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Music in Diverse Styles

Douglas Anderson composer

Release Date: December 6, 2024
Catalog #: RR8112
Format: Digital
21st Century
Chamber
Cello
Clarinet
Piano

Douglas Anderson’s music may follow a guiding thread of atonality, but since the New York native’s tastes are eclectic, so are his works. MUSIC IN DIVERSE STYLES is a showcase of Anderson’s genre-busting creativity, a deep exploration of musical paradigms. 

As the album cycles through different chamber setups from duo to septet, Anderson presents his evolving, idiosyncratic serialism through the prism of heterogeneous genres including bluegrass and rock. Most impressive, perhaps, is the consistency in quality, despite the works spanning four decades. As a composer, Anderson has woven quite the tapestry in this Ravello Records release.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Rock Riffs Douglas Anderson Paul Kulka, piccolo; Gary Dranch, bass clarinet; Scott Still, tambourine 3:58
02 Trio Suite: I. Sostenuto Douglas Anderson Paul Kulka, flutes; Gary Dranch, clarinets; Scott Still, percussion 4:42
03 Trio Suite: II. Glacially Slow Douglas Anderson Paul Kulka, flutes; Gary Dranch, clarinets; Scott Still, percussion 5:46
04 Trio Suite: III. Allegro Assai Douglas Anderson Paul Kulka, flutes; Gary Dranch, clarinets; Scott Still, percussion 4:07
05 Vocalise No. 2 Douglas Anderson Ina Litera, viola; Matt Goeke, cello 5:27
06 Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano Douglas Anderson Donald Mokrynski, clarinet; Matt Goeke, cello; Renee Cometa Briggs, piano 12:05
07 Septet Douglas Anderson Douglas Anderson, conductor; Paul Kulka, flute; John Frisch, oboe; Gary Dranch, clarinet; Yuki Hagashi, bassoon; Barney Stevens, violin; Ina Litera, viola; Matt Goeke, cello 7:52
08 Brass Trio: I. A Jocular Conversation Douglas Anderson Tom Verchot, trumpet; Debbie Schmidt, French horn; Roger Verdi, trombone 4:56
09 Brass Trio: II. Solemn Procession Douglas Anderson Tom Verchot, trumpet; Debbie Schmidt, French horn; Roger Verdi, trombone 2:26
10 Brass Trio: III. The Chase Douglas Anderson Tom Verchot, trumpet; Debbie Schmidt, French horn; Roger Verdi, trombone 4:42
11 Vernal Tracing No. 4 Douglas Anderson Suzanne Gilchrest, alto flute; Scott Still, marimba 6:38
12 Reverse Variations on 'Arkansas Traveler' Douglas Anderson Eight Strings & a Whistle | Suzanne Gilchrest, flute; Ina Litera, viola; Matt Goeke, ‘cello 5:01
13 Some Thoughts on 'The Rights of Man' Douglas Anderson Denise Cridge, Ina Litera, Myra Kelly, Fritz Bernardin - violas 5:55

Tracks 1-4, 11
Recorded February 11, 2024 at National Opera Center in New York NY
Session Producer & Engineer Kurt Briggs

Tracks 5, 8-10 & 12
Recorded January 5 & 18, 2024 at Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York NY
Session Producer & Engineer Kurt Briggs

Track 6
Recorded June 3, 2024 at NV Factory in Englewood Cliffs NJ
Session Producer Kurt Briggs
Session Engineers Sean Yoo, Mi Sun Oh

Track 7
Recorded February 18, 2024 at 2nd Story Sound in New York NY
Session Producer Kurt Briggs
Session Engineer Scott Lehrer

Track 13
Recorded October 9, 2024 at Martin Patrych Memorial Studio in New York NY
Session Producer Kurt Briggs
Session Engineer Joseph Patrych

Editing & Mixing Kurt Briggs
Mastering Melanie Montgomery

Executive Producer Bob Lord

A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Jeff LeRoy

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Kacie Brown
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

Douglas Anderson

Composer

Douglas Anderson is a composer, conductor, educator, and producer who has been active in the New York area for 50 years. He studied music and psychology at Columbia University, where his three degrees culminated in a doctorate in music composition in 1980. His professional career began as a jazz musician at the age of 12, and he performed widely in the Eastern United States before moving to New York to attend college. His work as a conductor has been his performance focus for the last several decades.

