Is your mouth watering yet?

Your ears will be glad to hear that this album sounds as good as it looks. We are ecstatic to share our first release, BIG THINGS — a triple stack of pieces that fuel our souls like comfort food in the company of good friends. Each of these pieces has helped catalyze the aesthetic of icarus Quartet, and each of the three composers has been elemental in the existence of the group.

Paul Lanksy attended our second performance at Carnegie Hall, and has since been an ardent supporter, even requesting that we play Textures on his 75th birthday tribute at Princ- eton University. Brad Lubman visited us for a rehearsal be- fore our New York premiere of Tangents, and our time going out for ice cream as we talked about life and music remains a cherished memory. Michael Laurello was our ear training TA, just an unassuming, quiet guy in the corner, who also happened to write some of the tastiest music we had ever heard. He’s now been our closest collaborator for seven years, with multiple pieces, premieres, and recordings across various projects.

icarus Quartet’s music certainly demands exactitude of execution, but we revel in the opportunities for spontaneity of energy and expression. Fortifying these interpretations as permanent documents was a BIG deal, and as our esteemed producer Elaine Martone says, “recording ups the ante.” While this whole endeavor of creating an hour’s worth of au- dio to represent our group has been a massive undertaking, it has been even more so a celebration of all of the people and music involved in our journey thus far, and we are so privileged to finally share it with the world.

So park yourself at your local brunch spot, whether at the corner booth or in the corner of your mind, grab a pair of headphones and delight in the multifarious textures that tantalize the taste buds with each successive bite. icarus Quartet takes great pleasure in filling your plate for the next sixty minutes with BIG THINGS.

Bon appétit!

--

Big Things
“The original version of Big Things was one of the first pieces I composed using a process of recording and improvisation, rather than traditional notation. I started with a rhythmic pattern outlined by an electric guitar (played by marimba in this new version for icarus Quartet), and then improvised other instruments over the top. I recorded most of the instruments myself, section by section, editing each part in my recording software as I went. With this method, I felt free to experiment without worrying about what it might look like on the page. There were a few happy accidents, too: In one section, I made a copy-paste error, and the music ended up displaced by a sixteenth-note. It sounded interesting when I listened back, so I kept it. Once I was satisfied with the recording, I transcribed the music and created the score and parts for live performance. When I played the finished recording to a friend of mine, she said it sounded like “big things…big life things.” I’m not sure what she meant by that, but it felt right, so I went with it. The updated version of the piece, arranged for two percussionists and two pianists, is dedicated with love to icarus Quartet.”
—Michael Laurello

Tangents
“I have always been fascinated by the types of complex and sometimes nonsensical or irreconcilable narratives one may find in certain dreams. Additionally, I enjoy the various odd or extraordinary coincidences that sometimes occur in everyday life. Along those lines, I construct much of my music to avoid following a given or predictable narrative. Here’s an example: You think you’re about to bite into a steak but it actually turns out to be peanut butter ice-cream which, as you’re eating it, turns into a beautiful salad that turns out to taste like the steak you thought you were about to eat, when you realize it’s none of the above and you’re simply holding a glass of sherry which as you sip it turns out to be a review textbook for algebra which you then drop onto the table in shock, noticing that it was actually a stack of pancakes. My idea is to enter a world of dreams, where the imagination flows freely from moment to moment, so that each turn of events is about the moment we enter the moment.”
—Brad Lubman

Textures
“I love writing percussion music. It’s a lot like making computer music, which I did full-time for more than 35 years. On the machine you work with spectral balance, envelope, timbre difference, etc. In the percussion world this near infinitude of possibility is matched by the vast potential among percussion’s families of woods, metals, mallets, skins, toys, etc. The unusual instrumental combination of two pianists and two percussionists, first used by Bartók in his Sonata for two pianos and percussion, begs for scoring that brings the instruments to the edge of their respective sonic potentials. Pianos can function as percussion instruments, and percussion can explore its tuneful side, particularly through mallet instruments. The idea of “textures” occurred to me almost as soon as I started writing. I didn’t first decide on a specific texture and then compose with that in mind. Rather, I jumped in, arms flailing, and then found the focus for a movement once its texture and musical ecology became clear. Basically, the piece is a celebration of this ensemble’s unique sonic potential.”
—Paul Lansky