Graduate composers Brooks Frederickson and Amin Sharifi release new CDs

Composer Brooks Frederickson’s debut album Small Works (New Amsterdam Records) is a snapshot of the community of collaborators Brooks lived and worked with in Brooklyn. The community includes some of the leading contemporary music interpreters of today: Ashley Bathgate (Bang on a Can All Stars), Eliza Bagg (Pavo Pavo), all three members of Bearthoven (Matt Evans, Karl Larson, Pat Swoboda), Exceptet, Longleash, and Brendon Randall-Myers (Invisible Anatomy / Marateck). Small Works comes from not only the small forces needed for each piece, but also from the small amount of material that acts as the germ for each piece. The album includes premiere recordings of four of Brooks' chamber works written between 2014-2017. This group of pieces, some of which have been presented by MATA, premiered at Le Poisson Rouge and presented as a part of So Percussion's Brooklyn Bound series, show Brooks' interest in building musical worlds out of limited materials. Small Works is available for digital streaming (Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music).

Amin Sharifi's Shifting Colors on the Slant, performed by pianist Futaba Niekawa, is the composer's second album. Released in Iran and the US, it is a collection of painted pieces of music that combine Middle Eastern musical elements and Persian architectural ideas, impressionistic atmosphere, the effect of shifting colors, and improvisatory forms. The cover art is "Crumpled Miniature" by Aidin Aghdashloo, whose works and thoughts have been one of the primary inspirations for this collection. Therefore, this album is dedicated with respect to Aidin Aghdashloo, the pioneer Iranian artist. Shifting Colors is available through CDBaby or for digital streaming (iTunesAmazon MP3, or Spotify).