Mathew Rosenblum’s new recording Lament/Witches’ Sabbath is now available from New Focus Recordings. The album features some of Rosenblum’s highly ambitious recent compositions performed by an all-star slate of new music performers including David Krakauer, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, FLUX Quartet, Mantra Percussion, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Lindsay Kesselman, and Lisa Pegher.

“The title track, Lament/Witches’ Sabbath, written for the extraordinary clarinet soloist David Krakauer and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project led by conductor Gil Rose, is Rosenblum’s most personal piece to date. When he was a child, his grandmother told him the story of how she fled the well-documented 1919 massacre in Proskurov, Ukraine, with six children and pregnant with his mother. Lament/Witches’ Sabbath involves the recounting of his family history by incorporating Ukrainian and Jewish lament field recordings, his grandmother’s recorded voice, klezmer-tinged clarinet with orchestra, and elements from the last movement of Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique, ‘Witches’ Sabbath.’”

The album also includes Northern Flicker, performed by percussionist Lisa Pegher; Falling performed by Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and soprano Lindsey Kesselman; and Last Round (Ostatnia Runda), performed by Flux Quartet and Mantra Percussion.

The program captures the hallmarks of Rosenblum’s creative voice — shimmering microtonal tunings, rhythmic intensity, intricate sound collage — and demonstrates how ably he blends all these complex elements into compositions that are both emotionally direct and intellectually engaging. 

Find out more about Rosenblum’s new release here.