Release Date: August 12, 2016
Catalog #: RR7938
Format: Digital & Physical
21st Century
Chamber
Solo Instrumental
Large Ensemble
String Quartet
Viola

Color Studies

Hakki Cengiz Eren composer

Thornton Edge | Donald Crockett conductor
ECCE
Argus Quartet
Garth Knox viola

Turkish composer Hakki Cengiz Eren presents a selection of chamber and solo works on his debut album COLOR STUDIES, released on Ravello Records. Eren’s music epitomizes expressionism in contemporary music, utilizing an enormous range of sounds, forms and textures to create highly evocative and dramatic musical statements.

Music for Strings, No. 1, for string quartet, features two basic ideas: 1) multi-layered, serpentine counterpoint defined by the abundance of grace notes and 2) short outbursts of even, typically homophonic rhythms. Powerfully, the opposition and evolution of these two ideas yields completely new material.

Six Studies on Archipenko, inspired by Alexander Archipenko’s painting ‘‘La Coquette,’’ focuses on evocative textures and alluring instrumental and ensemble timbres. The work features a spate of colors from single instruments and instrumental combinations that evoke visuals congruent to those of the painting.

Four Pieces for Solo Viola uses a myriad of techniques to imply active, multi-layered textures with a single instrument. Eren implements fragments from the overtone series, dramatic contrasts in timbre, generation of harmonic beats through small intervals and extremes of range.

Buffavento, for large chamber ensemble, recalls the deeply abstract and dissonant micropolyphony of Gyorgy Ligeti’s orchestral works Lontano and Atmospheres. The title, meaning “battered by the wind” describes the composer’s impression of the castles that occupy the mountain range of Northern Cyprus.

Listen

Hear the full album on YouTube

Artist Information

Hakki Cengiz Eren

Composer

Turkish composer Hakki Cengiz Eren’s (b. 1984) music has been performed across the United States and Europe. Recent performances of his music have been given by renowned soloists and ensembles, including Garth Knox, Calvin Wiersma, Mak Grgic, members of ECCE (Diamanda Dramm, Paolo Vignoroli, Vasko Dukovski and Virginie Tarrête), Argus Quartet, Ensemble Nodus and the Thornton Edge.