The Sonic Revolutions of George Lewis

The piece seems to conjure a prehistoric avant-garde musical workshop, a sonic analogue of the visual culture that can be glimpsed in the cave. Fully notated passages--scampering runs, precisely hammering chords, ghostly arpeggios--are interspersed with opportunities for improvisation. The first twenty-four bars indicate rhythms, dynamics, and registers but not precise pitches. The ending, too, is left open. Cory Smythe, himself a composer and improviser of note, proved an ideal conduit, making the distinction between Lewis's ideas and his own elaborations inconsequential.