Stuart Ross Carlson – Portrait of a Landscape: SEASONS & Carols For Christmas
It is enough of an achievement to release an album, any album, especially one built on the gorgeous ornateness and beguiling sonic complexities of the classical world. So you must take your hat off to Stuart Ross Carlson for releasing not one but two full-length releases in the fall of last year.
Portrait of a Landscape: SEASONS successfully blurred the lines between musical genres. It had one foot based in the classical world he is associated with, but the other was allowed to wander anywhere it pleased and passed through pop pastures, world music landscapes, ambient washes, and more orchestral structures. A triumph of post-genre music, if ever there was one.
As the title suggests, his second release had a more specific audience in mind, and Carols For Christmas took the humble holiday staple and turned it into something special. Both through the careful selection of the subject and the beautiful arrangements, through attention to tone and texture, and because of the exquisiteness of the delivery, these songs sounded like nothing you have heard before—a neat blend of familiarity and the freshness of new formats and brilliantly rendered deliveries.
Many think that the classical world is a place of dry, dusty compositions, that it is a place at odds with the innovations of contemporary music. Stuart Ross Carlson is here to make you think again.
Website: http://www.stuartcarlson.com/
Tweet
