Soul of a City

It’s April, time for the Spring KUHF fundraiser. One of the gifts-with-donation this year is the Engines of our Ingenuity CD Soul of a City. This new multimedia package, the 11th such CD, features audio essays in which my father and three guest speakers explore the topic of cities — the ancient and exotic, how they die, urban vs. rural cities, and so on.

For the first time since 2003, I served as its music producer (intervening years were deftly handled by master composer Brad Sayles). Composing intros and outros, as well as underscore and interludes, renewed my interest in both writing and the technical aspects of the recording process itself. It also spawned a number of new compositions outside the scope of this CD, including a set of six piano preludes.

The musicians featured on Soul of City include HSO violinist Ferenc Illenyi, guitarist Erich Avinger, clarinetist John Duboise, bassist Thomas Helton, trumpeters Carol Morgan and David Kovacs, and percussionists Kirk Suddreath and Charlie Perez, all recorded in my home studio with some very nice borrowed gear (thank you Erich!).

A sample set of cues heard on this CD can be found on KUHF’s website here.

Here is the KUHF pledge site, if you are interested: Fundraiser Page