The Space Between Us

Released March 24, 2017 on innova Recordings.

Digital Booklet
Album One Sheet

Akropolis Reed Quintet
with live audience participation

"pure gold, shot through with tenderness and grace.”
~ The San Francisco Chronicle

“The probing musicality (is a) wonder to hear.”
~ Fanfare Magazine

About the album

The Space Between Us is the third studio release from Akropolis Reed Quintet, a group with a singular instrumentation, well on its way to redefining how modern wind chamber music groups present classical music. It’s an album about conflict and resolution, a story of how art and its reflection on life can bring people together.

It opens with the first studio recording of Jacob TV’s “Jesus Is Coming” for reed quintet, a composition that juxtaposes fragments of speech and babble against traditional chamber writing. It’s followed by four Akropolis commissioned works. A raucous amalgam of influences, David Biedenbender’s Refraction by turns evokes heavy metal, the vocal music of Guillaume de Machaut, and dubstep. The delicate, often meditative “Gallimaufry” by Rob Deemer belies the chaos implied by the title, while title track The Space Between Us by Gregory Wanamaker explores changing relationships through language, texture, color, and harmony. The album closes with John Steinmetz’s “Sorrow and Celebration,” which imitates a ceremony or ritual, calling people together to mourn and rejoice.

Additional Credits and Thanks

Producer: Courtney Snyder Ng
Production Assistant: Theresa Zink and Nick Smith
Recorded at Bethlehem United Church of Christ in Ann Arbor May 2016
Recorded, Edited, Mixed, and Mastered by Dave Schall Acoustic
Photos by Heather Nash
Sorrow and Celebration was recorded live thanks to the grater Ann Arbor community

Album Videos

  • "“By turns frenetic and soulful, the five pieces on this new release plunge a listener sharply into the world of the Akropolis Reed Quintet, a sharp, sleek ensemble out of the University of Michigan. Moreover, the lyrical episodes that are scattered throughout — particularly the slow movements of the title work by Gregory Wanamaker, and John Steinmetz’s concluding “Sorrow & Celebration,” which calls for participation from the audience — are pure gold, shot through with tenderness and grace. "

    ~ The San Francisco Chronicle

  • "I was entertained, cajoled, intrigued, and transported in probably equal measures by The Space Between, the new release from the Akropolis Quintet. The Space Between Us is the third studio release from Akropolis Reed Quintet, a group with a singular instrumentation, well on its way to redefining how modern wind chamber music groups present classical music."

    ~ Art and Culture Maven

  • "The eleven compositions over a wide waterfront of sounds and moods, ranging from a modern theatrical mood with voices on “Jesus Is Coming” to lovely floating and pastoral reeds melding with delight on “Kyrie for Machaut and Part: and modern classical musings on “Goat Rodeo.” There are some glassy and glossy textures as the reeds coalesce for rich harmonies on “Gallimaufry” , and Reynolds’ bassoon is rich on “Sorrow & Celebration…” whereas the horns turn into sirens on the jarring “The More We Change” and get eerie on “”Death Metal Chicken.” Lots of ideas and concepts, some take you on significant journeys.”

    ~ Jazz Weekly