Some Preliminary Thoughts on Chiyoko Szlavnics' Music

Overview & Synopsis

Listening to Chiyoko Szlavnics' music opens up broad questions having to do with music, aesthetics, and human existence. The Canadian composer achieves significant depth in dealing with these questions in a variety of works, including chamber-orchestra music—Heliotrope (2007); pieces with electronics—Constellations I–III for piano and sine waves (2011); chamber music, such as the recordings collected here; and multichannel sound installations. Her compositions also vary widely in duration, ranging from short pieces, such as the five-minute-long chamber-orchestra piece Wind in the Ceiling (2004–2005), to longer ones, such as the forty-five-minute Interior Landscapes II A for sine waves (2010).