud, composer, saxophonist, guitarist, and producer David Crowell proves his expertise at creating nuanced landscapes of feeling using spare forces.”

Scott Wollschleger - Dark Days “…as rich and varied a collection as one could hope for.”

Darian Donovan Thomas - A Room With Many Doors: Night “Employing lush galaxies of often synthetic sound surrounding his violin and voice, the album’s five tracks take you on a journey from heartbreak to joy.”

John Luther Adams - An Atlas Of Deep Time “…just a continuous pursuit of the sensation of geologic time, sturdy yet diaphanous strings rising and falling, turning back on themselves as brass, piano, and percussion create fissures of sound in the substrate.”

Record Roundup: 2024 Classical In Focus

Laura Cocks & Weston Olencki - Music For Two Flutes “…you have NO idea what to expect, but it will be wild, committed, and uncompromising. Just letting it happen is the best approach…”

Kyle Bruckmann - Of Rivers “…tackles the gnarly, the conceptual, and the noise with equal flair.”

Kenneth Kirschner - Three Cellos “…a contemplative immersion into the sound world of the instrument.”

James Diaz & Julia Jung Un Suh - [speaking in a foreign language] “From the disquiet and unease of a woozy drone to the shadowed joy of a hardscrabble folk dance, these snapshots of organized time hit hard.”

Jason Eckardt - Passage “…an exemplary calling card for Eckardt’s concerns and compositional swagger.”

Modney - Ascending Primes “Throughout all the pieces, there are moments of delicacy and space juxtaposed with sections of serrated aggression…”

Yu-Hui Chang - Mind Like Water “…four spare and poetic chamber pieces…a perfect introduction to the Taiwanese-American composer.”

Osnat Netzer - Dot : Line : Sigh “While these pieces often seem to be made up of individual brushstrokes, there’s a tremendous variety of arrangement and mood.”

Yi-Ting Lu - An Unopened Seashell “Like Luciano Berio with his Sequenza series, Yi-Ting focuses on the possibilities of individual instruments in this first collection.”

Will Liverman - Show Me The Way “Like the early days of Bryn Terfel, Liverman knows that a central part of the role of the lieder singer is to communicate, human to human. Make sure you’re listening.”

Lainie Fefferman - Here I Am “…a tapestry of song that reveals more with every listen.”

Ekmeles - We Live The Opposite Daring “…dazzles once again with their fearlessness, feeling, and expertise.”

William Brittelle - Alive In The Electric Snow Dream “Outrageously colorful and unafraid to tap into the crunch and complexity of prog rock, this seven-movement work will rearrange your brain in the best way.”

Chris P. Thompson - Stay The Same “…he emphatically does NOT stay the same throughout, offering up slabs of dense art rock with wit and flair.”

Nathalie Joachim - Ki moun ou ye “A sublime synthesis of translucent electronics, clattering beats, art-pop melodies, chamber music strings, and flute…”

Best Of 2024 (So Far)

Michelle Lou - Near Distant “The performances by Ensemble Inverspace, Line Upon Line Percussion, Scapegoat, Gnarwhallaby, Distractfold, Ensemble 2e2m, WasteLAnd, and Trio K/D/M are superb - and superbly recorded - making Near Distant a landmark release from one of our most exciting composers.”

New Reviews

Music for one, two, or a few

Roberta Michel - Hush The flutist’s exquisitely modulated technique and questing spirit are exemplified by and for you, castles, Victoria Cheah’s haunting piece for flute and electronics. But dip in anywhere among these five tracks (other composers are Jane Rigler, Jen Baker, Mert Morali, and Angélica Negrón) for an immersion in Michel’s interests on her first solo album.

Rebekah Heller - One This all-too-brief EP signals the debut of this renowned bassoonist (International Contemporary Ensemble, etc.) as a composer. Layering her voice, bassoon, and electronics, Heller creates a distinctive sound world with a rich emotional underpinning. This is never more true than in the pieces that end the EP: the angry, unsettling for Ryan, in memory of her collaborator Ryan Muncy, which is followed by the bittersweet but deeply consoling ode To Joy in a one-two punch that leaves a lasting impression.

Christopher Whitley - Almost As Soft As Silence The spontaneity of these 15 solo violin pieces is not an illusion as they are all improvised. But Whitley’s deep musicality means they traverse everything from early music to folk to spectralism making for a rich and varied collection.

Zosha Warhepa - silver dawn Improvising on the Hardanger d’Amore - a ten-string relative of the violin on which five of the strings are sympathetic - Warhepa manages to find a space to express the dignity of Baroque sonatas and the yearning of Appalachian folk at the same time. The vocal interjections only serve to make this sublime collection more intimate.

