released March 15, 2024

APSARA

Katelijne Lanneau: recorders
Ines Rasbach: recorders
Tomma Wesse:l recorders

Apsara is a flexible ensemble built around the recorder, that has been exploring its own paths in new and early music since its foundation in 2000. Beyond the highly varied instruments of the recorder family, concerts feature giant slide flutes and toy instruments. Apsara regularly uses electronic means and joins hands with other musicians and composers. These collaborations have resulted in world premieres by Alvin Curran, Moritz Eggert, Frederic Rzewski, Annelies Van Parys, Errollyn Wallen, Sarah Wéry, Christian Wolff and others. Always looking for connections between early and recent music, in 2021 Apsara recorded the programme 'En attendant' on video, in which music from the Ars Subtilior by da Caserta and da Bologna is presented alongside a world premiere by Ghent composer Frank Nuyts. Apsara has a long-standing collaboration with composer Matthew Shlomowitz, which included co-conceiving a concert programme 'Weird Light Music' for three recorders and keyboardist Stéphane Ginsburgh, which premiered at De Bijloke in Ghent in 2023.

QUARTET LABORATOIRE

Lis Marti: synthesiser
Audrey Mützenberg: synthesiser
Romane Bouffioux: xylophone, vibraphone, percussion
Corentin Barro: drum kit, and xylophone (track 3)

Quartet Laboratoire met while studying at the HKB (Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland) through their specialisation and passion for contemporary music. In 2023, they were awarded a Carte Blanche evening at the Playtime Festival, enabling them to commission a piece by composer Matthew Shlomowitz, whom they particularly appreciate, both musically and personally, for his style, sense of rhythm, humour and poppy influences.

Matthew Shlomowitz is co-director of Plus Minus Ensemble and Soundmaking podcast, and teaches at University of Southampton. As winner of the Johann Joseph Fux Opera Composition, his opera Electric Dreams was staged at 2017 ORF Musikprotokoll, with a second production in 2023 at Grand Théâtre de Genève. Other pieces include Glücklich, Glücklich, Freude, Freude, written for keyboardist Mark Knoop and SWR Symphonieorchester; Minor Characters, a one-hour show written with Jennifer Walshe for Ensemble Nikel; and 6 Scenes for Turntables and Orchestra written with Mariam Rezaei for Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, and Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

Romane Bouffioux: vol. 4 engineering and editing
Beat Müller: vol. 4 recording assistant
Rainer Arndt: vol. 2 engineering, editing and mixing
Newton Armstrong: vol. 4 mixing; mastering vol. 2 and 4

Cover image: Mark Seabrook, Rockinghorse Cowboy #1