This CD presents the premiere recordings of four works for solo piano, string quartet, chamber ensemble, and full orchestra from Elliott Sharp, who has been a central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s.

The Boreal (2009) was composed for and premiered by the widely acclaimed JACK string quartet. JACK’s John Pickford Richards writes, “Elliott Sharp is one of the most naturally experimental composers today, and his works for strings continue to push the boundaries of what these old instruments can do.” For this innovative work, Sharp created exotic alternate bows, substituting ballchain and metal springs for the traditional horsehairs.

Reviewing a performance in Seen and Heard International, George Grella remarked that these invented bows produce “sounds that I have truly never heard, via any means or in any situation. Much of it sounds like a scream traversing a wind tunnel, the aural sense of great energy and color shimmering in space.” Grella concluded this “always interesting and powerful” composition is “a great piece, a notable signpost in the road of experimental music that parallels the standard classical tradition.”

Commissioned and premiered by pianist Jenny Lin, Oligosono (2005) uses extended techniques that include manipulations made directly on the piano strings, permutative reordering of short loops, and fingerings that enhance the generation of harmonic overtones. Lin notes this “virtuosic tour-de-force” takes “listeners through a thrilling and provocative sonic world.”

Conductor David Bloom writes that Proof of Erdős (2006) “is a gripping juggernaut that builds white-hot walls of sound, overtaking listeners before leading them to even denser ones, like the next landing of an M.C. Escher staircase.” An homage to the late great mathematician Pal Erdős, the work reflects that mathematics have long played an important role in Sharp’s formal constructions, especially fractal geometry, chaos theory, Fibonacci numbers, and bio-genetic concepts. Uitti comments, “the contrasts are violent and extreme, the use of register pushing the instruments to their limits, overloaded intricate textures extended in time end up feeling like stasis – the eye of the hurricane – luminous and yet complex.” Regarding the performance by the distinguished musicians in the composer’s ensemble, Bloom notes “the incomparable string players of Orchestra Carbon dig deep into their instruments to conjure unexpected and alluring sounds.”

The CD ends with On Corlear’s Hook (2007), which was inspired by the diverse activities near Sharp’s apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, known as Corlear’s Hook. The area is rich in sights and sounds: bridges to Brooklyn, loading docks, the Navy yard, ferry landings, river traffic, birds, helicopters, planes headed for LaGuardia and JFK. Uitti writes the “idiosyncratic, powerful, and above all, highly intelligent” work employs “Sharp’s signature use of independent cells progressing at different speeds – lining up briefly and splitting off again,” to create “dramatic instrumental contrasts” that “keep listeners on the edge of their seats.” The work is performed by the Janáček Philharmonic, conducted by Peter Rundel.

Uitti concludes, “Elliott’s forms are uncompromising, often juxtaposing highly contrasting musical textures, ranges, and structures, while riveting the listener in a myriad of ever-changing motivic cells. I found myself immersed in this complexity to such a minute degree as to lose a sense of conventional time.”

about the performers