The News from utopia
by austin wulliman
FOR YOUR
GRAMMY® CONSIDERATION
Best Classical Instrumental Solo
Austin Wulliman, The News from Utopia
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
The News From Utopia by Austin Wulliman
ABOUT
LISTEN
The News From Utopia, the debut release from Austin Wulliman, broadcasts a transmission of coloristic beauty powered by an obsession with a series of images and musical conspiracy theories. A cast of sonic characters find new expression in each vignette within this non-linear narrative: an impressionistic dream of the sea emerging under desert stars, a self-portrait from inside the eyeballs, a parody of the demagogue, the view from inside the social media algorithm, a reading of Zadie Smith’s “The Lazy River”. Composed, recorded, and mixed by Wulliman, his violins swell with lush harmonic warmth, bustle with neurotic energy, and spin webs of rhythmic buoyancy, making note of fleetings moments of clarity as time slips away.
ABOUT :
Photo Credit: Alex Sopp
Violinist, composer and educator Austin Wulliman embodies the imagined and empathizes with the absurd through sounds both familiar and radical, telling stories with a limitless passion for tuning cries from every corner of the human capacity to hear. He is a member of JACK Quartet, called “the nation’s most important quartet” by the New York Times, recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year, and performing at the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus, and Carnegie Hall as well as teaching at the Banff Centre, Lucerne Festival, and the Mannes School of Music. As soloist, he has given the American premiere of works by Kaija Saariaho and played at the Southbank Centre, Aspen Music Festival, and Wigmore Hall. He has collaborated with a panoply of composers and performers, advocating for the music of now, ranging from the likes of Philip Glass, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Conrad Tao, Tyshawn Sorey, Barbara Hannigan and John Zorn.
