Australian composer Joseph Franklin's The Horror of the Avant-Garde(s) is a concerto for piano (Mark Hannaford) and percussion (Satoshi Takeishi) soloists and 13 players that far exceeds the expectations of the genre. Integrating several modes of improvisation within a fully structured framework and a polystylistic musical language, the work was premiered in Melbourne in an interdisciplinary presentation, incorporating butoh dance theatre, visual art, and culinary "horrors." Franklin has created a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk for our collage-shaped era, and this release celebrates it's US premiere in 2026.
