DECODA | NEW YORK TIMES - REVIEW

5 Classical Music Albums You Can Listen to Right Now

by: Seth Colter Walls | May, 2024

Members of the chamber group Decoda were also in Ensemble Connect, a fellowship program for young artists by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School and the Weill Music Institute. Ensemble Connect’s concerts have tended to offer low-cost, high-value programs of unusual repertoire; that spirit is audible on this recording, too.

“Revelry,” a two-movement work by the Imani Winds founder Valerie Coleman, comes first, and makes a strong impression. Its first section, “Mysterio,” is appropriately mercurial. Yet it also boasts vivid melodic and timbral ideas that come back into play during the second, more agitated section, “War.” In the final minutes, some churning, solemn motifs join up with jagged riffs to evoke a balletic take on aggression.

Decoda’s performance of Reza Vali’s “Folk Songs Set No. 9 for Flute and Cello” similarly shows off the wide-ranging skills of a living composer, and of the flutist Catherine Gregory and the cellist Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir. (Vali’s comparatively spare instrumentation also works in the album’s sequencing, coming between the fiery Coleman and similarly extroverted piano rags by William Bolcom, arranged for chamber ensemble.) With performances of this quality, you can see why Carnegie — which just named Decoda its first affiliate ensemble — would want to continue an association with these musicians.