Eos

Description: 
Striking out
Composers: 
Cort Lippe
Brian Ferneyhough
Christian Wolff
Per Bloland
Jeff Herriott
Barry Moon
Margaret Schedel
Christopher Howard
Christopher Burns
James Dillon
Eric Lyon
Paul Elwood
Konstantinos Karathanasis
Brett Wartchow
Scott Miller
Chapman Welch
Morton Feldman
Pamela Madsen
Performers: 
Patti Cudd
Catalog Number: 
#967
Genre: 
experimental
new classical
Collection: 
percussion
Location: 

Woodbury, MN

Price: 
$25.00
Release Date: 
Mar 10, 2017
Liner Notes: 
View
3 CD
One Sheet: 

Percussion music is likely the oldest there is: the impulse to make sound by scraping, scratching, tapping and striking is primal, one of the first things a child does consciously with his or her hands. Yet in spite of its primacy to our human experience, percussion is underrepresented in classical music, with a repertory dating back mostly to the 1950s. With her generous triple album Eos, percussionist Patti Cudd demonstrates her commitment to expanding it while opening new doors for future exploration.

Cudd commissioned 16 new compositions for the album and the works span a breathtaking variety of approaches from composers including Cort Lippe, Paul Elwood, Per Bloland, Jeff Herriott, Barry Moon and others. The album also features works by Morton Feldman, Brian Ferneyhough and Christian Wolff — the only ones here without the use of electronics. All the pieces make use of electro-acoustic and interactive techniques, and many use the software Max/MSP, which was designed to offer tools for composers and performers to develop real-time interactive music. The software can track and analyze sound, refracting it and reimagining it as the performer plays.

“By extending the world of physical percussion with virtual computer objects and processes,” Cudd writes in the liner notes, “I am excited to enter new sonic and mental territories in the company of these many remarkable composers.”

Cudd is active as a percussion soloist, chamber musician and educator. She teaches percussion and new music studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and the College of St. Benedict & St. John’s University. She is also a member of the new music ensemble Zeitgeist. She received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Contemporary Musical Studies at the University of California studying with Steven Schick, Master of Music Degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo where she worked with Jan Williams, undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and studied in the soloist class with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

Reviews: 

ALL ABOUT JAZZ

"There is a vast assortment of works across these discs and they vary in texture, style and instrumentation. To understand the complexity of what Cudd is doing here, one need only absorb the technicalities of the opening composition "Duo for Cajón and Computer." On this track, Cudd plays the cajón, a Peruvian box-shaped instrument played by slapping with the hands, fingers, or brushes, mallets, or sticks. Cudd's computer takes input from the cajón's signal, measures volume and timbre and using filters, digital synthesis and algorithms and the treated sound is redeployed. Rather than resulting in an over-manipulated sound, there is a primal quality to the piece.

Eos is largely in uncharted territory, especially as a solo endeavor. A number of the compositions were recorded nearly twenty years ago but had not been released by Cudd prior to this album. Many of the pieces clock in at double-digit times allowing each to develop slowly and morph in their progressions. Without considering the electronic aspect of these pieces (and few are purely acoustic), extended techniques flourish in the creative interpretations of Cudd...a thoughtful and ambitious project that looks at music from a new and different perspective." [FULL ARTICLE] - Karl Ackerman

EXPOSÉ

"Far from the song-based world of rock and pop, far from the emotion, melodies, and counterpoint of clasical and chamber music, is the soundworld of Patti Cudd, where tapping, scraping, striking, and scratching are the keys to what makes her musical visions come to life... Very cool stuff." [FULL ARTICLE] - Peter Thelen

ICON

"fascinating, most definitely" - Mark Keresman