Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra: Convergence
Albany Records

The performances on this live recording by the Andrew Sewell-conducted Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO) certainly recommend the release, but Convergence is distinguished even more by inspired programming choices. Curated by Bill Banfield (its 2021–2024 ‘Composer in Residence') and formally a chapter in the five-year ‘Musical Landscapes in Color' initiative undertaken by the company to accentuate work by living composers, Convergence presents an exciting set-list of material by Michael Abels, Valerie Coleman, Andre Myers, and Patrice Rushen. All are long-time colleagues and friends of Banfield's, but beyond that these American composers are differentiated by their personal signatures as artists. Their talents do literally converge, however, in being gathered together on this rewarding collection.

Founded in 1960 and overseen for the last quarter-century by Sewell as its Music Director, the WCO is a top-tier chamber orchestra that's established itself regionally and nationally. The composers whose works were recorded on October 10, 2024 at Madison's Capitol Theater are a diverse group with award-winning backgrounds in film, jazz, and classical. Jazz fans will know the four-time Grammy-nominated Rushen from the work she's done as a keyboardist and composer; the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning Abels, on the other hand, is known for acclaimed film scores such as those he created for Jordan Peele's Get Out, Us, and Nope. Rounding out the composer pool is Andre Myers, who teaches at the University of Redlands Conservatory of Music, and Grammy-nominated flutist Valerie Coleman.

Aptly titled, Rushen's Fanfare and Fantaisie is a terrific concert overture. While much of her career focus has been on writing for ensembles of modest size, the piece she created for the WCO finds her operating comfortably in a larger orchestral milieu and contending with a vast range of timbral possibilities. Passages of wide-eyed wonder and mystery alternate with celebratory ones exuding triumph and authority. In notes for the piece, Rushen states, “Sometimes for me, thoughts come in organized bursts and at other times in seemingly disconnected spurts,” and the mercurial, ever-shifting character of the piece reflects that dynamically. At times recalling the pulsation of an early John Adams work (think Common Tones In Simple Time or The Chairman Dances from the 1987 album of the same name), Myers' Changes is entrancing in the extreme. Initially created as a work for clarinet quintet and later refashioned into an orchestral arrangement, the work grew out of his affection for early process or “minimalist” music yet exemplifies, albeit subtly, development more than repetition. Gentle rhythmic insistence in the strings couples with woodwind textures to create a contemplative mood and music that's delicate and serene.

Admirers of Peele's Nope will no doubt be delighted by Abel's episodic suite based on the film's score. Like much of the filmmaker's work, Nope integrates elements from multiple genres, in this case horror, sci-fi, and the Western (its story-line involves horses-training siblings who encounter aliens), and the diversity of the seven-part suite content is consistent with that. After opening with the Copland-esque “Jupiter's Claim,” the suite cultivates mystery in “Preparing the Trap” and excitement in the horns- and snare-peppered “The Run.” “A Hero Falls” perpetuates the dramatic tone whilst also working in solemnity to signal one sibling's sacrificial dance with death. Urgency permeates “Pursuit” and “Winkin' Well” as the narrative approaches its climax, after which “Nope” uses a classic Western feel to take the suite out on a majestic note. Abel's also represented by a second piece, a single-movement work called Global Warming. The title might suggest he wrote the material recently, but, in fact, it was composed in 1990 at the time of the Berlin Wall's fall. Consequently, rather than it referring to the anxiety-inducing topic of extreme climate change, the title more positively references the warming of relations between countries that occurred when the Cold War ended. Emblematic of the concept, Global Warming brings together folk music elements and dance rhythms from multiple cultures and is generally joyful in spirit, its somber framing passages notwithstanding.

The album's longest standalone setting is Coleman's Umoja: Anthem of Unity, a fifteen-minute odyssey first created as a simple song for women's choir before being rearranged for woodwind quintet and finally orchestra. The work's title derives from Umoja, the Swahili word for Unity, and is meant to, in the composer's words, embody “a sense of ‘tribal unity,' through the feel of a drum circle, the sharing of history through traditional ‘call and response' form and the repetition of a memorable sing-song melody.” At the outset, bowed vibraphone establishes an ethereal ambiance before the Appalachian Spring-styled stillness is punctuated by a solo violinist's pastoral-folk statements. Serenity is sidelined, however, by dissonant gestures that slowly creep in, Coleman's gesture intended to symbolize “the clash of injustices, racism, and hate that threatens to gain a foothold in the world today.” A hard-fought battle's waged between different orchestra sections, from woodwinds, strings, and horns to percussion, until the music grows ever more uplifting and reaches its triumphant resolution.

July 2025