// the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky
Coming Soon! Release date: June 5, 2024 on Innova Recordings featuring Sō Percussion and Longleash.
In conjunction with the nationally touring exhibition Lanzilotti co-curated, Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within, Lanzilotti produced this album of chamber and experimental sound art works that explore the resonance of Takaezu’s bronze bells and the playfulness of her ceramic rattles. Lanzilotti writes, “Growing up at The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, I remember Toshiko Takaezu’s ceramic works being the same size as I was—the greeting presence of one of her mahina, or moons, as you entered the museum.”
Longleash, bring for Toshiko to life with delicate timbres and expressive shaping of resonance. Sō Percussion breathes life to sending messages in their depth of listening. Through their long history of playing chamber music together as a group, there is a magical, spinning quality to the sound. In the resonance of the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky, we get the feeling of being inside Takaezu’s multisensory landscapes. Download the booklet.
// Press for the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky installation work
Brooklyn Rail’s THE NEW SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT#1041: Curators Glenn Adamson and Kate Wiener and composer Leilehua Lanzilotti join scholar Christina Yang for a conversation.
Feature / interview in Art Currently
the sky in our hands, our hands in the sky “features the exciting trio Longleash in for Toshiko, an elusive meditation for violin, cello, and piano, and the focused, versatile Sō Percussion in sending messages, a beautifully tactile quartet by turns hypnotic and shimmering.” — Steve Smith, Night after Night Album of the Week
“The composer played a variety of the artist’s bronze bells and closed forms—some of which contained small objects that were dropped inside of them before they were fired in a kiln, creating variable rattle-like qualities. The result is a patient exploration of those peculiar resonances; frictive, clattery accents punctuating longer swells of decaying tones and muffled, extended rumbling that sounds as if recorded underwater.” — Peter Margasak, The Best Contemporary Classical Music on Bandcamp, June 2024
“Note the almost sculptural approach to the instruments: this is not conventional work in any sense of the word, but it is extraordinarily beautiful.” — Jeremy Shatan, AnEarful: Monthly Listening: June 2024