I’ve been hiding away working on this for the past eighteen months, and it’s finally ready. Stay tuned for some music videos leading up to the May 28 release date! :)
“The moon that broke on the fencepost, will not hold. Desire will not hold. Memory will not hold … It is an art, this evermore escaping grasp of things” -The Art of Disappearing, from Aria by Sarah Holland-Batt
The fifth portrait album from Sydney composer, Cameron Lam, weaves together the timbre and expressive depth of mezzo soprano Jenny Duck-Chong (Halcyon) and the vibrant connection of the Geist String Quartet to paint a delicate response to the rhythmic and intensely musical poetry of Sarah Holland-Batt’s award-winning first book, Aria.
The Art of Disappearing is a song cycle meditating on the nature of grief. The eight songs, for mezzo soprano and string quartet, together tell stories of reminiscence, loss and grief. The cycle doesn’t present loss as something to solve; instead, it paints the inexorable journey from stasis, as we learn to move again.
Lam explains, “Music is movement to me. In fact, my main trick for composer’s block is to go walking in the same tempo as the sketch I’m working on. That was the striking thing about Sarah’s poetry for me, it was arresting, it stopped me in my tracks – it sang all by itself and I just wanted to add to that.”
Lam interweaves another four pieces into these songs, a series of string quartet interludes contemplating the nature of time. In these movements we hear more cerebral explorations: two pieces played simultaneously (with players jumping between time streams), pulses slowly breaking down, and a melody echoing a duet with itself. These dual themes (grief and time) enhance and reflect each other throughout the album with motives echoing back and forth between tracks. Read more at: https://kammerklang.wordpress.com/2019/04/30/presenting-the-art-of-disappearing/
Repost for the US crowd, I think you're awake, right? #TimeZoneMath
