Joy, Too

Originally, our thought was to make the entire album a recording of music we had premiered, or that had been written for us. However, quite early on in our first album residency we realized that we had another direction we were being pulled in. We both gravitated to themes of existential joy and grief, and thought we could both commission and find already written pieces that would speak to where we were at that moment much more effectively.

So we started from scratch in a way, using a few of those already existing pieces, but also commissioning five evocative songs from Alex Weiser, above the bulk of crashing water, as well as finding Kamala Sankaram’s beautifully meditative piece on eternity, The Far Shore, and Annika Sokolowsky’s song, Loves don’t/go, dealing with love and loss. Kristin had a working relationship with composer James Primosch, who unfortunately passed away in 2021, just months after we decided to record his song, The Old Astronomer. Adding his song to the album was a perfect fit, both because of the thematic material in the song itself, and because it became an homage to his life and music. Max Johnson’s group of four songs All night long, with poetry by Todd Colby, show humor and wit in the midst of grief and uncertainty. Robert Davidson’s twenty twenty is the only solo piano piece on the album; his background as a jazz musician allows the simple, beautiful lines to show through. Robert Balaguer also wrote the poetry for his music, and it is that uncompromising artistry that really drew us to his work. As his song Astrolabe ends, one can imagine the eternity that exists outside of the world that we know, spinning on above our human sorrows and joys.

— Kristin Gornstein and Jeremy Chan, Vertex