Composer and violist Leilehua Lanzilotti releases a full album of their atmospheric, expressive compositions featuring performances by Roomful of Teeth, Argus Quartet, bassist Gahlord Dewald, saxophonist Brian Horton, violinist Johanna Novom, baritone Jesse Blumberg, trumpeter JoAnn Lamolino, pianist Tommy Yee, and Lanzilotti themself.
The music on this newest collection by Leilehua Lanzilotti is, at its core, an invitation to listen and to connect with others. It invites us to listen inside sustains and resonances for overtone content, to rich timbral vocabularies on individual instruments, and to interaction between sounds and silence. The curation of different instrumental forces lends the collection a sensual arc, as the ear journeys through the diverse colors featured on different tracks. Lanzilotti is featured as a performer on two of the tracks, while the others are performed by close collaborators.
‘ālohilohi (‘radiant” in ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i) for layered double bass quartet explores contrasts in the sonic range of the instrument, using a layered recording technique to create a meta-instrument. The score allows for variability in interpretation, facilitating unique performances. Opening with exploratory pizzicato harmonics, the texture moves towards a pedal point that vacillates between timbres and their resultant overtones. Lanzilotti excavates some of the instrument’s more fragile, tactile vocabulary, with whispering, friction sounds and violent col legno bursts that provide a point of contrast.
on stochastic wave behavior is a four movement work written for and performed by Roomful of Teeth. Lanzilotti establishes complex sonic landscapes by using varied resources available in the a cappella choir, singing words and phrases in ‘Ōlelo Hawaiʻi that evoke the natural phenomenon being described in the beating, swaying, and calling of the words that describe oceanscapes. The piece draws on cross-disciplinary work Lanzilotti undertook with the National Science Foundation and Kanaka Maoli artists illuminating the intersection between scientific and Indigenous ways of understanding nature. Closely spaced long tones on one vowel (such as the intonations on “ō” in the opening movement) lead to a microscopic focus on the embedded rhythm within words and word fragments (such as the repeated motives in the middle of movement two). The final movement, “nalukai,” is longer than the first three combined, and develops from the invitation, "your turn and then mine," to an accumulating chord, before it closes with a luminous, wordless chorale.
Read MoreLanzilotti performs viola with tenor saxophonist Brian Horton for the title track forever forward in search of the beautiful, a ten minute atmospheric meditation on subtle timbral integration. Opening with an extended passage for solo viola, Lanzilotti lays out the expansive canvas of the work through color contrasts and textural modulations on a gently rearticulated single pitch illuminated by its many overtones. Horton’s sound vocabulary includes a significant palette for breath sounds, varying the balance between density and airiness. When pitch emerges, it is in the form of mournful phrase fragments over a pedal point, flirting briefly with modal identification. Lanzilotti establishes a bariolage pattern that provides the foundation for an expansive final section, supporting more long lined, lyrical material in Horton’s part.
The bariolage motif is carried over into the opening movement of the next duo, a three movement setting of Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry, of moments for baroque violin and baritone. In “to drink into my eyes the shine,” the percolating sextuplet figure in the violin lays the groundwork for the quasi-recitative vocal phrases, before ascending into illuminated harmonics to close the song. “he breathes the morning” is sparse, delicately exploring two and three note phrases in harmonics in the violin as the voice enriches the harmonic implications with a pitch language that departs from the prevailing collection. “shall love you always” features a lilting figure over a pedal point in triple meter, closing this understated work with poignant sentiment.
Featuring the Argus String Quartet, ahupua’a crafts three distinct profiles for each of its movements. The work is inspired by the Hawaiian concept of ahupuaʻa—land division centered around community needs. In the opening movement, the resultant sounds of bow on string become an important component of a spinning, circular texture, underscored by an oscillation between closely spaced pitches. An ostinato figure articulated with ricochet bowing on a slack string opens movement two, leading through an ebullient halo of harmonics and a mantra-like repeating two note figure. The final movement features swelling pitches passed through the quartet, exhalations that engage in dialogue with the silence that surrounds them.
Scored for trumpet and piano, color etude was developed from a series of sketches inspired by the color of the sky at different times. The work examines the integration between the resonance of the piano and the modulation of timbre on the trumpet. The trumpet echoes selected notes from gentle melodic figures in the piano. Eventually, crescendos in the trumpet grow into growls, activating the strings of the piano and creating a resultant halo of sustain.
On the final work, Lanzilotti plays a Morfbeats enhanced electric guitar that includes additional welded springs and other objects affixed to the instrument that can be bowed and activated. On find, we hear Lanzilotti on a journey of sonic archeology, seeking rich overtones, shimmering timbres, and resonant sustains. A range of articulations highlights different partials of the overtone series and becomes an expressive vocabulary of its own. Midway through the work, insistent percussive textures begin to figure more prominently into the texture. After a climax of refined noise, the bowed guitar drone from the opening returns to accompany the variegated sonic palette, closing the work, and the album, in a wash of resonance.
