Tight Sweater: Real Quiet Plays the Music of Marc Mellits

Marc Mellits (Composer), Real Quiet (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Real Quiet
• Composer: Marc Mellits
• Audio CD (August 8, 2006)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Endeavour Classics
• ASIN: B000GIXEGI
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #276,389 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Marc Mellits was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1966. He was already composing piano music before he started formal piano lessons at age six. He went on to study at the Eastman School of Music, Yale School of Music, Cornell University, and Tanglewood. His composition teachers during this period included Samuel Adler, Martin Bresnick, Bernard Rands, Christopher Rouse, Joseph Schwantner, Roberto Sierra, and Steven Stucky, yet one hears other influences in Mellits’ music. The sound worlds of Steve Reich (whom Mellits considers a mentor) and Philip Glass resonate inside of this music, not to mention the rock and funk music from his childhood in the seventies. Mellits is a miniaturist, composing works that are comprised of short, contrasting movements. His music is eclectic, all-encompassing, and open to reflecting whatever enters his life and mind during the period of creation. Just recently, he was awarded the prestigious 2004 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award. Although this recording is the first dedicated completely to his music, other Mellits works can be heard on Santa Fe New Music and CRI/Emergency Music. Real Quiet is a three-man band dedicated to creating an exclusive repertoire of hard-edged acoustic and electro-acoustic music by today’s leading composers. Tight Sweater was written in 2005 for Real Quiet on a commission from the Muzik3 Foundation. Fruity Pebbles, the earliest work represented on this album, established Mellits’s reputation as "the witty post-minimalist." Like many of the post-minimalist composers, Mellits has found a way to use minimalist techniques without relying on them entirely. Agu was written in 2004 for Andrew Russo on a commission from the James S. Marcus Foundation. Disciples of Gouda was written in 2003 on a joint commission from the Common Sense Composers Collective and Essential Music.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars kinda groovy..., December 20, 2006

By 

svf - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tight Sweater: Real Quiet Plays the Music of Marc Mellits (Audio CD)

I don't know what the deal is with the, er, interesting album cover photo, but Marc Mellits proves that minimalism isn't quite dead yet with his perky, spiky, and appealingly compact chamber music. It's even kinda groovy...

5.0 out of 5 stars A Musical Paul Klee, July 30, 2011

By 

Bartolo (New York City, New York USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Tight Sweater: Real Quiet Plays the Music of Marc Mellits (Audio CD)

If Steve Reich is the Mondrian or Picasso of minimalism, Mellits has to be its Paul Klee. Like Klee, Mellits is a miniaturist, his compositions usually short but rich in creative combinations of instruments, textures, timbres and colors. For fans of Reich and Glass, these have to be pure ear candy; for listeners who become numb with too much slowly modulated repetition, rest assured that Mellits shifts cadence and key quite often. This music is full of surprises and delights, and so enjoyable it doesn't matter whether you think Mellits' indebtedness to his seniors is too great or whether---like Klee vis-a-vis Picasso---his genius is wholly his own.

Klee loved provocative, whimsical titles ("Idol for House Cats", "The Twittering Machine," etc) and you can see this trait in Mellits, too: but happily his titles are related to the music in no literal way I can figure. But their outrageousness is echoed by a purely musical wit that is a lot harder to come by.

If you like this CD keep in mind its more recent companion "Paranoid Cheese," a second feast of short, varied bon-bons.

Why this composer isn't better known is the only thing I can't explain. The pianist here, Andrew Russo (see also his solo albums "Dirty Little Secret," "Mixtape," etc.), got a Grammy nomination, and with luck something similar will soon happen to Mellits himself.