And now, live from her very own living room, just a few (figurative) steps away from Carnegie Hall, I have the privilege and pleasure on introducing a promising young new artist on the musical scene, playing an original composition entitled “Playtime,” let’s hear it for Rachel!
Notice, if you will, the skill with which Rachel implements the techniques of 20th century composition. She employs the atonal melodies and dissonent harmonies of the Second Viennese school and the vocal techniques of Arnold Schoenberg, but has taken these ideas and modernized them for the 21st century in which she lives and works. There is a rhythmic complexity here that we have not seen since the Renaissance and the isorhythm utilized by Guillaume de Machaut. She has researched the compositions of Béla Bartók, and while he was most well known for implementing the peasant music of his native Hungary into the concert repertoire, Rachel takes these same techniques to investigate the rustic charm of the innocence of youth.