Notes
Dear listener, I have collaborated with Kevin Volans since 1997, when "Akrodha" was commissioned. Among the leading composers of the world today, Kevin Volans has developed aesthetics which makes him totally unique, and for the solo repertoire for percussion he is outstanding. The three solo pieces - "Akrodha", "Asanga" and "She who sleeps with a small blanket" - are all considered masterpieces in the solo repertoire. The music holds the listener's attention very strongly. I performed the three solo pieces at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2004, and Andrew Clements gave me five stars (out of five!) in The Guardian: "...the Swedish percussionist Jonny Axelsson, whose lunchtime recital devoted to Kevin Volans' three solo-percussion pieces was a real triumph of stamina as well as virtuosity and concentration. There is nothing flamboyant or fussy about Axelsson, he just goes about his tasks with dazzling musicianship. His recital was also a showcase of Volans' imagination, his ability to draw an almost infinite array of patterns and effects from a relatively limited range of unpitched instruments (with a cameo appearance by tuned percussion, a marimba, in one of the pieces). The 1985 She Who Sleeps with a Small Blanket is already a bit of a classic. The brief and violent Asanga (1997), however, and the expansive and wonderfully intricate Akrodha (1998) are not so well known, but clearly should be." Here is another review by Anna Picard in The Independent, from the Wigmore Hall in London 2009: "Last Saturday saw an angst-inducing clash of events celebrating two of the most distinctive living composers. At the Wigmore Hall, Jonny Axelsson and the Smith Quartet gave the first of two concerts marking the 60th birthday of Kevin Volans. The Smith Quartet's soulful performance of Hunting: Gathering (1987) underlined the shredded romanticism in Volans's post-minimalist masterpiece, with echoes of Janácek in it's bold, sad figures. I mean no disrespect to other percussionists when I say that Axelsson is the most extraordinary drummer I have seen, or to other composers when I say that She who Sleeps with a Small Blanket (1985) and Akrodha (1998) are the most extraordinary works: ferocious, lyrical and human." With the aesthetics of Kevin Volans the world learned a new expression in the theory of music; "the new simplicity". This expression corresponds clearly with the former established opposite expression - "the new complexity". However, what these expressions stand is not always obvious. Textures can be complex on the surface only, whereas in something that looks simple, there can be a lot of sophistication hidden. In Kevin's music this is obvious. Listening to "Apollo's Touch" by Rodney Sharman is like a journey into a place deep inside yourself. This music has an illusory simplicity. In fact, there are so many levels of complexity possible to discover. I have performed this music in a dance performance where the dancers were hanging free with wires from the ceiling, and the imagination of a human body floating in the air, is just a perfect metaphor for "Apollo's Touch". Enjoy! Jonny Axelsson.
