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  • The Indian Parrot (And Other Stories)

    17524-2

    Artist: Thomas Buckner & Jospeh Kubera

    Label: Mutable Music

    "A Parrot, Three Fish, and a Donkey" for three singers and small ensemble; "Gourd Music" for piano solo; "The Blind Beekeeper" for baritone and piano.

    Personnel: Thomas Buckner, baritone; Joseph Kubera, piano; Devi Mathieu, soprano; Suzanne Elder-Wallace, alto; Bob Afifi, alto flute; Shira Kammen, viola; Daniel Kennedy, frame drums.

    This is the latest release by William Allaudin Mathieu, pianist, composer, teacher, recording artist, and author. "A Parrot, Three Fish, and a Donkey" is a modern piece with a medieval text, and medieval sensibilities have worked their way into the musical fabric: the small percussion instruments, the instrumental range lying (for the most part) within the range of the human voice, and, most of all, the harmony, which is a kind of modulating modality. Inspired by the universality of Rumis poems, Mathieu felt especially free in this piece to borrow from many centuries of Eastern and Western harmonic practice.

    Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore's "The Blind Beekeeper" is a wonderful poem. It asks the soloist-narrator to simultaneously play so many roles. His first line is spoken: "I'd like to make a movie called The Blind Beekeepers" and from then on he is above all a movie pitch-man -- and we are producer-angels deciding if we are going to invest in this guy's nutty movie. But he is also telling a dramatic and compelling story, empathizing with a diverse array of characters. And, since (at least in live performance) he will lead an audience of an...