Tyshawn Sorey: Monochromatic Light (Afterlife)
DACAMERA Editions

With the release of Monochromatic Light (Afterlife), the Houston-based organization DACAMERA auspiciously inaugurates its record label with the premiere recording of a compelling long-form work by Tyshawn Sorey. The label's an exciting new venture for a company that's been operating for three-and-a-half decades and continues to develop innovate outlets for its creative activities. Sorey, both a composer and in-demand NYC-based drummer, received the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Music winner for his composition Adagio (for Wadada Leo Smith) after being honoured as a 2023 finalist for Monochromatic Light (Afterlife).

Presented in a handsome multi-panel package, the seventy-five-minute performance finds Sorey conducting an ensemble comprising bass-baritone Davóne Tines, violist Kim Kashkashian, percussionist Steven Schick, the Houston Chamber Choir, and the company's Artistic Director Sarah Rothenberg on piano and celesta. The work was created as a joint commission between DACAMERA and Rothko Chapel to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the infamous Houston chapel that houses fourteen monolithic canvases by the painter. The project was, it seems, destined to happen, given that DACAMERA's offices sit across from the chapel.

While the graphite cover image, Rothko's Study for side-wall triptychs (1966), captures the composition's austere tone, Sorey drew for inspiration from many of the artist's works, including late paintings and those at the chapel. He certainly brought to the project the seriousness it deserved: rather than compose at a remove, he began writing after visiting the chapel and being deeply affected by its images. The result is, as expected, spellbinding, a contemplative, seventy-five-minute invitation to immersion and absorption that's very much in the time-suspending spirit of a Feldman work and a Rothko one, for that matter.

The piece received its world premiere at the chapel on February 19, 2022 (a striking photograph of the event appears in the release booklet); the recorded version, however, was captured at Rice University's Stude Concert Hall in Houston, Texas in October 2023. It's not the first time, however, a musical work has been produced with the chapel in mind: when it opened in 1971, Morton Feldman was commissioned to create one, and his Rothko Chapel received its premiere there a year later (and subsequently appeared on the ECM recording Rothko Chapel: Feldman, Satie, Cage and featured, interestingly enough, Kashkashian, Schick, Rothenberg, and the Houston Chamber Choir). In his scoring, Sorey follows Feldman's treatment but for two changes: female soloists shift to bass-baritone (the part written expressly for Tines), and piano's added to celesta.

While the work impresses as an integrated, cohesive entity, it advances through multiple sections: an instrumental trio at the outset, the presentation expanding with the addition of the choir, and expanding further with the arrival of the bass soloist, who sings fragments of the spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” An ethereal ambiance establishes itself at the outset when a faint drone of chimes intones prior to hushed entrances by viola and piano, the fragmented utterances sparse, allusive, and enigmatic. Kashkashian imposes herself forcefully with pointillistic phrases punctuated by celesta, vibraphone, chimes, piano, and timpani. With the meditative aura firmly established, the rather Feldman-esque intro gives way to the next section with the entrance of chorus and viola, piano, and timpani still resounding.

As the choir's ghostly intonations hover and the music surreptitiously expands, the work's ethereal quality remains firmly in place. A processional feeling is engendered by a two-note percussive pattern and haunting piano chords. Tines' entrance at the twenty-five-minute mark is conspicuous, contrasting as it does with the floating harmonies of the choir. Wordless at first, the bass-baritone gradually begins articulating words, beginning with “Some,” “Sometimes,” and other bits until the title in full crystallizes. Voice and instrumental elements interlace as the landscape broadens out and builds to a climax. Naturally, the inclusion of language moves the work away from an abstract realm to one grounded in human experience. The focus shifts to particular sounds at different times, with piano, for example, stepping into the spotlight at strategic points (e.g., an extended poetic rumination fifty minutes in) and viola and voice doing the same. Contrast also emerges between the relative reserve of the instrumental gestures and the mounting intensity of Davóne's delivery.

March 2026