Stefan Smulovitz and Nadina Tandy - Bow And Brush There’s a cinematic sweep to these multilayered constructions of electric violin, viola, bass, analog electronics, assorted percussion, treatments, etc. But Smulovitz took his inspiration from still images, a series of Tandy’s artworks designed to be interpreted musically. Based on this wild ride of an album, I’d say she knows what she’s doing!

Zachary Mezzo - Proximity Mezzo is also a member of the Brooklyn Art-punk band Catcher, so this debut EP of spine-tingling improvisations for violin and electronics is only one aspect of his personality. Equally assured in both arenas, Mezzo is one to watch and I hope to get to either a solo or Catcher concert soon.

Patrick Yim - One: New Music For Unaccompanied Violin Introducing pieces by Juri Seo, John Liberatore, Takuma Itoh, Ilari Kaila, Páll Ragnar Pálsson, and Matthew Schreibeis, Yim finds a variety of ways to bridge the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras with our own. Lyrical, warm, and occasionally acerbic, Yim’s bow seems to delight in bringing this music to life.

Beyza Yazgan - Human Cocoon Throughout these 10 piano improvisations, the Turkish pianist and composer seems to be taking us down a hall of memories, adjusting a picture frame here, dusting off a sculpture there. Simple and tuneful, it’s no surprise that one track is called Gnomepedies (In Satie’s Garden).

Tallā Rouge - Shapes In Collective Space The viola duo of Aria Cheregosha and Dr. Lauren Spaulding makes their recorded debut with this varied collection. Compositions by inti figgis-vizueta, Akshaya Avril Tucker, Kian Ravaei, Karl Mitze, Gala Flagello, Gemma Peacocke, and Leilehua Lanzilotti put every tone, color, and mood of the viola on full display. Drawing on their combined Cajun and Persian heritage, Spaulding and Cheregosha bring a folkish and lyrical touch to everything they do making for a delightful listen.

Quarterly - Adonis It’s been a four-year wait for more from Kristen Drymala (cello) and Christopher DiPietro (guitar). Thankfully, Adonis delivers a healthy portion of their gentle, reflective chamber folk with an extra dollop of mystery. They also released a rough and lovely version of In The Bleak Midwinter, showing off another side of their artistry.

Grace Goss/Dice Trio - Three Paths Through Static Over a sparkling cloud of sound, flute (Adeline DeBella), saxophone (Grace Pressley), and trumpet (Sam Friedman) play a series of fanfares to start this piece by percussionist and composer Goss, before lengthening out into meditative tones and finally taking g hold of a bright, ascending melodies. It’s a promising debut for Dice, all of whom graduated from the Manhattan School of Music in May 2024, and for Goss, whose mom went to high school with me.

Vocals Added

Kate Soper - The Romance Of The Rose Few people were having as much fun on a record as Soper singing the role of Shame in her Medievally-inspired opera. In a voice distorted by electronic processing, she gets to wail lines like “crush this fist of a heart/into a hole/that doesn’t ever end/filled with a billion pleas shrieks/it sweats out your skin it bleeds through your fingers/it rips through you/like a thick sick smog.” Like I said, fun. It doesn’t hurt that she’s surrounded by brilliant singers like Lucas Steele (The Dreamer), Phillip Bullock (The God of Love), Anna Schubert (Lady Reason), Devony Smith (The Lover), Ariadne Greif (Idleness), and Ty Bouque (Pleasure). Those character names give a good idea of the allegorical nature of the drama, which is also conveyed by wildly varied musical surroundings played by the always-excellent Wet Ink Ensemble. A must-listen - and the book-bound CD edition, fully illustrated by Julie Doucet, is the finest CD package I saw in 2024. A bargain at $30!

Caroline Shaw/Sō Percussion - Rectangles and Circumstance This collaboration is sounding so good and so organic on their third release as a song-based operation that I suggest they come up with a new name! Caroline and the Percussionettes, anyone? Under any name, this would be a sweetly moving listen, with adaptations of 19th-century poetry and original lyrics blending with melodies old and new. One highlight is their crystalline version of The Parting Glass, an ancient Scotch-Irish folk song that inspired Bob Dylan’s early classic, Restless Farewell. The glass is very full indeed when Shaw and Sō gather to fill it.

