Michael Torke

Michael Torke’s “Javelin”: A Glistening “Sonic Olympiad”

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In August of 1996, Gramophone magazine hailed American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961) for writing “some of the most optimistic, joyful and thoroughly uplifting music to appear in recent years.” Two months earlier, the New York Times described Torke as “a master orchestrator whose shimmering timbral palette makes him the Ravel of his generation.” We hear all of this in Torke’s glistening 1994 overture, Javelin. Described as a “sonic olympiad,” the work was …

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Michael Torke’s “December”: Feelings, Impressions, and Memories

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Setting aside its evocative title, we can appreciate December, a 1995 work for string orchestra by American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961), as pure music. Developing from a single spirited motive seed, heard in the opening measures, December unfolds as a spirited contrapuntal conversation. At moments, its shifting bass line forms an ostinato, one of the oldest musical devices. We are reminded of the lush English string orchestra music of Vaughan Williams, Finzi, and Tippett. …

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Michael Torke’s “Bloom 2, Morning”: Music for Percussion Ensemble

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Bloom, the newest album by American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961),  will be released on August 30. The eleven movement work was written for, and recorded by, Sandbox Percussion. With an exuberant, infectious rhythmic groove, Bloom develops over three musical “days,” with movements titled “morning, noon, night.” With repeating patterns, it rides the visceral pulse of the contemporary dance floor. In his program note, the composer writes, BLOOM uses interlocking rhythms which, when …

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Michael Torke’s “Unseen” (No. 5): A Shifting Kaleidoscope

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Last month, we listened to the first single from Unseen, the newest work of American composer Michael Torke. The piece, scored for orchestra, unfolds in nine brief movements, and continues in the direction of Torke’s recent groove-based chamber works, Being (2020), Psalms and Canticles (2021), and Time (2022). The complete album for Unseen will be released on May 10. Unseen, No. 5, which came out yesterday, emerges from a single pulsating rhythmic pattern in the strings. The piece develops …

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Michael Torke’s “Unseen” (No. 7): Embracing an Ecstatic Groove

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The first single from Unseen, the newest work by American composer, Michael Torke, was released last week. (The full album will be available on May 10). The excerpt, No. 7 from a piece which unfolds in nine brief movements, delivers a visceral and ecstatic sense of groove. Scored for a larger ensemble, Unseen continues in the direction of Torke’s recent chamber albums, Being (2020), Psalms and Canticles (2021), and Time (2022). The composer writes, Unifying these four projects is the …

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Michael Torke’s “October”: Autumn Music

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Although usually free of a literal program, the music of the American composer, Michael Torke, is highly evocative. Even if we don’t share the composer’s experience of synesthesia, in which musical keys are involuntarily associated with specific colors, Torke’s suite of Color Music from the 1980s makes us feel the essence of green, bright blue, and ecstatic orange. Other orchestral pieces such as Run (1992) and Javelin (1994) convey an exhilarating sense of motion, while December suggests …

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Michael Torke’s “Chancel” (“Sessions, 3 A.M.”): The Virtue of Simplicity

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Chancel is the third single to be released from Sessions, 3 A.M, the latest album by the American composer, Michael Torke. The complete recording will be available in November. Recorded last May at the Samurai Hotel Studio in Queens, New York, Sessions, 3 A.M features a collection of fifteen brief and atmospheric pieces for solo piano which are performed by the composer. The excerpts that are currently available suggest the magical, nocturnal vibe of an …

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