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Notes

The pieces in this collection were written over several decades for differing chamber ensembles. As the album title indicates, they represent a variety of styles that have interested me, ranging from serialism to rock to bluegrass to minimalism and more. In each case, I wrote sometimes with particular performers (and their own styles and capabilities) in mind, and sometimes not.

When a new work is commissioned I typically ask the performers what they would be likely to program on a concert with my piece; these works then represent my response to those performance contexts as well as my own explorations. Unlike some composers, my primary focus in writing music is to give the audience a self-contained experience when they listen to my music, what others have described as a musical journey. It is also true that I get a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction in trying to create that journey.

A common (but not universal) thread of my compositional technique has been the investigation and development of serialism, which in my shorthand moved from serialism 2.0 (1970s), to 2.5 (1980s and early 90s), to 3.0 (2000s), and beyond that in more recent years. With the ultimate objective of developing and using serial techniques to create the musical journey of the piece, and to have the same degree of flexibility, stylistic variety and musical impact as tonality, I’ve moved to the point where listeners don’t even recognize it as serialism, an outcome I welcome.

Below are short descriptions of each piece and their genesis:

Rock Riffs (1991) embodies my interest in Rock music and how some of its common musical details can be echoed and amplified in the ideas of serialism I was beginning to develop at the time.

— Douglas Anderson

Trio Suite (1991), in three movements, engages combinations of different size flutes and clarinets with various percussion instruments, again using ideas from serialism 2.5 to explore different moods and interactions.

— Douglas Anderson

Vocalise No. 2 (1984) began as some pieces do: an experiment in a musical style (Minimalism) that had been for some years very cutting-edge, but was then being overtaken by so-called NeoRomanticism. As you can hear, the minimalism at the beginning eventually took me in a different direction.

— Douglas Anderson

Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano (1975), the oldest piece of this album, was written soon after I’d finished studying (for three years) with Charles Wuorinen. It exhibits my growing interest in taking serialism in a new and different direction, which eventually became the topic of my doctoral dissertation at Columbia University and the focus of much of my work since then.

— Douglas Anderson

Septet (1980) was written very soon after I received my doctorate, and shows my early thoughts about what I now call serialism 2.5. The strong influence of the work of Stefan Wolpe can also be detected.

— Douglas Anderson

Brass Trio (1986) is a three-movement piece that does what many others have done with chamber music: let the instruments have interactions that amount to conversations. Each movement makes use of the stylistic variety available in serialism 2.5.

— Douglas Anderson

Vernal Tracing No. 4 (1988) is another piece that uses minimalism combined with serialism (by this time fully serialism 2.5), allowing the players to slowly increase the musical tension, and then just as gradually let it subside.

— Douglas Anderson

Reverse Variations on Arkansas Traveler (2016) also began as an experiment: what would happen if I took a very tonal, almost modal tune, and applied 20th century variation techniques to it? Rather than just melodic variation, I used techniques from composers like Schoenberg, Carter, even Brahms, and more. The early results of the experiment seemed interesting enough, so I developed it for my friends in Eight Strings & a Whistle. And since Arkansas Traveler is often performed (in bluegrass contexts) with jokes between the variations, I encouraged the performers to do just that (tell jokes!) between the variations in live performances, which they have done to audience surprise and acclaim.

— Douglas Anderson

Some Thoughts on The Rights of Man (2007) was written at the request of my friend Ina Litera, who at the time taught a viola ensemble of students of varying levels of skill. It uses a well-known fiddle tune from the 18th century, arranged so that all the players from advanced beginners to professional get to play it and have suitable and challenging parts. It is prefaced by a little fantasy on the tune. Here played by a quartet, it could also be played by any larger size group of violists.

— Douglas Anderson