Sufjan Stevens Announces New Ballet Score Reflections, Shares “Ekstasis”: Stream

By wazup on April 18, 2023 Comments Closed / 64 views

Sufjan Stevens Announces New Ballet Score Reflections, Shares “Ekstasis”: Stream

Sufjan Stevens has announced the upcoming LP release of Reflections, his score to his frequent collaborator Justin Peck’s ballet of the same name. It’ll be out on May 19th via his own label Asthmatic Kitty, and as a preview, you can hear pianists Timo Andres and Conor Hanick perform the record’s lead single “Ekstasis” now.

Peck, whose recent choreography credits also include Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, wrote Reflections for two pianos and eleven dancers. The Houston Ballet originally commissioned the show, which premiered on March 21st, 2019. Piano might not be Stevens’ first instrument (fun fact: it was the oboe), but the format lends itself to moving and whimsical compositions. Per his words, the score is meant to emanate “energy, light, and duality,” although he certainly doesn’t take himself too seriously here: The closing track is called “And I Shall Come to You Like a Stormtrooper in Drag Serving Imperial Realness.”

“I’m constantly thinking about bodies moving through space when I’m writing for ballet — that is what has informed this music, first and foremost,” Stevens adds in a press release. “Although I’ve never taken a lesson, the piano was my first true love. Having [Andres and Hanick] at my disposal was an exciting opportunity and gave me a real catharsis about the expansiveness of the instrument.” Pre-orders for the LP are ongoing.