Events Dancing: Recent Compositions by Pozzi Escot and Robert Cogan, Music & Arts CD-892

Compositions by Pozzi Escot
Missa Triste (1981) New England Conservatory Chorus
Tamara Brooks, Conductor
Mirabllis I (1990) David Sills, Viola
Jubilation (1991) Boston Composers String Quartet
Compositions by Robert Cogan
Gulf Coast Bound (1987) New England Conservatory Big Band
Michael Rossi, Tenor Saxophone; Scott Cowan, Trumpet
John Heiss, Conductor
Fierce Singleness (1988) Esther Lamneck, Clarinet
Events Dancing (1991) Alexei Ludevig, Viola Geoffrey Burleson, Piano

" Two contemporary American composers are featured on this Music & Arts new CD, each with a distinctive style and vision. Escot herself is a study in contrasts - an ardent medievalist, and yet highly mathematical and modern in her own use of compositional elements. Of the three pieces the most successful are a devotional work for marimba and chorus (Missa Triste conducted by Tamara Brooks of the New England Conservatory), and a short strong quartet (Jubilation performed by the Boston Composers String Quartet). Both are successful in expanding and extending traditional forms. Cogan draws heavily upon jazz forms, and his Gulf Coast Bound played by the New EngIand Conservatory Big Jazz Band is excellent, with trumpet and tenor sax solo voices working against a heavy (and swinging) ostinato foundation. "
Bill Tilland, Option, Music Culture, No. 68

" Deux compositeurs de l’Amerique, si etonnamment differente et complementaire (Music & Arts new CD). J' aime beaucoup la force 'minerale' et 'lapidaire' de la Missa Triste de Pozzi Escot et egalemente la densite aphoristique de Jubilation. Des trois oeuvres de Robert Cogan, c'est Fierce Singleness qui m'a le plus frappe: il est si rare c'entendre un solo de clarinette qui soit bien plus que cela, qui chante, qui vive, qui accroche l'auditceur de cette facon. "
Gerard Conde, Le Monde, Paris, France

" The disc is entitled Events Dancing: Recent Compositions by Pozzi Escot and Robert Cogan (Music & Arts CD-892), distributed by Koch International. I hear Gulf Coast Bound for big band, tenor sax, and trumpet, as funny and witty and curiously dark. The piece climbs to a climax, very much like 'La Valse', and as a parting smirk peters out precipitously. The New England Conservatory's Big Jazz Band is good enough, and the soloists are fine, as is the recording, which does much to convey an eerie elan. Fierce Singleness doubtless owes its sense of meandering adventure by reason of Cogan's inviting the performer to ‘shape the work at every level’. Thus the open ­ended date of composition. Pozzi Escot's succinct and high flying Missa Triste (Joyous Gathering) divides into four movements. The work’s feathery, at times delirious character derives in good part from a canny instrumentation: alto flute, violin, and vibraphone in constant support of a chorus of female voices. The instrumentation works so well. Jubilation plays for this listener 'as an intense condensation of ecstatic utterances concluding on a sustained cri du coeur. "
Mike Silverton, Fanfare, New York