New Music Scrapbook
You may recall that some time ago I promised interviews and recordings from my colleagues here at the University of Minnesota, a project we’ve dubbed the New Music Scrapbook. Today I’m pleased to announce that the first of these is available: James Holdman is our featured artist this week.
I think that James’ piece Don’t Call Me Norman, rendered here by the estimable Twin Cities ensemble Zeitgeist, represents what he’s about quite well: related but distinct materials arrayed in time so as to suggest a dense network of overlaid images and affects. It would be too easy to attribute the uncanny variety of these materials to the breadth of James’s experience as a performer, which encompasses a staggering range of musics Western and non-, although that experience surely informs his compositional identity. His work is much more than a simple rearrangement of ready-made musical objects, yet everything one encounters within it has the eerie semblance of something else. I hope you enjoy jumping into James’ world as much as I have.