Elliot Cole: Bloom ft. Jordan Dodson, Gabriel Cabezas, and Stas Chernyshev (Video)
“The patterning of Elliot Cole’s amazing piece in four parts for guitar, cello and clarinet is inspired by digital delay audio effects, only played live. It is an experience, rather than just a piece of music, one that demands the full attention of the listener. The guitar playing is at times sublime, the percussive range of the cello is on full display and the clarinet completes the trio to perfection.”
-Nagamag.com
Bloom is a fast and intense trio for guitarist Jordan Dodson, clarinetist Stas Chernyshev, and cellist Gabe Cabezas (Paul Simon). Its patterning is inspired by digital delay audio effects used in electronic music production, but with the echoes all played live. It’s the opening set of my album Nightflower. (It’s 1 piece in 4 parts — all one track on YouTube, but broken out into 4 tracks on Spotify.)
Elliot Cole (*1984) is a composer, music technologist, and “charismatic contemporary bard” (NY Times). He scored Evolver (e.d. Terrence Malick), alongside Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead) and Wu Tang Clan, and he has written for and performed with GRAMMY Winners Roomful of Teeth, GRAMMY Nominees A Far Cry and Metropolis Ensemble, as well as Alkemie Early Music Ensemble, the Lucerne Festival Academy, and as a member of the book-club-band Oracle Hysterical. His percussion music evokes “sparkling icicles of sound” (Rolling Stone) and has been performed by over 250 ensembles all over the world, including the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, the Swedish Royal Opera, the Toho Orchestra Academy in Japan, and at the Big Ears music festival. Community performances of his Flowerpot Music through Make Music Day are becoming an annual tradition; in 2021 over 500 participants brought the piece to parks in 40 cities around the world. He has taught courses at Juilliard, Princeton, Manhattan School of Music, and The New School, and was invited to Google to share his explorations in music through computer programming. He is currently on faculty at the The New School and Juilliard Evening Division, and is Program Director of Musicambia at Sing Sing, where he runs a music school for incarcerated men.
Reviewed by Nagamag on July 12, 2021