Dawn To Dust Impresses The Arts Fuse

Posted by Reference Recordings on

April 20, 2016

“It’s no secret that 2016 has already been a strong year for albums featuring new and recent music… Now things get even better with the release of Dawn to Dust, a collection of three scores commissioned and performed by the Utah Symphony and its music director, Thierry Fischer. The highlight of the disc is the debut recording of Andrew Norman’s riotous Switch, a percussion concerto that’s played here with aplomb by Colin Curie. Over the last twenty-odd years, there have been an impressive number of percussion concertos written by major composers… but none of them seem to be (or to have) quite as much fun as Switch. [Colin Currie] plays the solo part with terrific athleticism and color. Fischer and the orchestra, too, deliver a commanding reading of this wild, sometimes-zany, ultimately eloquent score. It’s a triumph on all counts, but especially for Norman, who is quickly proving himself to be that rarest breed of composer: a brilliant technical wizard who is able to say and express complex ideas to a wide audience without ever watering down his craft. Wherever he goes from here is anyone’s guess but, in the breadth and freshness of his invention, it’s hard not to see him as the Millennial generation’s leading compositional light. … this disc does stand among the most impressively-played and -recorded orchestral new music albums of the last several years – a remarkable fact, given the quality and pedigree of the competition. Clearly, there’s something special going on in Salt Lake City these days.” —Jonathan Blumhofer, Dawn to Dust

Read the full review on ArtsFuse.org