When Alchemy
Sound Project initially came together, their mission seemed as elusive as the
medieval mystics that inspired their name: after all, combining five
distinctive composers, separated by miles and even continents, each melding
jazz, classical and world music influences in their own unique ways, into a
single ensemble that also played to their individual gifts as performers and
improvisers - well, that all starts to make turning lead into gold seem like
child's play.
Despite
those challenges, Alchemy's debut Further Explorations (the title suggesting that
they were already looking forward, even their first time out), made an
impressive impact, earning widespread critical acclaim and earning the band a
place on DownBeat Magazine's Best Albums of 2016 list. Many a collective
ensemble has managed one great album before disbanding; the proof is in the
longevity. Now, Alchemy returns with their second outing Adventures in Time and
Space - due out June 15, 2018 via Artists Recording Collective - and the
results are even more compelling this time around.
"We're
committed to each other," says pianist Sumi Tonooka who originally
masterminded the project. The five core members of Alchemy Sound Project were
initially brought together by the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, a program
of the American Composers Orchestra and the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia
University that encourages jazz composers to explore writing music for symphony
orchestra. Saxophonist Erica Lindsay attended the first JCOI session in 2010;
at her encouragement, both Tonooka (a frequent collaborator) and trumpet player
Samantha Boshnack (a former student of Lindsay's at Bard College) enrolled in
the second round in 2012. There, Tonooka and Boshnack met and bonded with
bassist David Arend and multi-reedist Salim Washington. For this release, the
band is supplemented by trombonist Michael Spearman and drummer Johnathan
Blake.
"We all
wanted to write in a way that helps each other grow as composers but also
provides a platform for us to experiment," Tonooka says. "It's a
community of sorts, a support system that allows us to have our music heard
within a certain context. We write for each other, we learn from each other,
we're all growing in our own ways and it's coming out in the music."
Forming
Alchemy Sound Project provided a means to hone the members' composing chops
with an encouraging, supportive and skilled ensemble. But all five have also
broadened their musical horizons in other ways as well. Most remarkably, at a
time when orchestras across the country are under scrutiny for the dearth of
female composers represented in their repertoires, the ensemble boasts three
female composers who've had their innovative work performed by major
orchestras.
Tonooka
served as composer-in-residence for the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra and was
commissioned by Seattle's Northwest Symphony Orchestra to write her piece
"For Malala," an homage to Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, the
youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history. Lindsay's piece for drum set and
orchestra, "Mantra," was performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra,
while another orchestral composition, "Inner Dialogue," was read by
the American Composers Orchestra. Boshnack's piece "Coelacanth: In Its Own
Time," was premiered by the Northwest Symphony Orchestra in 2015.
That's not
to discount the guys, who have also been making waves as composers. Arend is
currently working on an orchestral commission for the Bellingham Festival of
Music's 2019 season and recorded two concertos featuring himself and Washington
with the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra. Based in Durban, South Africa, where
he teaches at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Washington recently received a
commission from the Jazz Foundation to arrange big band charts of his music as
well as the music of South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini.
"We've
all broadened our experience," Tonooka says. "Everyone in this band
is really unique, and when we come together it creates a very interesting
picture."
The title
Adventures in Time and Space offers a broad explanation for why that picture is
developing in such a vivid fashion. The six pieces on the album are just that -
sonic adventures - but they're also born of the time these five composers have
spent together and the travels and communions they've shared. "I think
each of us as composers now are really starting to understand the range and the
possibilities that each player, who is also a composer, offers," says
Lindsay, who wrote the title tune. "That opens up our compositional scope
and gives us a really rich palette to work from."
Lindsay's
two contributions bookend the album, the transformational narrative of the
title track providing an enticing opening, and the buoyant "Jeff's
Joy," penned in tribute to drummer/bandleader Jeff Siegel, closing on a
celebratory note. Arend's mysterious "Ankh" was inspired by early
Egyptian alchemists. "The Ankh was a symbol of eternal life," Arend
notes, "of life beyond this mortal life. The music's dreamy melody and
subtle harmonic shifts are inspired by this symbol."
Boshnack's
"Song of the Whistle Wing" draws on her childhood memories of growing
up in rural New York. "I started the piece by trying to capture the
nostalgia of the call of the mourning doves," she says. "I then
incorporated the whistling sound their wings make during takeoff and
landing." Tonooka's moving "Transition Waltz (for Matt)" was
penned for her longtime friend Matt Yaple, a Philadelphia composer and
presenter who'd recently left his longtime apartment for a new home that
doubles as a performance space. "I've known Matt for more than 30 years
and he's finally transitioning into this life that he's always wanted,"
Tonooka says. "So I thought I would write something for him to help
celebrate our friendship and the fact that he's moving forward."
Washington's
"Odysseus Leaves Circe" was originally intended to accompany an
exhibition of Romare Bearden's paintings in Cape Town. While the show never
happened, Washington had already immersed himself in the artist's work and this
piece, as vibrant and multi-layered as Bearden's work, was the result. He says,
"I loved the painting 'Odysseus Leaves Circe.' The color and composition
haunted me. So I tried to write a composition that on the one hand gave voice
to the painting and on the other referenced the story of Odysseus trying to
free himself from the pull of Circe and her charms."
Alchemy
Sound Project is a collective of composer-performers whose music combines
elements of jazz, world music and modern chamber music. This diverse and eclectic
group aims to blur the boundaries between notated composition and
improvisation. The alchemy of these individual voices working together results
in music that is powerful, original and highly interactive. Pianist Sumi
Tonooka, saxophonist Erica Lindsay, trumpet player Samantha Boshnack, bassist
David Arend and multi-reedist Salim Washington are all unique and
forward-thinking composers traversing the borders between the composed and the
improvised. Alchemy Sound Project is committed to synthesizing the individual
voices and experiences of diverse composers into a musical experience that is
fresh and new.
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