| Classique |
Wayne Alpern: Continuity, Craft, and the American Classical Imagination.
At a time when contemporary classical music in the United States often fluctuates between academic abstraction and simplified crossover, Wayne Alpern occupies a distinctive and compelling position. Widely regarded as one of today’s significant American composers, Alpern moves effortlessly between jazz and classical music, not as parallel careers but as facets of a single compositional practice. He makes no aesthetic distinction between genres: each new work begins with a deep immersion into a theme, allowing musical languages to intersect naturally, as they did in his earlier project Standard Deviation.
His latest album represents a return to classical music in its most distilled and demanding form. Written for a woodwind quintet, flute, oboe, French horn, clarinet, and bassoon, it embraces an ensemble whose apparent transparency conceals formidable technical challenges. Writing for this configuration requires exceptional control of balance, timbre, and counterpoint, as well as a refined sense of instrumental color. In this twelfth album, complexity is never demonstrative; it is resolved through finesse, clarity, and restraint, suggesting the work of a composer at full artistic maturity.
Alpern’s musical language reflects a profound understanding of the Western classical tradition from the late eighteenth century to contemporary practices. Yet the music is unmistakably American in character. Subtle influences drawn from jazz and other vernacular forms surface discreetly within the score, never disrupting its structural integrity. At times, the writing evokes wide-open spaces and expansive horizons, an atmospheric quality deeply rooted in the American cultural imagination.
For European listeners, the music may occasionally recall the harmonic or expressive worlds of composers such as Prokofiev or Tchaikovsky. These references, however, are never imitative. Alpern’s formal structures and narrative pacing are distinctly contemporary, animated by a vivid and personal vision. His titles often reveal a poetic sensibility tinged with humor, reinforcing the impression of a composer for whom rigor and imagination are inseparable. One easily imagines Alpern at his desk, revising tirelessly, searching for the most precise musical gesture, a process in which craft serves expression rather than ideology.
The album unfolds across twelve interconnected pieces conceived as a continuous narrative rather than a collection of isolated works. This structural unity reflects Alpern’s long-standing interest in musical storytelling on a large scale. Listeners familiar with his earlier recordings will recognize his ability to infuse classical forms with rhythmic vitality, at times even allowing the ensemble to swing, echoing the uniquely American synthesis once mastered by George Gershwin. The listener is invited to travel freely across centuries and traditions, with Italian and English classical influences subtly refracted through a modern American lens.
These compositions are performed by musicians of international stature: Brandon Patrick George (flute), Toyin Spellman-Diaz (oboe), Kevin Newton (French horn), Mark Dover (clarinet), and Monica Ellis (bassoon). Their technical mastery and interpretive sensitivity are essential to the success of the project, ensuring that the music’s complexity remains transparent and expressive. Their involvement also underscores the album’s broader educational and cultural value within the contemporary chamber music repertoire.
Reading Alpern’s biography, one is struck by how naturally this album emerges from a life devoted to musical exploration. His formative experiences, studying composition as a quest for self-discovery, engaging with improvisation, working alongside figures such as Morton Feldman and Steve Reich, and teaching rigorous analytical methods, form a narrative that feels almost literary in tone. This album stands as the continuation of that story, one that began decades ago and continues to evolve with clarity and conviction.
This is a work that rewards attentive listening. Elegant, intellectually grounded, and deeply expressive, the album affirms that contemporary classical music can remain both rigorous and accessible. It is a reminder that the pursuit of beauty, patiently crafted and thoughtfully shared, remains at the heart of meaningful artistic expression.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, January 2nd 2026
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Musicians:
Brandon Patrick George (flute)
Toyin Spellman-Diaz (oboe)
Kevin Newton (French horn)
Mark Dover (clarinet)
Monica Ellis (bassoon)
Track Listing:
Stomp
Gigue
Burlesca
Impromptu
Masquerade
Partita
Elegy
Ouverture
Rag
Invention
Scherzo
Capricio
Produced by Judith Sherman
Composer: Wayne Alpern