JACK Quartet + So Percussion Play 'Songs That Are Hard to Sing'

Songs That Are Hard to Sing is an octet composed by Dan Trueman for the JACK Quartet and Sō Percussion. This collaboration of contemporary music heavyweights unites "the nation's most important quartet," (New York Timeson JACK) with Sō Percussion's "exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam" (New Yorker).

In this album a bricolage of familiar sounds become ethereal. Piano melodies lilt peculiarly through bitKlavier, a prepared digital piano invented by Truemanthat would make John Cage proud that "makes all the notes between the keys become available." The human voice becomes startling when the untrained voice of a member from Sō Percussion sings for just a few bars in the album's closing moments.

For a limited time, watch the video for the full album over at the Vic FirthYouTube channel. If you're in the Princeton area Friday, Nov. 22, catch the record release party featuring a free performance by Sō Percussion.

New York-based violist Nathan Schram's debut solo album Oak and the Ghost is now available on New Amsterdam's Windmill Series. Featuring Attacca Quartet (of which Schram is a member) and Becca Stevens, Oak and the Ghost features 9 of Schram's original compositions.

Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's dystopic Player Piano and a list of musical influences spanning genres and eras, Oak and the Ghost creates a textural sound universe dealing in concepts both ageless and deeply of the moment. "The themes in the book revolve around a massive collection of wealth and power being allocated to engineers and their machines - leaving the remaining classes and population with little to inspire or empower them. The ensuing social issues and rebellions are all key inspirations to each of the tracks," says Schram.

Catch his album release show hosted by the Metropolis Ensemble at 1 Rivington in NYC Saturday, Nov. 23.