OCTET

thoughts on a contemporary music ensemble i.e, all the stuff we're about!

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Jazz Weekly covers the album Scatter My Ashes

George W. Harris of Jazz Weekly covers Octet Ensemble’s album Scatter My Ashes describing it as “harmoniously sophisticated” and noting that “the lines between classical and jazz get blurred.”

Read the review here >

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Sicilian video artist Valeria Di Matteo created Spotify canvas videos for each of the thirteen tracks on this album. They are stunning miniatures. Check them out!

https://open.spotify.com/album/4qQuiCV3lvowDxFjS43Uz7?si=DykBB9RGQSm0CEZhYJKX6Q

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It’s #BandcampFriday so artists receive 100%. Checkout our album and you can support artists directly! @Bandcamp https://susmanmusic.bandcamp.com/album/scatter-my-ashes

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Gray Days and Gold the monthly streaming music show by Mark F. Griffin selected the albums Scatter My Ashes with Octet Ensemble and Quiet Rhythms Book I with pianist, Nicolas Horvath for their Best of 2022. 

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Our album “Scatter My Ashes” is now available at Bandcamp and was featured today in their NEW AND NOTABLE section. Here’s the blurb…

“Scatter My Ashes exists at a crossroads between multiple styles, but emerges with something rich, textural, ambient and riveting” -Bandcamp

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Scatter My Ashes (Album Trailer)

Valeria Di Matteo created our new album trailer. Check it out here:

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Listen/purchase: Scatter My Ashes by William Susman

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Listen/purchase: Quiet Rhythms Book I by Nicolas Horvath & William Susman

Releases March 20, 2022

Collection 1001 Notes presents Quiet Rhythms Book I, a new album that brings together American composer William Susman and French pianist Nicolas Horvath.

This solo piano album, filled with lush hypnotic harmonies and gently cascading rhythms blossoms across eleven tracks. Performed by one of today's foremost classical interpreters, an ambient mixture of the sublime, deep meditation and serenity carries you to a place of transcendence.

Susman writes, “In the late hours of the night, I composed Quiet Rhythms touching on a reservoir of moods and ideas. I wrote Book I of this four book piano series in 2010. The music was intended for me to perform in public and I gave several performances over the next few years while continuing to compose three more books.”

Nicolas Horvath’s recording presents the entirety of Book I, collected here for the first time in a single album. Many of the tracks are premiere recordings.

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Interview on Harmonious World

Host Hilary Robertson talks with William Susman about Octet Ensemble’s album Scatter My Ashes, his background in jazz performance starting with early influences and the band’s unique instrumentation in the world of contemporary classical music. In addition they talk about how the pieces came about and the musicians in the group. Other topics include how technology has created new musical relationships and new ways to record music.

LISTEN HERE >

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Interview on WGXC The Jazz Disturbance

An interview about the album Scatter My Ashes on WGXC The Jazz Disturbance with William Susman and host Cheryl K including a discussion about the label Belarca Records, Octet Ensemble, and the poetry of Sue Susman (the composer’s sister), as well as American popular music, and the harmonic and rhythmic influences from Jazz and Afro-Cuban music.

LISTEN HERE >

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THE FOREST WITHIN

Very excited about this new book of poetry from my sister Sue Susman that was several years in the making.

Some of the poems in this collection appear in two song cycles we released in 2014 called Moving in to an Empty Space and, Scatter My Ashes.

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On Pandora

Enjoy OCTET Ensemble at Pandora Radio...

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Top This and Top That

There are all sorts of Top Lists. OCTET Ensemble made a few with our debut album. It's been a fun ride.

Scatter my Ashes reached

No. 1 on Amazon's Classical Hot New Releases

No. 8 on Billboard's Classical

Featured in iTunes Classical New and Noteworthy.

