Elliott Sharp, Plastovy Hrad

Over the years Elliot Sharp has become a primary cultural treasure for High Modernist New Music and Imrpovisational Avant Garde music making. Happily for us he keeps going and growing. There is a new album out by the name of Plastovy Hrad (Infrequent Seams 20) and it is a very good one.

Three works break things up and give us much to hear. The title work "Plastovy Hrad" is the more ambitious of the three with a nicely executed live performance by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra conducted by Pavel Snajdr. The bass clarinet solo part is performed ably by Lukasz Danhel.

The second work is entitled "Turing Test" with six vocalists comprising the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and Gareth Davis on bass clarinet.

Finally there is "Oumuamua" for bass clarinet and electronics as performed by the composer.

With the bass clarinet the common factor throughout everything has a sort of continuity and yet each is distinguished in advanced Modern ways that followers of E# will not exactly be surprised to hear. Yet too there is is nothing rote-ish or perfunctory about the music either. It is vital, very much alive and filled with an energy that Maestro Sharp has always had in various ways. There is nothing formulaic about this music either.

As up and down the vagaries of life may go for us these days, there are some musical luminaries that do not flag but consistently uplift us into the best sense of "new" territory. Elliott Sharp is most certainly one of these artists. His Plastovy Hrad brings to us another program that encourages us to have some kind of hope, for music anyway if not for life, but sure, good music makes us feel better about life, so that too.

Highly recommended for serious followers of the New Music.