Alex Sopp - The Hem & The Haw This is either an art-pop album masquerading as an electroacoustic song cycle or vice versa. Perhaps that’s what Sopp - a flute player, composer, and founding member of Y Music - is singing about in the title track: “Revising your every view/Oh the see-saw/the Hem & the Haw.” But I’m slotting it here and not Rock, Folk, Etc. or Electronic due to the imprimatur of the New Amsterdam label, Sopp’s co-producer Thomas Bartlett, and musicians like Austin Wulliman, Nadia Sirota, and Jason Treuting. That said, the album is as good an argument as any for the erasure of genre and should find ears among many who like Caroline Shaw, Julia Holter, Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, and It Seems (1988), the foundational album of chamber-pop by Wire’s Colin Newman.

Žibuoklē Martinaitytė - Aletheia: Choral Works Every release from this Latvian composer is a polished gem, dark-hued but shot through with gleams and glints of light and color within the facets. This collection, exquisitely sung by the Latvian Radio Choir, is no different. Its four pieces are reminiscent of chant and Eastern European liturgical music but each has a special glow that is very distinctive and rewarding.

Composer Portraits

Leilehua Lanzilotti - the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky and forever forward in search of the beautiful If you listen to one track from these two extraordinary collections by the violist, composer, and sound artist, make it to drink into my eyes the shine, the first song in the of moments cycle, just one highlight of forever forward. Drawing on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Lanzilotti combines Johanna Novom’s Baroque violin with Jesse Blumberg’s rich baritone for a warm, welcoming piece that I would list as one of the best songs of 2024 if I made such a list. But don’t stop there, both albums are full of range and invention, with the first being more meditative (especially the 45-minute title track, played by Lanzilotti on sculptures by Toshiko Takaezu), and the second full of drama and incident, as in find, performed by Lanzilotti on Morfbeats enhanced electric guitar. Also realizing these works are Longleash, Sō Percussion, Gahlord Dewald, Roomful of Teeth, the Argus Quartet, and others. Between these two albums, the piece on the Tallā Rouge album and their lovely contribution to Persist, the latest album from Ethel, 2024 was a banner year for Lanzilotti. What a joy to witness this incredible artist’s continued flourishing.

David Fulmer - immaculate sigh of stars After 2021’s tantalizing Sky’s Acetylene EP, here finally is the sustained dose of Fulmer I’ve been awaiting since hearing Speak Of The Spring on Michael Nicolas’ Transitions in 2016. And all the promise of those earlier recordings is fulfilled here, and then some, starting with Jauchzende Bögen, the dazzling opener, which has Stefan Jackiw’s skywriting violin given a merry chase by the Deutsch Kammerphilharmonie, to whose fingers brush the sky, a limpid piano solo gracefully played by Conor Hanick on a “lightly prepared” instrument. Other performers include pianist Conrad Tao, Jack Quartet cellist Jay Campbell, and The Horszowski Piano Trio, putting Fulmer’s remarkably assured and sumptuously enjoyable pieces in their best light.

Richard Cameron-Wolfe - Passionate Geometries This expansive collection presents thirty years of chamber works and finds Cameron-Wolfe a jack of all trades and a master of all, from the guitar solo (Marc Wolf) “opera,” Heretic, to O Minstrel, which sets a 13th century Sufi poem and inspires an awesome performance by soprano Stephanie Lamprea. We also get a guitar quartet, a cello quartet, and other creatively arranged and composed works that show off the composer’s questing nature as he searches for the “poetic life.” Who wants to tell him to look at the end of his pen (or composing software)?

Orlando Jacinto Garcia - la vida que vendrá These five works by the Cuban-American composer were created for the adventurous ensemble loadbang and delve deep into their unusual lineup of trumpet (Andy Kozar), clarinet (Adrián Sandí), trombone (William Lang), and baritone (Ty Bouque), first with electronically-enhanced solo works for each and then with one for them all. It’s an absorbing journey into pure sound that never ceases to exert a dark fascination.

Wild Up - Julius Eastman, Vol. 4: The Holy Presence It would be easy to think that this is the crowning achievement of Wild Up’s Eastman series due to the less-familiar pieces they’re presenting. But it instead comes down to the brick-hard commitment of the performers, most notably guest vocalist Davóne Tines, pianist Richard Valitutto, and cellist Seth Parker Woods, who should add “the always extraordinary” to his legal name and be done with it. The brief Our Father, with Tines singing both vocal parts, eases you into the album, and on Piano 2, Valitutto remarkably preserves Eastman’s journey in creating the piece, from the searching beginning to the tangled, explosive finish. Then Tines nails us to the wall with Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc, using controlled power to deliver the repeating lines, the restraint only adding to the crushing inevitability of the piece. Finally, we get Woods’ heroic assembly of ten cello parts to create what must forever be the definitive recording of The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc. Over 20 minutes, the piece encompasses a symphonic journey reminiscent of Shostakovich at his most angst-ridden. The wonders of Eastman seem boundless, and kudos to Wild Up for their dedicated pursuit of everything he left us.