Scatter my Ashes was chosen as Album of the Week in December 2014 for the Seattle based 98.1 Classical KING FM radio show - Second Inversion

Scatter my Ashes was chosen as an Album of the Month in the October 2014 issue of - textura

Scatter my Ashes was selected as a top pick for the I CARE IF YOU LISTEN Summer 2014 Mixtape - I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

Scatter my Ashes was selected as a 2014 TOP 20 - textura

Scatter my Ashes was selected as a 2014 TOP 30 - Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Hailed by the Seattle-based classical radio show Second inversion, you can listen for a limited time to the whole album SCATTER MY ASHES streaming.

Here are some of our favorite quotes from their review:

"Hughes’ dazzling vocals soar above each piece"

"Hughes’ voice amplifies the sorrow, hope, and drama of the poetry, making each word glow…"

"…a beautiful and texturally fascinating sonic landscape which fully encompasses the listener in its sinuous melodies and jazz-infused rhythms"

"…the album stands as a timeless combination of contemporary classical music, minimalism, and jazz into a profound and dynamic multidisciplinary work"

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OCTET on the Billboard Charts

OCTET ensemble's album debut Scatter My Ashes reached No. 8 on the Billboard classical music charts! Other accolades include a feature in iTunes New and Noteworthy classical, No. 1 in Amazon's Hot New Releases, and Album of the Month at textura.

We also like numerological relationships and the serendipity of No. 8 for OCTET at Billboard.

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Fanfare's "Scatter My Ashes" Review

This is a reprint of Colin Clarke's review from the NOV/DEC 2014 issue of Fanfare Magazine used by permission.

SUSMAN Camille. Scatter My Ashes. Piano Concerto. Moving In To An Empty SpaceŸ Octet Ens Ÿ BELARCA 004 (44:41)

This is one of the most fun albums to come my way in a while. Low on playing time it may be, but this heavily minimalist-tinged music offers constant delight. There is what can only be described as a cleanliness to the writing (and, actually, the performances) that is most appealing. Born in 1960, Susman is known in both classical and jazz circles, and while the first movement of Camille (2010), entitled “Vitality”, showcases the minimalist element of Susman's music, the central slow movement (“Tranquility”), with its wordless vocals (flawlessly delivered by Melissa Hughes) speaks of late-night slow jazz before pumping, vital rhythms return us to minimalism for the final section, “Triumph”. The way Susman plays with vocal and instrumental timbres is fascinating.

The Octet Ensemble is carefully selected to represent  a scaled down big band, taking one each from the brass section plus rhythm (so, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, drums/percussion, piano, electric piano, vocals and double-bass). The five movements of Scatter My Ashes (2009) set texts by the composer's sister, Sue Susman. The voice of Melissa Hughes, wonderfully low in, often free of, vibrato comes into its own here, especially in the more tender movements. Throughout, this is stunningly performed and recorded, with the final song, “Eternal Light” being gloriously lyrical (and Hughes sings it so perfectly).

I wonder how many piano concertos include voice (not voices, we are not talking Busoni here). Well, this one does. Wordless vocals are an integral part of the mix; more, the piano part is certainly not soloistic, making this more of a “sounding together”. The piano rather seems to provide a bedrock, while slivers of musical through come and go as if in a dream. The movements each have brief descriptors: “Build-Decay”; “Glide”; “Spin”; “Jagged”; “Ripple”—Cadenza— “Shimmer”. But “slick” is the word I would use, impeccably crafted and played by all concerned with pinpoint accuracy.

Finally, the 2010 arrangement for octet of the 1992 Moving In To An Empty Space. Again, Hughes' voice is perfect for the music, particularly in the central ruminative “Begging the Night for Change”. Colin Clarke

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ALBUM OF THE MONTH at textura

textura chose Scatter My Ashes as an album of the month in their October 2014 issue and gave us a great review.

They described the album as "a genre-transcending fusion of contemporary Western classical, jazz, pop, and non-Western folk musics."

"…resplendent and melodious, and easy to embrace when its fresh blend of neo-classical, jazz, and popular song-based forms sparkles so effervescently…" -textura