One of my favorite composers is Eve Beglarian – and in an effort to find a playlist theme that was a little more cohesive, I started with her work Until it Blazes, a piece for various stings, but I went with a purely electric guitar version. The electric guitar is a 93 year old instrument, but finding solo and chamber pieces expressly written by contemporary composers was more challenging than I thought (and also have been recorded and are available on major streaming platforms). I hope you enjoy this collection of compositions for and including the electric guitar. As a bonus track, check out my piece Saint Quarrelsome for string quartet and electric guitar, that is not available on streaming platforms.

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I give this playlist a Difficult Listening Hour rating of 6/10. 

1. Electric Guitar Phase by Steve Reich performed by Pierre Bibault. Album: Steve Reich.
2. Big Beautiful Dark and Scary by Julia Wolfe performed by the Bang on a Can All Stars. Album: Big Beautiful Dark and Scary.
3. Until it Blazes by Eve Beglarian performed by Seth Josel. Album: The Stroke that Kills. “The overall idea of the piece is to set up various repeating patterns and then gradually group the notes so that new melodies grow out of the accents. For example, when you are playing a three-note pattern, if you accent every fourth event, you will get one melody; if you accent every fifth event, you will get a different melody. There are six patterns in Until It Blazes, each an outgrowth of the previous pattern. In each case, you will first want to establish the pattern very softly with no accents at all, and then very gradually begin to stress a grouping that creates a slower melody arcing across the pattern. This accenting happens gradually during a slow overall crescendo, reaches some high point, and then the accenting recedes as you diminuendo. The length of the piece will vary depending on how slowly you want the cross-melodies to build and recede. The most interesting place is where you can hear both the pattern and the melody that cuts across it.”
4. Hockey (Electric Dry) by John Zorn performed by Dither. Album: Dither Plays Zorn. From TZADIK (Zorn’s record label): In the late ’70s and early ’80s Zorn presented yearly retrospectives of his game pieces at various Downtown venues. He called these events his Olympiads. This long awaited CD presents three of his classic pre-Cobra game pieces in multiple versions by the fabulous Brooklyn-based guitar quartet Dither. Here you will find the building blocks of Zorn’s trademark musical language—virtuosic extended techniques, surprising contrasts, fast group interaction and razor sharp changes. Featuring the first recording of Zorn’s legendary compositions Fencing and Curling, these fabulous realizations will keep you on the edge of your seat from first note to last!
5. Chant from Symphony No. 13 Hallucination City For 100 Guitars by Glenn Branca. Album of the same name. A little about the composer, “Glenn Branca was born in Harrisburg, Pa. in 1948. Starting in 1966 he lived in both Boston and London until 1976 when he moved to NYC where he [lived and worked]. In the last 40 years his work as a composer has included music for experimental rock bands, large ensemble instrumentals for electric guitars, 16 symphonies for both electric instrumentation and acoustic orchestras, chamber ensemble pieces for a wide variety of instrumentation (both electric and acoustic), an opera, a ballet, choral works and music for film, dance, theater and installation art. His ensemble has done hundreds of performances all over the world.”
6. Vampyr! by Tristan Murail performed by Alexandre Gérard. Stream here.
7. 8 fermentations: I by Larry Polansky performed by James Moore & Elliot Simpson. Album: guitars, streets, resonances
8. Red Shift by Lois V Vierk. Album: River Beneath the River. Blurb from TZADIK “Vierk’s music explores texture and microtonality in highly structured pieces that build to swirling high energy intensity. Influenced by minimalism, Japanese Gagaku and Appalachian folk music, Lois Vierk is one of America’s great originals. Her first CD for Tzadik is an exciting collection of compositions for string quartet, brass sextet and a dynamic piece for electric guitar, percussion, cello and synthesizer. Definitive performances of some of Vierk’s greatest works.”
9. Ajiaco by Tania León. Album: Adjacence From the liner notes, “Tania León wrote Ajiaco for the Schanzer/Speach Duo in 1992 (guitarist Jeffrey Schanzer and pianist Bernadette Speach). Ajiaco is a soup or stew found in Latin American cuisines, especially Colombia, usually including chicken or beef with potatoes or some other root vegetables. Leon’s open form score allows for freedom in the performance, providing a road map with several motivic fragments and encouraging the players to spontaneously decide on some aspects of their sequence. Characteristic Latin American rhythms are embedded in these fragments, establishing an infectious foundational groove which provided a springboard for further improvisation in this performance.”
10. Dead City Radio by Fausto Romitelli. Album: ROMITELLI, F.: Audiodrome / Flowing Down Too Slow / The Nameless City / Entrance (RAI Symphony Orchestra, Rundel)
11. Partita by Krzysztof Penderecki. Stream here.