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Dark Matters

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Dark Matters --- 2021-03-00

Since Stephen Rush’s debut carillon work [i]Three Etudes[/i] reshaped the soundscape of carillon composition in 1987, he has steadily fashioned new campanological sounds in partnership with trailblazing carillonists like Margo Halsted and Neil Thornock. When Halsted premiered [i]Six Treatments for Carillon[/i] in 2002, they launched a tradition of carillon with live electronics at the University of Michigan that flourishes to this day. In 2013, [i]Dark Matters[/i] invited us to attend to time, space, and chance on a vast scale. Through the visceral experience of music, movement, and space, this piece leads into the unknown, questioning the origin of life, coincidence and inevitability, macro and micro, the stars and the elements, the instant and the eternal. As an œuvre, Rush’s carillon music is singular in style, compelling in its driving rhythmic effects, and pushes the technical boundaries of the instrument while remaining idiomatically true to it. Ng recorded this album in collaboration with Rush, Jason Corey, Roger Arnett, Jessica Glynn, and Matias Vilaplana. —Tiffany Ng and Olivia Howard