Vinny Golia founded the Large Ensemble in 1982 to perform his original compositions for chamber orchestra. His style of composition strongly based in the Jazz tradition, blends heavily notated contemporary chamber music with improvisation, incorporates various extended instrumental techniques, 20th-century idioms, as well as world music concepts. Golia's music demands a talented and exceptional group of dedicated musicians, adept at both reading and improvising, and at home in a wide variety of styles. For the past seventeen years Vinny has kept the ensemble going through his own financial resources, while continuing to compose prolifically for the ensemble, which has grown from its original size of fourteen to its current size of thirty one musicians. The ensemble includes; eight woodwinds (with doubles), three to four trumpets, four to five trombones, one tuba, two orchestral percussionists (mallets, chimes timpani, Hand Drums, etc.), one drums & percussion, one p! iano & keyboards, two violins, one viola, two cellos, two contrabasses, and a Conductor. The repertoire for the Large Ensemble now consists of over one hundred and fifty compositions, yet unfortunately most works have received only one live performance.
Despite the difficulties in funding live performance, Golia's compositions for the Large Ensemble have received both critical and popular acclaim through recordings. The first of these, Compositions for Large Ensemble on Golia's Nine Winds label, is a three-record set recorded at the 1982 Schoenberg Hall concert. This recording, as well as the second album, Facts of Their Own Lives, have been ranked in the "10 Best" lists by both critics and readers in journals across the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe, (please see enclosed reviews). These vinyl record sets have become much sought after collector's items. A third recording, Pilgrimage to Obscurity, was released as a CD in March of 1990 and received heavy airplay and ! very favorable reviews. Pilgrimage was listed as a 1990 top 10 recording in Coda magazine by a number of critics, it also received a four star review in the July 1991 issue of Downbeat Magazine. The Ensemble's second Nine Winds CD release Decennium Dans Axlan was voted one of the best recordings of 1993 by the Los Angeles Times. Commemoration , a 2-CD tribute to the late clarinetist, John Carter contains music from a 21 part suite, A Moment of Truth, written by Vinny Golia. Reviews called this tribute Golia's, "most fascinatingly complex and richest work to date." Tutti Conte, a recording of pieces for dance troupe and large ensemble was released Spring 1996. Cadence Magazine called it "some of the most creative and compelling music done in the United States today." The Large Ensemble's current recordings include Portland 1996, which was recorded live on the 1996 Large Ensemble Spring tour and released in Spring 1997. Lastly an audio/ video documentation of this tour is e! xpected to be released on video and CD Rom. 1999 was a great year for the Large Ensemble with festival performances in Vancouver Canada, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and other cities on the West Coast. The bands current release of The Other Bridge, Oakland 1999 is from this tour.
Product Description
A chamber orchestra that can improvise, the blending of contemporary orchestral techniques combined with the expression of a small jazz unit.
The Other Bridge (Oakland 1999)
The Other Bridge (Oakland 1999),The Vinny Golia Large Ensemble
Jazz Music:
- Time Again: Brubeck Revisited, Vol. 1
- Totem Blues
- Trillium
- Watch What Happens [Import]
- 1924-1930
- 1928-1935 [Box set]
- A Story Ended [Import]
- Afro Blue
- Angelina
- Anything Goes
Jazz Music
Black Sound from White People [Import]
Just Too Much [Import] [Original recording remastered]
Austin City Limits Music Festival: 2004 [Live]
Al Estilo de Mi Tierra [Clean]