Songbroker Song of the Day: Jonathan Besser - 'Resolution'

Composer / Pianist Jonathan Besser was born in NYC in 1949 and studied composition in New York at the Mannes College of Music with Daniel Loeb.

A resident of New Zealand since 1974, Besser creates acoustic and electronic music in collaboration with many leading writers, choreographers, musicians, artists and filmmakers. He has composed original music for many film, radio, stage and TV productions.

His latest releases under the label Rattle Records include the albums Campusari and Turn.

For the album Turn, which Besser wrote for the ensemble Bravura, producers Besser and Steve Garden sought to create a sound that was very ‘open’ in its structural architecture and sonic textures.

While the pieces on Turn were designed to sound composed, they offered enormous scope for collective improvisation. The group recorded each piece just moments after seeing the scores for the first time, encouraging a greater degree of spontaneity.

Over many years, Bravura developed an intuitive appreciation of each other’s musical sensitivities, so this approach played to their collective strength.

‘Resolution’ is a beautifully languid and sensual recording from this collection, with exquisite musicianship that never gets in the way of the song.