String Orchestra Of Brooklyn to Release ENFOLDING, Feat. Works By Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti And Scott Wollschleger

On Friday, July 1, 2022, the String Orchestra of Brooklyn (SOB) will release its new album, enfolding, on New Focus Recordings. The album features the world premiere recordings of Scott Wollschleger's Outside Only Sound and Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti's with eyes the color of time, a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music. With this album, the SOB brings Lanzilotti and Wollschleger's compositional voices together, enfolding these encounters and explorations of sonic space.

Out July 1, 2022 on New Focus Recordings
Pre-Order enfolding

In Lanzilotti's with eyes the color of time, the titles of the movements refer to works of art that were featured in The Contemporary Museum (Spalding House) in Honolulu when it first opened in the late 1980s: George Rickey's kinetic sculpture "Two Open Triangles Up, Gyratory III" (1988); Deborah Butterfield's "Nahele" (1986); James Seawright's "Mirror XV" (1987); Toshiko Takaezu's "moons," a series of sculptures she often referred to by the Hawaiian word "mahina;" and David Hockney's "L'Enfant et les sortilèges," originally conceived as a set for Ravel's opera of the same name. The title of the piece comes from a phrase in the Ravel opera. The movements are framed by interludes referencing the bronze doors created by Robert Graham at the entrance of the museum, which feature silhouettes of women. SOB principal cellist Ken Hashimoto describes the fourth movement, "les sortilèges (the wound / the torn page)", as "quietly sad, bound up with repetition and, ultimately, more than a little terrifying." The Pulitzer committee described the work as a whole as, "a vibrant composition... that distinctly combines experimental string textures and episodes of melting lyricism." SOB's premiere of Lanzilotti's work, which was planned for the orchestra's new-music festival in late March 2020, was canceled due to public health restrictions imposed to limit the spread of COVID.

By the summer of 2020, those same restrictions had fundamentally altered the ways in which music could be presented to audiences: Indoor public performances were indefinitely canceled, and orchestras could not gather even to rehearse. The SOB recognized that these limitations could potentially be solved by composers, and commissioned new works tailored to the forced new environment. The composers had to meet two conditions: the work had to make sense in an outdoor environment and the orchestra would not need to rehearse the work for more than a few minutes prior to the performance. Wollschleger's solution was "to structure music material in which each player was like a single cicada and there was never a need for a conductor. Instead, each player used a stopwatch and functioned as one of a group of insects in a field, or like a gaseous cloud of sound." His intention was to express the internal world everyone had been living in 2020 in an outdoor space, "The body is the boundary between inside and outside space, and becomes a liminal space in which to process experience: the listener's inner world, the listener's outer world."

Wollschleger scored Outside Only Sound for string orchestra and 6 percussionists who bow a variety of large metal mixing bowls. The work begins and ends with each musician of the full ensemble playing a series of small bells to create a magical atmosphere. The live recording captured here, in a park in Brooklyn, with ambulance sirens, people talking, children laughing, and occasional dogs barking, portrays the resilience of New York City and its commitment to art and creation, even at the height of the COVID pandemic.

with eyes the color of time was eventually premiered in August 2021 with the support of an emergency grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Of the performance, Night After Night wrote, "The music... was alive and vital, the kind you feel in your earbones and your viscera, infused with the specific manner of acoustic alchemy that makes us attend live concerts to begin with. The whole thing lasted no more than 45 minutes, but it was a deeply moving, profoundly satisfying experience - one I intend to repeat soon, and hopefully often."

About Scott Wollschleger

Scott Wollschleger (b. 1980) is a composer who grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania and now lives in Brooklyn, New York. His music has been highly praised for its arresting timbres and conceptual originality. Wollschleger "has become a formidable, individual presence" in the contemporary musical landscape (The Rest Is Noise, Alex Ross). His distinct musical language explores themes of art in dystopia, the conceptualization of silence, synesthesia, and creative repetition in form.

Wollschleger's concert works can be heard across the US and the world. Upcoming and recent projects include commissions from Adam Tendler, The String Orchestra of Brooklyn, Bearthoven, William Lang, Anne Lanzilotti, Du.0, loadbang and Third Angle Music. His debut album, Soft Aberration, was released on New Focus Recordings in 2017 and was named a Notable Recording of 2017 in The New Yorker. His second album, American Dream, written for Bearthoven, was released on Cantaloupe Music in 2019. His newest album, Dark Days, was released on New Focus Recordings in 2021.