Felipe Lara - Portals The four works here are an essential introduction to the colorful and nuanced world of this Brazilian-American composer. Chambered Spirals (2020) opens the album in exemplary fashion, with shining brass, glottal flute, delicate strings, fragmented percussion, and a star-field of piano assembling into high drama. Like the shell named in the title, it draws you ever inward, always on the verge of a Varesian explosion. Like the other ensemble pieces, it’s performed in stellar fashion by the Talea Ensemble. We also get Injustice Intonations (2016), a gripping piano solo played by Conrad Tao. Lara should have been firmly on my radar after his contributions to Claire Chase’s Density 2036 project - be assured that lapse has been corrected with this awe-inspiring collection.

Sarah Hennies - Motor Tapes, Standing Water, and Bodies Of Water Between these three releases, we get an expansive and often witty view of Hennies’ clockwork preoccupations, starting with Zeitgebers, which includes an actual cuckoo sound. It’s often said that music is organized sound, but Hennies brings to the fore that it’s at least as much organized time. Each piece presents a series of actions and reactions, both repetitive and additive, often involving her signature found-object percussion. Clock Dies, the middle piece on Motor Tapes, represents new territory as it was commissioned by the Talea Ensemble, who insisted on a work that used a conductor instead of a stopwatch. Hennies meets that challenge ably, delivering chamber music that encompasses her concerns while connecting with the tradition. Half of Standing Water’s 20-minute length is an unsettling electronic flutter not unlike the runout groove on Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) - but then it explodes with cacophonous sax and clangorous percussion in a development that would surprise even that master of invention. Take your pick of these albums to become an instant Hennies fan - you’ll likely soak up all three in celebration of her remarkable talents.

Weston Olencki - Pearls Ground Down To Powder and I Went To The Dance Like Sarah Hennies, Olencki seems to invent new structures for sound with the glee of a bucking bronco kicking cans in a paint store. Aside from his collaboration with Laura Cocks (see above), and these two releases, we also got the world premiere of an evening-length work for the Tak Ensemble. Pearls presents two works for banjo in entirely different modes. The Rocks Are Different Here is percussive, layered, and dramatic, while Brothers is a sine-wave-like exploration of pure tone. I Went To The Dance, a collaboration with Jules Reidy, has Olencki’s triangle-bedecked fiddle meshing with Reidy’s guitar to bring Cajun dance music into an arena of deeply involving abstraction. I never hesitate to press “Play” when I see Olencki’s name on a recording.

Sarah Davachi - The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir There’s an intense stillness at the core of Davachi’s music that can be unsettling and even confrontational. Listen long and closely enough and you’ll realize that the only confrontation is with yourself. Often performed on her signature pipe organ, as are three of the seven pieces here, the music can seem to simply exist, like furniture, sculpture, or a rock formation. You can move around it or let it define the space around you. Letting it hum away in the background is also an option, but her way of bending any instrument, whether electronic or acoustic, to her will is a marvel to those paying attention.

Brave Combos

Bruckmann/Heule/Nishi-Smith/Rivero - Negligibism This scabrous blast of improv madness shows off a different side of Kyle Bruckmann, who weds his English horn and electronics to Danishta Rivero’s voice and electronics, Kanoko Nishi-Smith’s koto, and Jacob Felix Heule’s bass drum and drum set. Just because these musicians have been working together in a variety of configurations since 2007, do not expect anything resembling a comfort zone.

Infinite Future Band - Endings And so this list reaches its conclusion with the final release from Full Spectrum Records, the Austin-based label that has emitted much great stuff over the last 16 years, including Negligibism and Pearls Ground Down To Powder. With label heads Andrew Weathers and Carl Ritger leading the charge on (collectively) electric piano, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass recorder, saxo andino, pipe horn, synthesizer, electronics, percussion, walkie-talkie, samples, electronics, and music box tines, and joined by Andrew Marino, Erik Schoster, Chelsey Lee Trejo, and Cecyl Ruehlen on a similar array of gear, the sound world is sculptural as well as playful. A perfect send-off for this great addition to the world of new music!

There is plenty more where this came from, which you can find in this archived playlist. Make sure to keep up with what 2025 has to offer here.

From the archives:
Best Of 2023: Classical
Best Of 2022: Classical
Best Of 2021: Classical
Best Of 2020: Classical
Best Of 2019: Classical
Best Of 2018: Classical
Best Of 17: Classical
Best Of 16: Classical
Best Of 15: Classical & Composed
Best Of The Rest Of 14: Classical & Composed