Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and sound artist Ellen Reid’s latest album, Big Majestic, encourages city dwellers to meditate on the atmospheric noises of parks. Reid, who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her opera, p r i s m, channels healing energy into this new LP.
Drawing inspiration from iconic parks worldwide, including New York’s Central Park, Los Angeles’s Griffith Park, London’s Regent’s Park, and Tokyo’s Ueno Park, Reid’s tracklist is informed by ethereal aesthetics and organic sound. She assembles work from her acclaimed installation Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK, a public art project that “reimagines urban parks as interactive soundscapes.” Also featured on the album are Shabaka Hutchings’ kaleidoscopic shakuhachi, tenor saxophone progressions on Spiritual Sun, and Jame McVinnie performing an electrifying synth organ epic.
Reid’s musical arrangement of the record doesn’t isolate songs to specific places. Instead, she creates a unified body of work that synchronizes with the soundtrack of the natural world.
