Today we’re putting The Tonearm's needle on musician and composer Erik Hall.
Based in Michigan, Erik Hall has spent the last five years doing something that sounds simple but definitely is not: recording landmark works of contemporary classical music entirely on his own.
Erik’s 2020 solo reconstruction of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians won the Libera Award for Best Classical Record. Reich wrote to tell him he'd reinvented the piece. A 2023 interpretation of Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato followed, and now Hall has completed the trilogy. Solo Three came out in January on Western Vinyl, and it takes on works by Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel, and Reich again—every note performed and recorded by Hall himself, no loops, no sequencers.
Erik is here to walk us through the project and the thinking behind it. Enjoy.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Erik Hall’s Solo Three)
---
---
---
• Did you enjoy this episode? Please share it with a friend! You can also rate The Tonearm ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Subscribe! Be the first to check out each new episode of The Tonearm in your podcast app of choice.
• Looking for more? Visit podcast.thetonearm.comfor bonus content, web-only interviews + features, and the Talk Of The Tonearm email newsletter. You can also follow us on Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
• Be sure to bookmark our online magazine, The Tonearm! → thetonearm.com
","author_name":"Lawrence Peryer"}