ICE’s new release on its in-house label, TUNDRA, highlights a fruitful
seven-year collaboration between the ensemble and Brazilian born
composer Marcos Balter, featuring five world premiere recordings of
works commissioned and championed by the group. Balter’s music absorbs
techniques and aesthetics from across the compositional spectrum,
adapting them to a sensibility that is consistently sensual, colorful,
and immediate. The connection between ICE and Balter runs through
Chicago, where he served on the composition faculty at Columbia College.
Wicker Park, written for ICE saxophonist and former Chicago
resident Ryan Muncy, celebrates a Chicago neighborhood known for its
bohemian spirit and DIY arts scene. Codex Seraphinianus, for
flute, soprano saxophone, viola, and bassoon, is an eleven movement
suite inspired by an encyclopedia of imaginary objects by Italian
designer Luigi Serafini. The Art Institute of Chicago asked Claire Chase
to commission a composer to write a work inspired by the musuem’s
permanent collection. The result, inspired by Cy Twombly’s Return from Parnassus, is Balter’s Descent from Parnassus,
a tour de force solo flute work that is two pieces happening
simultaneously — a virtuoso flute solo and a breathless recitation of
Book One of Dante’s Canto Paradiso at the same time. ligare for six instruments employs subtle microtones and whistling to create an atmospheric, disembodied soundscape. The final work, Æsopica, was Balter’s first large ensemble piece for ICE. Based on Aesop’s fables, Æsopica
sets this famous work for children through contemporary music, as
Balter draws on his wide pallette to paint whimsical vignettes of sound
and fantasy. This disc, then, is a partial compendium of Balter’s work
over recent years, indeed, in the liner notes, he writes, “My music for
ICE is very much like a diary of my own trajectory as a composer.”ICE’s new release on its in-house label, TUNDRA, highlights a fruitful
seven-year collaboration between the ensemble and Brazilian born
composer Marcos Balter, featuring five world premiere recordings of
works commissioned and championed by the group. Balter’s music absorbs
techniques and aesthetics from across the compositional spectrum,
adapting them to a sensibility that is consistently sensual, colorful,
and immediate. The connection between ICE and Balter runs through
Chicago, where he served on the composition faculty at Columbia College.
Wicker Park, written for ICE saxophonist and former Chicago
resident Ryan Muncy, celebrates a Chicago neighborhood known for its
bohemian spirit and DIY arts scene. Codex Seraphinianus, for
flute, soprano saxophone, viola, and bassoon, is an eleven movement
suite inspired by an encyclopedia of imaginary objects by Italian
designer Luigi Serafini. The Art Institute of Chicago asked Claire Chase
to commission a composer to write a work inspired by the musuem’s
permanent collection. The result, inspired by Cy Twombly’s Return from Parnassus, is Balter’s Descent from Parnassus,
a tour de force solo flute work that is two pieces happening
simultaneously — a virtuoso flute solo and a breathless recitation of
Book One of Dante’s Canto Paradiso at the same time. ligare for six instruments employs subtle microtones and whistling to create an atmospheric, disembodied soundscape. The final work, Æsopica, was Balter’s first large ensemble piece for ICE. Based on Aesop’s fables, Æsopica
sets this famous work for children through contemporary music, as
Balter draws on his wide pallette to paint whimsical vignettes of sound
and fantasy. This disc, then, is a partial compendium of Balter’s work
over recent years, indeed, in the liner notes, he writes, “My music for
ICE is very much like a diary of my own trajectory as a composer.”
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