Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Reason and Reverence represents an aural exploration of our world's complexities. By comparing and contrasting present triumphs with past regrets, the composers on this album develop a compelling, philosophical reflection of the world we live in.

Conducted by Petr Vronský, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra delivers a master class in cohesiveness while tackling a wildly diverse, yet wholly complete set of compositions.

The album starts strong with Christopher Keyes' An Inescapable Entanglement. Keyes binds minimalist elements with late 16th and early 17th century forms of concerto to create a controlled chaos of instruments and voices playing distinct parts simultaneously. In his intent to create an antiphonal sound, Keyes employs eight loudspeakers to project the music achieving a thickened, full texture.

Red Rock is a symphonic poem commissioned by the Henderson Symphony and its music director, Taras Krysa, which premiered in the Fall of 2013. The music is based on the interaction of two musical materials, the first, calm and diatonic, presented by the French horns after the introduction and elaborated by the trumpets and the woodwinds; and the second, more angular and chromatic, also introduced by a solo French horn in the second section. Similar to a sonata form, these materials go through transformations and developments in the middle section, and return evolved and reconciled at the end of the movement. The piece suggests a gliding trip over the stunning landscape of the Red Rock canyon, with its sharp geological contrasts, its ever changing shapes, and its surprising colors.

Fernidnando De Sena's Deciphered Reverence explores the idea of divine presence and creates an interpretation through the consistent, triumphant swelling of the orchestra. De Sena's piece captures the many moods, modes, and colors in the music to translate his vision of life and celebrate its ambiguity and omnipresence.

Composed by Willem Van Twillert, multiple styles set the foundation for Branches of Singularity. Multiple developments transitions from one style to another -- from medieval, baroque, and renaissance, to romance, film and church music - create an enticing and evoloving piece.

Andrew Schultz's Symphony No. 2 - Ghosts of Reason ties the whole album together. Slowing the pace of the otherwise energetic album, Schultz's composition paints a haunting atmosphere by drawing out the wistful bleakness of its wandering melodies.

Reason and Reverence wouldn't feel complete without this track carrying a reminder that appreciating our phenomenal world comes with both the triumphs of the present and the hauntings of the past.

One movement.