Various Artists - Anthony Cheung: Music for Film, Sculpture, and Captions (2022)

Music for Film, Sculpture, and Captions (Kairos, 2022) is the fifth portrait album of Anthony Cheung’s music and brings together three works for large ensemble. A line can go anywhere: Concerto for Piano and Ensemble (2019) was written with the wire sculptures of Ruth Asawa in mind, and for the forces of Ensemble Modern, with soloist Ueli Wiget and conductor Franck Ollu. The Natural Word (2019), written for Ensemble Dal Niente and conducted by Michael Lewanski, uses stock captions of sounds found in film and television as starting points for transcription, depiction, soundtrack, and Foley. Written in collaboration with video artist Tristan Cook and scholar Sean Zdenek, the piece is an extension of an interest in semiotics, expanded and in dialogue with disability studies and media studies. And null and void (2021) exists as both a musical accompaniment to Stump the Guesser – the irreverent silent film by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson – as well as an independent work on its own. The piece draws on the unique virtuosity of Ensemble Musikfabrik, conducted by Elena Schwarz.