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Trios for One

by Josh Lee

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about

“What started as an experiment ended up as a necessity.”
That’s how viola da gamba virtuoso Josh Lee described recording Trios for One, his latest release for Bear Machine Records. Lee first sketched out the project while on a break from touring with indie-artist Radical Face to refine his personal recording work and explore some repertoire that recently piqued his curiosity. “Some of this music I’ve known for years, but others I discovered just from reading through stacks of rep with friends one night,” Lee continued. “When I began this project in January of 2020, I was really just indulging curiosity as a way to learn more about music production and get the ball rolling. By the time I wrapped the record in March I was working alone by necessity.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic gained speed and Stay-At-Home orders were sweeping the city, Lee found himself, like much of the world, suddenly housebound. “I had initially wanted to record this music with some colleagues, but with that possibility off the table I went back to the overdubbed demos I’d made earlier in the year and figured I might as well lay those down for real. I mean, why not? I’ve got time, music that speaks to me, and too much pent-up energy that needs to go somewhere. Music has always flowed into the spaces it can, and how we perform it has always been flexible. Why should now be any different?”
Lee calls Trios for One his “love letter to the English madrigal.” A core repertory for the viola da gamba, English madrigals from the 16th and 17th centuries are marked by interplay between the musicians, as well as the dominance of mood that is often supplied not just by the notes, but also by a sung text. “Playing music with a text is almost like having a treasure map. The poetry leads you to an emotional point of view.” But playing all the parts meant that Lee had to develop clever methods to converse with himself. “Recording these pieces was a demanding study of polyphony. Each part can be conceived of as a melody on its own. The question becomes how to shift focus from one part to another without drowning the others out. Just the logistics of what order to record each instrument in was tricky.”
Trios for One features works by Thomas Morley, John Ward, and Thomas Lupo, composers that, though forgotten today, would have been household names in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. While Morely and Lupo made music heard by Queen Elizabeth herself, John Ward’s music was written more with more than just his aristocratic patrons in mind. Writing as England slowly slid towards civil war, Ward joined a growing number of composers printing their music, spreading it far past the manor house of their wealthy employers. Marrying his music to words by major poets of his day, Ward differed from his peers in giving instruction on how his music can be performed. “He says right on the cover that the madrigals are ‘apt for Viols and Voyces,’ meaning you could play or sing them, or anything in between. That little clue sheds so much light into how flexible these musicians were, and shows us that we should enjoy this music with whatever combinations we can,” says Lee. “Play with what you’ve got!”

credits

released September 25, 2020

Artist, Producer, and Editor: Josh Lee
Engineer and Editor: Jeremiah Johnson
Mixing and Mastering: Ben Cooper

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Josh Lee San Francisco, California

Josh Lee's viol playing has been called “a tour-de-force," and has garnered acclaim across five continents. Active as soloist, chamber artist, producer, and composer his interests span from the renaissance to today, finding him at home in the worlds of classical music, pop, and scoring. Josh lives in San Francisco ... more

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