Horizontal Drift

Composer and Rome Prize winner Christopher Trapani releases Horizontal Drift, a collection of six works written for custom instruments that explore rich corners of microtonal tuning, timbre, and electronic processing. Featuring performers Max Haft, Daniel Lippel, Amy Advocat, Marilyn Nonken, and Marco Fusi in music for vioara cu goarna violin with horn, quarter-tone guitar, Bohlen-Pierce clarinet, piano scordatura, Midi-controlled Fokker organ, and viola d'amore, Trapani revels in sound worlds that challenge listener expectations and reveal new expressive possibilities. Some time around 2015, I started to wonder if the received wisdom of the concert music circuit might not be out of date. Listeners now seem far more likely to engage with a new work online, streaming a single recorded track, than to hear a work live in concert. The publication/performance model, relying on new interpreters to pick up old pieces for similar instruments, has started to seem increasingly anachronistic-or even quixotic, given the abundance of options to choose from. Shifting my strategy, I decided to concentrate on writing music that isn't necessarily meant to circulate to other performers. Working closely with specific musicians on their custom-made instruments, I would create uniquely-tailored showpieces for a few gifted soloists who share my passion for rare tunings and timbres. This album is the fruit of those collaborations...