American Record Guide November/December 2002 "The Newest Music" [excerpt, p. 268] The Sonoran Consort is a gifted trio of composers and improvisers from the Tucson area. They like pretty, groove-oriented music, and in some record stores their work might end up in the New-Age bin. But that would be unfair. Open Rail is both a departure and a development from their earlier work, which tended to meander a bit, fueled primarily by intuitive decisions. This disc is much more compositionally oriented, including an extended five movement work. The music is catchy and not hard to digest, but the consort manages to avoid cliches by experimenting with ingenious compositional forms. If you always shake your head at conceptually heavy, aggressive and dissonant modern music, this one's a possibility. Payton MacDonald In addition to writing for "American Record Guide," Payton MacDonald is Director of Percussion and World Music and Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. "Only in this century has rigid adherence to the printed score usurped improvisation in classical music. More and more, contemporary music ensembles and individual performers are bucking that convention, freeing themselves not only to ornament and springfrom the printed page but also to broaden the sphere of reference that music draws upon. Tucson's Sonoran Consort is among those groups. The trio's members are very comfortable in the arena of improvisation. The music of the Sonoran Consort is eclectic, mysterious and evolutionary, growing organically from the hearts of three top players very comfortable in the musical world of today." Dan Buckley, Tucson Citizen "The Sonoran Consort ... straddles the worlds of classical and jazz with an improvisational bent..." Tucson Weekly back to the top "... the music was reminiscent of the Arizona Desert; always changing, frequently beautiful, never boring. Desert winds whisper they don't blare... you were a musical hit." The Tucson Symphony Orchestra Women's Association "Hammes, Hester and Campbell ... guide the morphing music throughout unnamed genres--somewhere between classical, jazz, New Age and world music. Together, they create music of the freshest and most exciting variety- music born of the moment." Matthew Moon, Desert Leaf "Their music is a powerful and organic combination of textures and musical inspiration that promises an exciting performance and challenges traditional notions of music." For the Love of Music Concert Series, Bisbee. Arizona back to the top

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