Matrix: Music of Louis Karchin

Described by the New Yorker's Andrew Porter as a composer of "fearless eloquence," Louis Karchin has received performances of his music worldwide, by groups ranging from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Louisville Orchestra, to South Korea's Veritas Musicae and the Delta Ensemble of Amsterdam, Holland. Born in Philadelphia, he went on to advanced studies at the Eastman School and Harvard University, where his teachers included Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Earl Kim, Fred Lerdahl and Leon Kirchner. As Hayes Biggs writes in his notes to this CD, "Although this disc takes its name from its final selection, Matrix and Dream, the title Matrix is apropos in more than one sense. One of the word's definitions is that of a medium or situation out of which some other entity originates, or in which such an entity is embedded. Louis Karchin's highly personal, supple and elegant musical language, evolved over the course of a distinguished career as composer and performer, is by that definition the matrix within which this music is able to take form, substance and nourishment, and consequently to take flight...many of Karchin's compositional preoccupations, with regard to both genre and gesture, are represented on this recording...all of the new worlds that you can discover on this disc - from the smallest to the largest - emanate from and are contained within Louis Karchin's matrix; they will amply repay return voyages."