School of Music Visiting Artist
The music, all original compositions by Grdina but mostly based on classical Arabic and Persian modes (many with quarter-tones, superbly executed by Helias and Roberts), provides a context for creative group interplay and solos that often involve extended tonality. The music is intricate, sometimes delicate, other times high-risk exciting. There are dark, brooding excursions propelled by Middle Eastern vamps as well as more contrapuntally through-composed works (“Wayward”) that relate to the music on Inroads.