BRUITS | AFRICLASSICAL

The album features three world-premiere recordings of works by composers Vijay Iyer, Reena Esmail, and Frederic Rzewski

On February 5, 2020, Bright Shiny Things Records releases BRUITS [BTSC-0138], by the acclaimed, Grammy®-nominated quintet, IMANI WINDS (Brandon Patrick George, flute; Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe; Mark Dover, clarinet; Jeff Scott, French horn; and Monica Ellis, bassoon). The album’s title, “Bruits,” ([/bro͞ots/] both a homonym and homophone) is a medical term for a vascular murmur, an abnormal sound heard through a stethoscope that is generated by the turbulent flow of blood in an artery that has been obstructed. Imani Winds write: “We are bruited. Our passages are raw, blocked. And we cannot continue this way.” The album features three world-premiere recordings: Vijay Iyer's Bruits; Reena Esmail’s The Light is the Same; and Frederic Rzewski’s Sometimes—all of which speak directly to current social and political issues, and tell stories about people whose lives have made a difference in our world. Additional featured performers on the album include Grammy®-winning pianist Cory Smythe (Bruits), Metropolitan Opera National Council & Operalia award-winning soprano Janai Brugger (Sometimes), and scholar & narrator John Whittington Franklin (Sometimes).

Pianist, educator and composer Vijay Iyer’s eponymous work uses that clinical image “as a metaphor for the blocked system of justice in today’s society.” Bruits was written during the trial of Trayvon Martin (February 26, 2012), a young black man, and refers to the blockage of justice inherent in the “Stand Your Ground” law, which—though not used by the defense lawyers—was nevertheless included in the instructions to the jury. Bruits was commissioned by the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Sarasota, and composed for Imani Winds while Iyer was in residence there in 2014.

“Bruits is powerful. It is provocative. It is timely. It is heart-wrenching,” writes Monica Ellis. “It makes both the listener and the performer—especially me, as a performer and the mother of a Black boy—feel a way that few pieces of music allow.”