Review Text
Belarca Records presents Collision Point, a new album by American composer William Susman and Rome-based ensemble Piccola Accademia degli Specchi celebrating a 10-year collaboration. Collision Point features music inspired by love, loss, redemption, and the writings of Allen Ginsberg, Colum McCann, and Francis Bacon. The album brings together four premiere recordings, including Camille, which was composed for the ensemble, plus Clouds and Flames, The Starry Dynamo, and, Motions of Return. Susman's music is described by AllMusic as "the next developments in the sphere (of) minimalism," and has earned praise from The New York Times for being "vivid, turbulent, and rich-textured," from Gramophone as "texturally shimmering and harmonically ravishing," and from textura as "distinctly American." Founded in 2000, Piccola Accademia degli Specchi (Little Academy of Mirrors) specializes in the performance of contemporary classical music. They are ensemble-in-residence at Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia in Rome and perform throughout Europe. Piccola Accademia degli Specchi's unique instrumentation of flute, saxophone, violin, cello, and piano four-hands is at once similar to and different from the common Pierrot ensemble, providing a singular sound and groove. American Record Guide has called Piccola Accademia degli Specchi "a hip little secret." Collision Point was recorded in Rome, Italy by engineer Enrico Furzi and mixed in New York City by Grammy award-winning engineer John Kilgore.
