Inner Landscapes by Xander Simmons, Collectif Novart

Inner Landscapes is a collection of chamber music pieces, occasionally mixed with electronics, that I composed between 2017 and 2018 and revised at the beginning of 2021. Each piece is written for different instrumentation, ranging from a trio (Three Points) to a nonet (Solstice), and draws mostly on the musical language of post-minimalism. The first three pieces are “pure” chamber music, using only acoustic instruments. Grande Riviere adds some electronic ambient textures to the background of the performance, while Vortices is a collage of string and vocal performances mixed with synthesizers and field recordings. While some pieces are directly inspired by the painted landscapes of Peter Doig (Pink Mountain, Grande Riviere), all draw on the idea of place as it internalized and re-imagined in our fantasies, dreams and memories. This recording is a collaboration with Collectif Novart, a new chamber music ensemble based in Montreal.

Originally from the U.K., Xander is a Montreal-based, interdisciplinary composer whose compositional style draws primarily on the language of minimalism and postminimalism, as well as the diverse genres that inform his musical world, exploring the crosscurrents between the worlds of art and popular music.