Evan Ziporyn: Typical Music
New Albion Records, 2005
Available on Bandcamp, Apple Music, and Spotify

Featuring Sarah Cahill solo “Pondok”; also Arden Trio, Gamelan Galak Tika

1. Pondok, for piano
with Sarah Cahill

2. Piano Trio – Typical Music
with Arden Trio

3. Ngaben (for Sari Club), for gamelan & orchestra
Performed by New England Conservatory Philharmonia
with Gamelan Galak Tika
Conducted by Dante Anzolini

from Amazon.com:
Evan Ziporyn is one of the most remarkable composers working in America today. Ziporyn, perhaps best known as the clarinetist in the Bang on a Can All-Stars, is one of those rare composers who is fluent in both contemporary American music, in all its diverse idioms, but also fluent in the music of Bali (he directs the gamelan at MIT). In many works, these fusions of American music (contemporary classic, jazz, pop, etc.) with Balinese music result in music of unique rhythmic vitality, melodic warmth, and structural integrity. The selections on this CD are good examples, or do I say typical? Pondok, the piano work written for the talented Sarah Cahill, is a wonderful example: it draws on the rhythms of ketchak (the Monkey chant), several styles of Balinese gamelan, and also evokes a jazzy sensibility that’s almost (dare I say it?) like Keith Jarrett. I also find Ziporyn’s elegy for those killed in the bombing in Kuta to be remarkbly fine: tender and compassionate but never maudlin.

– Jeff Abell