American Composers Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies - Colin McPhee: Tabuh-Tabuhan/ Chinary Ung: Inner Voices / Lou Harrison : Suite for Symphonic Strings Argo (1995)

Harrison is one of the few American composers who has applied Eastern musical modes (and instruments) to American music. His Suite for Symphonic Strings (1961) is a playful accretion of Renaissance stamping dance with a standard canon and fugue structure. Ung's Inner Voices (1986) reflects Ung's Cambodian background, even though there isn't any Cambodian music in it. It's a dazzling work (we need to hear more of this guy's music). McPhee, who died in 1964, provides us with a strangely minimalistic Tabuh-Tabuhan (1936). It's based on Balinese gamelan playing. Hard to believe that Reich was just a toddler when this came out. --Paul Cook