Mikka and Other Assorted Love Songs

Many of the most unique and creative international composers of the past 40 years have used the violin as a canvas or laboratory. Eric Rynes, who has been hailed for his “committed,” “intrepid,” and “achingly beautiful” performances in diverse styles and genres, has recorded an album of extraordinarily diverse contemporary works for solo violin and violin with computer-realized sounds, from Elliott Carter’s playful depiction of a three-way argument in Riconoscenza, to Helmut Lachenmann’s turning the violin inside-out in Toccatina, to the otherworldly contrasting soundscapes of Scelsi’s L’âme ouverte and Xenakis’s Mikka. The title of Mikka and Other Assorted Love Songs is more than just a wink to a legendary rock album; it also conveys how Rynes performs this music. Rynes is concertmaster of the Northwest Symphony Orchestra and primary violinist of the Seattle Modern Orchestra; he has given recitals in Berlin, Barcelona, Belfast, and several other cities, and made guest appearances with rock and jazz groups. He maintains a parallel career as a senior computational scientist at the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Seattle.