As if to declare herself a musician for our present times, Dalia Stasevska, principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, has chosen Apple Music’s new immersive sound label, Platoon, for her third major recording release in nine months. Engineered for Apple and available to stream in high-resolution on multiple platforms, Dalia’s Mixtape includes works by 10 contemporary composers, many of whose names are trending on U.S. and European concert programs.
Looking like a graduate of the Ru Paul School of Fashion, Stasevska appears on the album’s cover with her eyes surrounded by the kind of glowing little silver discs many a drag queen would kill for. It’s a take-no-prisoners statement from an almost 40-year-old conductor who, in a relatively short amount of time, has also become chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and artistic director to the International Sibelius Festival.
Stasevska’s musical selections are as telling as her fashion. From the venerable Master of the King’s Music, Scotland’s Judith Weir, she offers Glowing, Weir’s “only attempt at writing ambient music.” Filled with pulsing waves of sound, its right at home in a collection that begins with Anna Meredith’s thrilling and ominous Nautilus and ends with Julia Wolfe’s pounding overdrive workout, the fabulous and deceptively-titled Pretty.
Works from three other composers whose names are familiar to contemporary music lovers —Caroline Shaw, the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, and the late provocative Black gay renegade Julius Eastman — appear on the recording. Shaw’s The Observatory is a likable but less than memorable solar/stellar stylistic pastiche, but Jóhannsson’s elegiac “They Being Dead Yet Speaketh,” from Miners’ Hymns, and Eastman’s Symphony No. 2: The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for The Beloved are major, deeply moving achievements. Johannson’s trancelike work, which Stasevska conducted in Royal Albert Hall, and Eastman’s compelling gift to his ex-boyfriend, which was first discovered and performed in 2018, would alone make this album essential listening.
But there’s far more. Andrea Tarrodi’s Wildwood offers thrilling washes of sound and moments of wondrous radiance. SØS Gunver Ryberg’s COEXISTENCE, which mixes acoustic and electronic sounds, creates a huge, lumbering, and pounding beast that seems to crash through the universe. Rock lovers will have a field day with these works (and Wolfe’s Pretty as well), while those searching for more gentle fare must hear Noriko Koide’s Swaddling Silk and Gossamer Rain. After transitioning from the gorgeous sounds of Koide’s almost 11-minute piece, which traces the short life of a silkworm, to Wolfe’s 19 minutes of exclamation points, you will likely join me in welcoming this major calling card for orchestral music in the 21st century.