– Dan Lippel
Produced by Leilehua Lanzilotti
Tracks 1 & 13 recorded by Ananddev Banerjee at Hawai'i Public Radio in Honolulu, HI
Track 1 edited by Gahlord Dewald in Honolulu, HI
Tracks 2-5 & 7-12 recorded and edited, and track 13 edited by Ryan Streber at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, NY
Tracks 6 & 14 recorded by Greg Heimbecker at University of Northern Colorado Recording Studio in Greeley, CO
Morfbeats metal sound sculpture featured on Track 14 created by Adam Morford
Album mixed and mastered by Ryan Streber
Cover artwork by Jasmine Parsia
Leilehua Lanzilotti (b. 1983) is a Kanaka Maoli composer, multimedia artist, curator, scholar, and educator. Lanzilotti’s practice explores radical indigenous contemporaneity, integrating community engagement into the heart of projects. By world-building through multimedia installation works and nontraditional concert experiences/musical interventions, Lanzilotti’s works activate imagination around new paths forward in language sovereignty, water sovereignty, land stewardship, and respect. Uplifting others by crafting projects that support both local communities and economy, the work inspires hope to continue.
Lanzilotti was honored to be a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music for with eyes the color of time (string orchestra), which the Pulitzer committee called, “a vibrant composition . . . that distinctly combines experimental string textures and episodes of melting lyricism.” Previous honors include a MacGeorge Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, McKnight Visiting Composer Residency with the American Composers Forum, and a SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts Award among other accolades.
As a composer, Lanzilotti’s works are characterized by expansive explorations of timbre. These works have been premiered at international festivals such as Ars Electronica (Austria), Thailand International Composition Festival, and Dots+Loops—Australia's post-genre music and arts series. Lanzilotti has written new works for ensembles such as Roomful of Teeth, Argus Quartet, ETHEL (with guest Allison Logins-Hull), [Switch~ Ensemble], and the Borderlands Ensemble. Additionally, Lanzilotti is part of the network of musicians / artists in the Wandelweiser collective.
Lanzilotti’s new multimedia work, the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky, is currently on tour through 2026, having just premiered at The Noguchi Museum. Planned venues include the Cranbrook Art Museum (October 9, 2024–January 12, 2025), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (March 2–May 18, 2025), the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison (September 8–December 23, 2025), and the Honolulu Museum of Art (February 13–July 26, 2026).
As a recording artist, Lanzilotti has played on albums from Björk's Vulnicura Live and Joan Osborne's Love and Hate, to David Lang’s anatomy theater. Lanzilotti has premiered many new works including Wayfinder—a viola concerto by Dai Fujikura inspired by Polynesian wayfinding. in manus tuas—Lanzilotti’s solo viola album debut—was featured in Steve Smith’s Log Journal Playlist (Live life out Loud), Bandcamp’s Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2019, and The Boston Globe’s Top 10 classical albums of 2019, and was called “an entrancing new album” by The New Yorker’s Alex Ross.
As a performer, recent projects include: performing Dai Fujikura's Wayfinder Concerto as a soloist with the Nagoya Philharmonic, a project that uplifts native knowledge and indigenous intuition while encouraging courageous and active listening; performing with object instruments created by Adam Morford (metal), Toshiko Takaezu (ceramic), and others; and improvising as a member of The Yes &.
Lanzilotti’s curatorial work extends from museum collaborations such as the currently touring Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within, to institutional commissioning at EMPAC as the Curator of Music.
As an educator, Lanzilotti has been on the faculty at New York University, University of Northern Colorado (Director and founder of the experimental UNCOmmon Ensemble and Asst. Professor of Viola), and University of Hawaiʻi—Mānoa in both composition and viola. Additionally, Lanzilotti created Shaken Not Stuttered, a free online resource demonstrating extended techniques for strings.
Written publications include contributions to a new monograph honoring the life and work of Toshiko Takaezu published by Yale University Press, and to Tuning Calder’s Clouds, edited by Vic Brooks and Jennifer Burris (Calder Foundation and Athénée Press)—the first book to explore the artistic, technological, and political intersections of Alexander Calder’s sculptural Acoustic Ceiling. Other contributions to books include featured works: the work beyond the accident of time (2019)—honoring Noguchi’s never-fully-realized Bell Tower for Hiroshima (1951)—is included in Walking From Scores, a bilingual anthology of text and graphic scores to be used while walking, from Fluxus to the critical works of current artists, through the tradition of experimental music and performance. “Lanzilotti’s score brings us together across the world in remembrance, through the commitment of shared sonic gestures.” (Cities & Health)
Dr. Lanzilotti is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Yale School of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. In addition, Lanzilotti was an orchestral fellow in the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and New World Symphony, participated in the Lucerne Festival Academy under Pierre Boulez, and was the original violist in the Lucerne Festival Alumni Ensemble. Mentors include Hiroko Primrose, Peter Slowik, Jesse Levine, Martin Bresnick, Wilfried Strehle, Karen Ritscher, and Reiko Füting.
See also: Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti
New Focus Recordings is an artist led collective label featuring releases in contemporary creative music of many stripes, as well as new approaches to older repertoire. The label was founded by guitarist Dan Lippel, composer Peter Gilbert in 2004, and composer/engineer Ryan Streber in 2004, formed …Read More …
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