Peter Broderick & Ensemble 0
Give It to the Sky: Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning Expanded
For Arthur Russell, music was a game without limits. As a composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer, he was equally at home in the New York avant-garde as in disco, art pop, folk and new wave. He was as eclectic as he was perfectionistic and only released three albums during his lifetime. But when he died of AIDS at the age of forty, he left behind a staggering amount of unfinished music.
Russell's oeuvre has captured the imagination of the American composer and singer Peter Broderick for many years. Together with the French Ensemble 0, he arranged the album Tower of Meaning, with instrumental music for a cancelled opera project. Russell's warm harmonies extend beyond time and tempo, evoking worlds before our own. Broderick and his colleagues bring them into dialogue with songs that are poignantly idiosyncratic. Give It to the Sky: an intimate portrait of a musical maverick.
Programme
Arthur Russell (1951-1992), arr. Julien Pontvianne
Give it to the Sky: Arthur Russell’s Tower of Meaning Expanded
image © Jean-Jacques Auder