Lei Liang: Six Seasons: Instrumentation Lab

, composer

About

Lei Liang crafts multi-disciplinary works that bridge scientific research, electroacoustic composition, and contemporary improvisation to create a cohesive message of holistic symbiosis. Partnering with musicians from Ensemble Dal Niente, Mivos Quartet, loadbang, [nec]shivaree, and pianist Stephen Drury, Lei Liang’s newest release is am ambitious snapshot of his current aesthetic direction.

Audio

# Audio Title/Composer(s) Performer(s) Time
Total Time 121:04

Six Seasons: Solos

01Prelude
Prelude
Stephen Drury, piano1:39
02Season 1: New Ice (voice)
Season 1: New Ice (voice)
Ty Bouque, baritone voice0:39
03Season 1: New Ice (trumpet/trombone)
Season 1: New Ice (trumpet/trombone)
Andrew Kozar, trumpet, William Lang, trombone3:35
04Season 2: Darkness (piano)
Season 2: Darkness (piano)
Stephen Drury, piano5:56
05Season 2: Darkness (harp)
Season 2: Darkness (harp)
Ben Melsky, harp7:46
06Season 2: Darkness (bassoon)
Season 2: Darkness (bassoon)
Ben Roidl-Ward, bassoon5:04
07Season 3: Sunrise
Season 3: Sunrise
loadbang1:45
08Season 4: Migration
Season 4: Migration
Andrew Kozar, trumpet7:00
09Season 5: Cacophony (voice)
Season 5: Cacophony (voice)
Ty Bouque, baritone voice6:35
10Season 5: Cacophony (trombone)
Season 5: Cacophony (trombone)
William Lang, trombone4:03
11Season 5: Cacophony (bass clarinet)
Season 5: Cacophony (bass clarinet)
Adrían Sandí, bass clarinet4:40
12Season 5: Cacophony (piano)
Season 5: Cacophony (piano)
Stephen Drury, piano10:26
13Season 5: Cacophony (cello)
Season 5: Cacophony (cello)
Tyler J. Borden, cello5:21
14Season 6: Bloom
Season 6: Bloom
Jesse Langen, electric guitar6:19
15Postlude I
Postlude I
loadbang1:26
16Postlude II
Postlude II
Stephen Drury, piano1:33

Six Seasons: Ensemble

[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano
17Season 1: New Ice
Season 1: New Ice
[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano8:57
18Season 2: Darkness
Season 2: Darkness
[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano6:52
19Season 3: Sunrise
Season 3: Sunrise
[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano8:48
20Season 4: Migration
Season 4: Migration
[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano7:11
21Season 5: Cacophony
Season 5: Cacophony
[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano6:02
22Season 6: Bloom
Season 6: Bloom
[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano5:13
23Coda
Coda
[nec]shivaree, Nicolette Sullivan-Cozza, viola, Kei Otake, cello, Mark Abramovski, contrabass, Kai Burns, electric guitar, Evan Haskin, electric guitar, Jessica Yuma, piano, Ranfei Wang, piano, Stephen Drury, piano4:14

Tyler J. Borden recorded October 12, 2022
Ty Bouque, Andrew Kozar, William Lang & Adrián Sandí recorded May 21 and 22, 2024 at Studio A, UC San Diego
Recording engineer: Andrew Munsey

Stephen Drury recorded April 15, 2024 at Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, UC San Diego
Recording engineer: Andrew Munsey

Jesse Langen, Ben Melsky, & Ben Roidl-Ward (Dal Niente) recorded June 5, 2025 at Studio A, UC San Diego
Recording engineer: Sam Dunscombe

[nec]shivaree recorded October 1, 2024 in Jordan Hall, Boston
Recording Engineer: Ryan Dozer

Producer: Lei Liang

Editing, mixing and mastering: Sam Dunscombe

The Creative Team:
Lei Liang: Composer / Artistic Director
Joshua Jones: Oceanographer / Principal Scientific Advisor
Theocharis Papatrechas: Audio Engineer / Sound Designer
Zachary Seldess: Audio Software Developer
Nicholas Solem: Sound Designer
Gabriel Zalles Ballivian: Audio Engineer

Cover image: Albert Liang

Design & layout: Marc Wolf, marcjwolf.com

Lei Liang

Chinese-born American composer Lei Liang is the winner of the Rome Prize, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Koussevitzky Foundation Commission, a Creative Capital Award, and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His concerto Xiaoxiang for saxophone and orchestra was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2015. His orchestral work, A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams, won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2021.

Lei Liang was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert for the inaugural concert of the CONTACT! new music series. Other commissions came from the Fromm Music Foundation, Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, among others. Lei Liang’s ten portrait discs are released on Naxos, New World, Mode, Albany and Bridge Records. He has edited and co-edited five books and editions, and published more than forty articles.

Lei Liang studied with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Robert Cogan, Chaya Czernowin, Mario Davidovsky, and received degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music (B.M. and M.M.) and Harvard University (Ph.D.). He is Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. His catalogue of more than a hundred works is published exclusively by Schott Music Corporation (New York).

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