Following lightly in the footsteps of the New York School, Wollschleger received his Masters of Music in composition from Manhattan School of Music in 2005, where he studied with Nils Vigeland who himself Morton Feldman called "the most brilliant student I ever had." Wollschleger has received support from a variety of organizations including New Music USA, BMI, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. Wollschleger was a Co-Artistic Director of Red Light New Music, a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to presenting and crafting contemporary music.

In addition to his musical ideas, Wollschleger frequently delves into the philosophical writings of Deleuze, Nietzsche, and Brecht and maintains an ongoing collaboration with Deleuzian scholar Corry Shores. Their recently co-authored thesis, Rhythm Without Time, was presented at the London Graduate School's academic conference, "Rhythm and Event." Wollschleger's work is published by Project Schott New York. Learn more at www.scottwollschleger.com.

About Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti

Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti (b. 1983) is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) musician dedicated to the arts of our time. A "leading composer-performer" (The New York Times), Lanzilotti's "conceptually potent" work is characterized by explorations of timbre and an interest in translating everyday sounds to concert instruments using nontraditional techniques. Her musical voice is grounded in experimental practices, both through influences as part of the network of musicians / artists in the Wandelweiser collective, and her own explorations into radical indigenous contemporaneity. "Lanzilotti's score brings us together across the world in remembrance, through the commitment of shared sonic gestures." (Cities & Health)

Lanzilotti is the recipient of a Native Launchpad Artist Award, McKnight Visiting Composer Residency, OPERA America: Women Composers Discovery Grant, and First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow among other accolades. She was honored to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 for her string orchestra piece, with eyes the color of time, which the Pulitzer committee called, "a vibrant composition... that distinctly combines experimental string textures and episodes of melting lyricism."

As a composer, Lanzilotti has written for ensembles such as Roomful of Teeth, Argus Quartet, and Chamber Music Hawaiʻi. Her works have been performed at international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Austria), Thailand International Composition Festival, and Dots+Loops - Australia's post-genre music and arts series. Lanzilotti has collaborated with The Noguchi Museum on several commissions, writing compositions honoring Noguchi sculptures in conjunction with installations. Learn more at www.leilehualanzilotti.com.

About the String Orchestra of Brooklyn

The String Orchestra of Brooklyn (SOB) is a unique community of musicians who come together in a supportive environment to enrich the life of our communities through music. Embracing an inclusive approach to music-making, the SOB seeks to democratize both the production and reception of concert music. Founded in 2007 by artistic director Eli Spindel, the String Orchestra of Brooklyn is "quickly solidifying its role as a major orchestral figure in the borough" (I Care if You Listen), providing an enriching creative outlet to hundreds of musicians, and accessible, adventurous programming to thousands of concertgoers and community members.

Praised for its passionate commitment to the music of our time by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, I Care if You Listen, The New Yorker, and more, the SOB places a special emphasis on the work of living composersThe orchestra is featured on Richard Carrick's album Cycles of Evolution, and has presented world premieres by such composers as Anthony Coleman, Alexandra Gardner, Judd Greenstein, Katherine Young, Alex Mincek, Catherine Lamb, Scott Wollschleger, Christopher Cerrone, Darian Thomas, and more. Their debut album afterimage, released by New Focus Recordings, was named one of NPR's Top 10 albums of January 2020 and AllMusic described it as "an appealing example of the work of new composers who are trying to forge connections with historical classical repertory."

The orchestra collaborates with vital arts and community-based organizations throughout the city, including BAM, Roulette, MoMA, the Whitney, Wave Hill, Little Island, ISSUE Project Room, The American Opera Project, GHOSTLIGHT Chorus, the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, and the Noel Pointer Foundation. Guest soloists and conductors have included such stars as Tito Muñoz, Charlers Neidich, Steve Beck, Matt Boehler, David Kaplan, Rachel Lee Priday, Lauren Michelle, Michael Brown, Giora Schmidt, and the Argus Quartet. Learn more at www.thesob.org.

enfolding Tracklist

1. Scott Wollschleger - Outside Only Sound [14:22]
Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti - with eyes the color of time
2. the bronze doors [3:20]
3. Open Triangles [2:38]
4. Nahele (the bronze horse / the forest) [3:52]
5. les sortilèges (the wound / the torn page) [3:09]
6. silhouette [1:33]
7. Mirror XV [2:28]
8. mahina [7:50]
9. enfolding [7:29]

Total Time: 46:41

String Orchestra of Brooklyn
Eli Spindel, conductor

Outside Only Sound was recorded live in Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, NY on October 17, 2022.

with eyes the color of time was recorded by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, NY on August 8, 2021. Edited by Ryan Streber, Charles Mueller, and Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti.

Mastering: Ryan Streber
Executive Producers: Eli Spindel, Ken Hashimoto
Cover Art and Design: Jasmine Parsia
FCR331

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