Contemporary classical music, growing out of a mainstream progressive musical tradition.

8 MP3 Songs
CLASSICAL: Contemporary, SPOKEN WORD: With Music



Details:
Aethletics can be defined as the intersection of culture and sports. For much of the past 150 years, sports have played an increasingly important role in our society - economically, culturally, and artistically. We wanted to see how American composers were translating this into their music. Three of the works, "Gooooooooal!!!", "In Memorium, Marge Laszlo", and âYou Catching?â, were written specifically for a sports-theme concert we presented in 2004 and deal with various sports directly. The two other pieces appeared on other programs and take a more oblique approach. "Campaign Dances" draws inspiration from the perennial sport of politics and "Ornatornithic" from the more passive (though no less intensely competitive) activity of bird-watching.

These compositions were all commissioned and premiered by Avian Music between 2002 and 2004 and this disk represents the final step in our mission to foster the creation of new works, to perform those works for new audiences, and to record and document them for both the present and the future. We want to express our great thanks to all the composers and performers for their participation in this project. Keep your eyes on the ball and your ears on the music!

The New York City-based Avian Music is a contemporary music ensemble dedicated to building bridges between audiences, performers, and composers in various musical styles and media. The groupâs mission is to provide opportunities for emerging American composers side by side with more established composers in an ongoing series of thematic concerts and recordings that engage and broaden the audience for new music.

Past concerts have focused on such themes as birds and music; sports-inspired music performed in a 19th century gymnasium, a Valentineâs Day concert of songs of love, lust, sex, and jealousy, which featured the burlesque performer Miss Dirty Martini, and an election weekend revue of music about politics in late October 2004. Their performances have been popular and critical successes, described in the New York Times as âplayed beautifully and sensitively.â Their âPlay Ball!!!â concert was a featured web-cast on the NewMusicBox website. Upcoming projects include a CD of rock and roll inspired music to be recorded in fall 2007, a concert of live music with video art in 2008 and a concert of food-inspired music featuring a live chef actively cooking.