Music News

These are Strange Times, the latest in the Strange Diversion series, was co-composed by Stephen Ruppenthal and Brian Belet in 2020 during the Covid-19 shelter in place crisis, and will be premiered live via a geographically distanced streaming environment as part of the 2020 Network Music Festival, July 15-18, 2020. The 2020 festival them is “Communities near and far,” and this performance will occur simultaneously in Ruppenthal’s Paradigm Media Studio in Redwood City, California and Belet’s Left Edge Studio in Sherwood, Oregon.

Sea Lion Mix (computer-processed sea lion sounds and voices, 2009) was programmed as part of the Earth Day Art Model telematic festival on April 21, 2020. Hosted by Indiana University, the festival streamed events by musicians, artists, writers, and dancers with a common theme “Living with the Earth.”

Published on the CD Anton Webern: Complete Piano Music and works inspired by them, Janis Mercer, piano. Centaur Records (CRC 3771), 2020.

  Stellar Nebulae was premiered on the “Breaking Boundaries” Concert, November 1, 2019 by Bridges, a string orchestra founded and led by Patricia Strange, on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The music was recorded in Greece in October 2019 by the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra, for a 2020 CD release on a PARMA Recordings imprint label.

Stellar Nebulae, for string orchestra. Published on audio CD Prisma, Vol. 4. Athens Philharmonia Orchestra, Michalis Economou, conductor. Navona Records (PARMA Recordings: nv6298), August 2020.   --> Liner notes.