Art Music Recording is looking forward to recording next weekend's premiere of Scatter, a work commissioned by a consortium of orchestras from LA-based composer Adam Schoenberg and featuring Project Trio. IRIS Orchestra, under the direction of Michael Stern, will give the world premiere performance next weekend at the Germantown Performing Arts Center in Tennessee. I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with the Trio, IRIS, and Adam in the past, and to have all three overlap in one work is an uncommon thrill.

Schoenberg’s music was brought to my attention a few years ago when IRIS Orchestra premiered another of his works, Finding Rothko. I found the work to be evocative in a broadly appealing way, and yet crafted with thorough professionalism and with a voice notably confident in a composer so relatively young. Adam was also very engaged in the recording process, and his keen ears and enthusiasm made this component of the creative process meaningful.

The musicians of Project Trio have been acquaintances for some time, and working with them has been something I’ve always looked forward to. Besides their consummate skill as instrumentalists and their total dedication to their own insanely high performance values, these three men are just a blast to be around and work with. And the same has to be said of IRIS Orchestra itself—that band of bright-eyed, impassioned artists united under by their friend and leader, conductor Michael Stern. So these stellar forces - orchestra, trio, and composer - are simpatico in a really special way, and it’s going to be an invigorating thrill to participate in bringing their collaboration to life.

And a link to the project itself: http://www.projecttrio.com/concerto

- Jamey Lamar