The Cygnus Ensemble - comprised of guitarists William Anderson and Oren Fader, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, oboist Robert Ingliss, violinist Calvin Wiersma, and cellist Susannah Chapman - is a New York-based group which specializes in contemporary concert music. Rather than holding them back, Cygnus has allowed their somewhat unusual instrumentation to serve as an opportunity, commissioning dozens of works from prominent composers. Their latest CD for the Bridge imprint, Gone for Foreign (on which they are joined by conductor Jeffery Milarsky), features works by Milton Babbitt, Rolv Yttrehus, Akemi Naito, William Anderson, and David Claman.

The title work, written by Claman, is a five-movement suite that turns the concept of "Classical crossover" on its head. Instead of dressing pop music in classical garb, Claman takes elements of World music, particularly inflections found in music from India, and places them alongside postmodern gestures. This lively and clever work is filled with dovetailing wind and string glissandi, snappy melodies, and propulsive rhythms. Anderson performs his composition A Giddy Thing trading mandolin licks with an electronic part that consists of various plucked sounds; aptly titled, this piece is both colorful and engaging.

Naito's Mindscape - Four Poetic Images blends elements of traditional Japanese music, Impressionist harmonies, and extended techniques: microtones and multiphonics in particular. O'Connor and Ingliss shine in the work's intriguing hybrid of approaches; the former's bent notes and the latter's chordal squalls are memorably striking contributions.

Plectrum Spectrum, by Yttrehus, delights in unusual juxtapositions as well, especially those of instrumentation and register. A particularly rambunctious duo for piccolo and banjo underscores the piece's often playful demeanor. Most of the Cygnus members pull multi-instrumental duty; O'Connor plays piccolo, flute, and alto flute, Ingliss plays oboe and English horn, Fader plays guitar and mandolin, and Anderson plays guitar, mandolin, and banjo. Yttrehus employs modernist harmonies and angular gestures in a vigorous and highly individual manner; Plectrum Spectrum has an attractive surface and ebullient rhythmic drive.

Babbitt's Swan Song No. 1 closes the disc with a sterling example of the nonagenarian composer's continued creative vitality. Sparkling gestures ricochet back and forth between the ensemble's performers in a nimble colloquy. The piece's pitch language is primarily partitioned into trichords - three-note groupings. Some bold appearances of major triads - albeit in a post-tonal context - and an insistently recurring outline of an A major seventh chord create a rapprochement between Babbitt's serial designs and harmonic languages past. In his liner notes, Anderson goes so far as to say that Babbitt has captured a sense of the autumnal quality of Brahms's later works. While one isn't likely to mistake Babbitt's intricate rhythms and maximally rigorous compositional architectures for Brahms anytime soon, Swan Song No. 1 presents dazzling fresh colors in Babbitt's ever-expanding compositional palette. - Christian Carey (2006, The Daily Copper)