For our first album, A Golden Wire is working with composer Josh Levine to record Anyway, a new work for electro-acoustic harp and electronics. Commissioned by IRCAM and premiered in June 2023, this large-scale work is a meditation on the death of the composer’s father in 2019. It is deeply wound together with a poem the composer wrote just after; their shared title, Anyway, refers to the last comprehensible word Shepard Levine spoke to his son. Made up of a series of tombeaux, the piece weaves together both the personal and historical: fragments of tombeaux by Marin Marais, Johann Jakob Froberger and Sylvius Leopold Weiss haunt Josh’s music, along with processed phrases spoken by the composer, and an opening sequence performed with paintbrushes which belonged to his father.

Arnie and I will record music of Marin Marais, François Couperin, Johann Jakob Froberger and Sylvius Leopold Weiss, including several plaintes and tombeaux. These deeply personal works speak to the emotive qualities of music from another era, and will be performed on period instruments (viola da gamba and baroque harp), lending an immediate intimacy and emotional confidentiality to music which is very close to our hearts. Arnie and I started our collaboration with the music of Marais and the French baroque, discovering a palette of colors in the joining of our two instruments that has become a bedrock of our performing philosophy, in trying to foster as much sensitivity as possible with the musical tools at our disposal.

Also including a new piece composed for Parker by David Fulmer, which incorporates Bach’s Passion chorale, and the Musical Offering-inspired Offrande by Michael Jarrell, our two disc album proposes a beautiful extended listening experience that’s at once coherent and diverse.

Why THIS project for your first album?
Firstly, because we’re committed to the music and we think it’ll be a representative digital portrait of what we do at A Golden Wire. It’s also a chance to bring seemingly disparate genres and musical styles and offer a different perspective for both new music and early music lovers.

Pairing the old and the new is nothing novel. What makes this special?
Of course it’s not. Who doesn’t love hearing a Gesualdo-Stravinsky mashup? Or a resetting of a beloved choral work with a fresh compositional voice? Our aim isn’t so much to have listeners compare and contrast between early and new music, but to present them as a continuum where distinctions between “old” and “new” are blurred, such as in the ways Josh’s piece hearkens back to music of yore and into personal memories, whilst creating an aesthetic experience very much of the present.

When are you recording? When can we get the album?
Our aim is to record in May 2025 in New York, with an album release later in the year.

And you found a record label to take this on?
Yes! New Focus Recordings will be working with us.

The budget is awfully high!
It is, because it’s all rather expensive. Plane tickets have to be bought. Instruments have to be transported (including one from Europe). New and replacement strings have to be bought for the instrument. A harp technician has to ensure the harp is in top shape. The same technician has to be on call should something go wrong. Musicians have to be fairly compensated. A recording studio has to be rented. Engineers and producers have to be paid. Videography has to be budgeted for. A record label has to distribute the album. We need to have a launch event. Nice things cost money. There are no shortcuts.

Can’t you apply for grants?
Naturally, and we plan to. However, even if we get ALL the funding we apply for, we’d be short by 60% of anticipated costs.

Is it really worth it?
Donate and find out!

You seem awfully confident about this.
The first time Parker crowdfunded an album, pretty cool things happened. Read about his debut album in the New York Times.
(And the second time, even cooler things happened.)

Ok, but can I at least hear a little bit of what I’m supporting?
Of course! Click HERE to see footage of the live premiere of Josh’s work in Paris.
Click and HERE and HERE to see what Arnie and I get up to on period instruments.
Click HERE to get a peek into the workshopping process for Josh’s piece back in 2022 at IRCAM.