Eloquent collection of contemporary pieces | Bangkok Post: lifestyle

CLASSICAL

If you've been sniffing around the gamier and more extreme edges of the recorded classical music release lists lately, you'll know that the cross-fertilisation that has always gone on between classical music and different popular styles has been generating some stunning new works recently. I've written about two of them in this column: Ed Bennett's Dzama Stories, which draws heavily on Expressionist jazz, and Mario Diaz de Leon's Enter Houses Of, where extreme rock styles are melded with ideas from the classical avant-garde. Both pieces hijack the ear on first hearing, and some listeners may find, as I have, that the more they listen to them, the more deeply they are drawn into this hyper-dynamic, powerfully emotional music.

AWAKE: Includes JUDD GREENSTEIN: Change; SEAN FRIAR: Velvet Hammer; MIZZY MAZZOLI: Magic with Everyday Objects; MARK DANCIGER: Burst; DAVID CROWELL: Waiting in the Rain for Snow; PATRICK BURKE: Awake. The NOW Ensemble. New Amsterdam Records, CD or download

One this new release the NOW Ensemble do something similar but in a very different way. Most of the six pieces on the programme owe some of their immediate and very strong appeal to their composers' very creative and personal response to ideas from pop and to earlier composers who have become iconic figures to many pop artists.