Bedroom Community

Two brand new CDs by Nico Muhly will be released on September 6th 2010; A Good Understanding and I Drink The Air Before Me.  A Good Understanding — a collection of choral works performed by The Los Angeles Master Chorale and recorded in Disney Hall, L.A. — will be released by the legendary record label Decca Classics. The Bedroom Community produced album I Drink The Air Before Me is taken from a score created by Muhly for Stephen Petronio's ballett of the same name. This album will be released worldwide by Bedroom Community in collaboration with Decca. Of course you can get it here, directly from your favourite little indie-label!

To quote Decca's press release:

Commissioned for the 25th Anniversary of the Stephen Petronio Dance Company, the piece [I Drink The Air Before Me] was premiered in New York in early 2010 and will be performed by them at London’s Barbican in October 2010. The release will be a collaboration with the eclectic independent label Bedroom Community.
“The writing was ingenious and troubled, maybe a warm-up for more ambitious orchestral scores. What made it work was the way Muhly had absorbed Petronio’s nervous, insistent choreography and echoed and extended it in his music. Well worth the watch and, even more, the listen.” – John Rockwell, ArtsJournal.com
Paul Moseley, General Manager of Decca said, “For many years Decca has strived to capture on disc the very best in contemporary music. Nico Muhly is one of the most exciting and individual voices of today and we look forward to many collaborations with him."

Click here to preview and pre-order I Drink The Air Before Me and receive 2 exclusive bonus tracks only available through Bedroom Community.

A Good Understanding is available from Decca, more details right here.

Here below is the full Decca press-release for both I Drink The Air Before Me and A Good Understanding.

DECCA MUSIC GROUP – PRESS RELEASE
23 JULY 2010

Decca signs agreement to release new recordings 
by Nico Muhly, “the planet’s hottest composer” 
[The Daily Telegraph]

Under a new agreement, Decca will release its first recording of music by young American composer Nico Muhly in Autumn 2010; an album of choral music sung by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted by their Music Director Grant Gershon, entitled A Good Understanding.

New York based Muhly, born in 1981 is “the planet’s hottest composer” (The Daily Telegraph). He has composed extensively for the concert hall as well as for films including The Reader, and for dance. His new opera Two Boys – commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York and English National Opera, will premiere in London in Spring 2011, transferring to New York in 2013.

A hugely enthusiastic choral composer, Nico Muhly acknowledges that his unique musical vocabulary was fed by early experiences as a boy chorister.
“Writing choral music is one of my greatest pleasures in life; I was a boy chorister with an addiction to the textures and rapturous moments that define the Anglican choral tradition. My sense of line, melody, and harmony all come from strange, specifically choral sources.”

The new album was recorded in the acclaimed acoustics of the choir’s home – the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

This first release will be followed by a recording of Muhly’s acclaimed ballet score I Drink The Air Before Me. Commissioned for the 25th Anniversary of the Stephen Petronio Dance Company, the piece was premiered in New York in early 2010 and will be performed by them at London’s Barbican in October 2010. The release will be a collaboration with the eclectic independent label Bedroom Community.

“The writing was ingenious and troubled, maybe a warm-up for more ambitious orchestral scores. What made it work was the way Muhly had absorbed Petronio’s nervous, insistent choreography and echoed and extended it in his music. Well worth the watch and, even more, the listen.” – John Rockwell, ArtsJournal.com

Paul Moseley, General Manager of Decca said, “For many years Decca has strived to capture on disc the very best in contemporary music. Nico Muhly is one of the most exciting and individual voices of today and we look forward to many collaborations with him.”