Pondok
Sarah Cahill, piano
There have been a lot of gamelan-inspired compositions by American composers over the past century, but few Western composers have absorbed the language of Indonesian music as originally as Evan Ziporyn. He does not merely find a way to fuse cross-cultural elements, but rather uses both Eastern and Western classical traditions, as well as elements of jazz and rock, to explore his own very personal post-minimalist voice. In Pondok, a 25-minute, four-movement solo piano composition from 2001, here convincingly conveyed by Sarah Cahill, Ziporyn uses ostinatos that are hallmarks of each of the musical idioms to create a virtuosic tour de force of immense emotional power.
—FJO