The Apollo Chamber Players have been noted for their varied programming, but they may never have outdone With Malice Toward None, their 2021 release on Azica Records. The listener may find it difficult to find a common thread connecting these works, and when the arrangements of Armenian folk material from the composer/musicologist Komitas (Soghomon Soghomonian) come along, there may be a "huh?" factor. Of course, for others, the sheer variety will be desirable, and the individual components are often fascinating. The title ...
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The Apollo Chamber Players have been noted for their varied programming, but they may never have outdone With Malice Toward None, their 2021 release on Azica Records. The listener may find it difficult to find a common thread connecting these works, and when the arrangements of Armenian folk material from the composer/musicologist Komitas (Soghomon Soghomonian) come along, there may be a "huh?" factor. Of course, for others, the sheer variety will be desirable, and the individual components are often fascinating. The title comes from the opening work by Kimo Williams, and thence from Abraham Lincoln, and that piece, with its extensions of blues melodic profiles, addresses current social tensions. Other works are rooted in folk music, very broadly defined; Pamela Z's The Unraveling pertains to various phases of contemporary folk music, inventively referenced by the string quartet and electronics. If there's a place to get an idea of what's happening on this album by sampling, it may be with the "Travis"...
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