Passing Through is the third recording devoted to composer Gernot Wolfgang's chamber music compositions. Ever since Wolfgang became interested in contemporary classical music, the prospect of integrating grooves from musical styles such as jazz, rock & roll, pop, world music and electronica into his concert works has intrigued him. The recipient of numerous commissions, his music has been performed by major orchestras in the U.S. and Europe. He has taught at the University of Music in Graz and given masterclasses at UCLA, Texas Tech University, University of Music in Vienna and Instrumenta Verano in Oaxaca. He also works as an orchestrator in the film and TV music industry. A stellar group of Los-Angeles based musicians perform on this disc, including Judith Farmer, bassoon; oboist Jennifer Johnson; pianists Joanne Pearce Martin and Robert Thies; and the Eclipse and New Hollywood String Quartets...

This is the third volume of Gernot Wolfgang's work for Groove-Oriented Chamber Music. Before I listened to the album, I wasn't sure what I was going to make of it. I love Chamber music and enjoy Jazz, but the thought of mixing the two sounded a little strange. But, after just the first play through, I was hooked. This album is packed with incredible music and it's so wonderfully diverse too.

There's pretty much full on freeform sounding Jazz ('Flurry') and plain Classical Chamber Music ('String Theory - IV. Nashville') but the rest of the music is somewhere in between. In addition I was delighted to hear that 'New England Travelogue - I. Vineyard Reggae' sounded similar to Alan Silvestri's work on Back to the Future and 'String Theory - I. Béla' had a ring of Bernard Herrmann to it.

The album contains 15 tracks (1 hr, 05 min, 29 sec) and is well worth buying if you're a fan of Classical music or Jazz. A beautifully produced collection of intricate compositions.

Track listing:

01 - Flurry
02 - String Theory: I. Béla
03 - String Theory: II. Cartwheels
04 - String Theory: III. Northern Lights
05 - String Theory: IV. Nashville
06 - Passing Through: I. Bounce
07 - Passing Through: II. Evening Song
08 - Passing Through: III. The Flea
09 - New England Travelogue: I. Vineyard Reggae
10 - New England Travelogue: II. Vermont Magic
11 - New England Travelogue: III. Inman Square
12 - New England Travelogue: IV. Mount Desert Island
13 - Trilogy: I. Go Get It
14 - Trilogy: II. Another Life
15 - Trilogy: III. Looking

10

Darren Rea