Dana Jessen – bassoon | Innova 910 (2017)
Includes Cadenza & Degradations for Bassoon and Electronics (2016), along with works by Sam Pluta, Paula Matthusen, and Peter V Swendsen, and Jessen’s solo improvisations.
“. . . a contemporary improvised bassoon sonata, with an elastically-scaled virtual wind ensemble made up of composer/oboist Kyle Bruckmann’s multiply recorded oboe and bass oboe forming the backdrop for Jessen’s elegant solo lines. . . ”
“The four compositions . . . are the products of a collaborative process. Jessen met with the composers and played some improvisations for them; these served as the kernels around which the compositions were constructed, each of which was shaped as much by her musical language and sensibility as by the composers’ own ideas. Working this way entailed a strategy of mutual interpretation that upends and in a way reverses the conventional relationship between the composer as originator and the performer as interpreter. . .”