Shapes in CollectiVE Space

“Life is a collection of fleeting yet profound moments, and as we both navigate the difficult journey of witnessing our close family members losing their sense of reality due to dementia, SHAPES IN COLLECTIVE SPACE is a search for light in the passing of time. From the tender beginnings of love to the poignant pangs of loss, life unfolds through a series of passing experiences. Our music is a reflection of these memories, drawing from a kaleidoscope of diverse American influences that encourage warm introspection and a deeper appreciation for the transience that shapes our collective humanity.”

- Tallā Rouge

CBC ‘In Concert’ Album of the Week • #2 on Billboards • Featured on AnEarful Podcast • Featured in BBC Late Night • Bandcamp Best Contemporary Classical Album (Sept) •

Reviewed by Gramophone Magazine • Fanfare Magazine • The Whole Note • Musical America • I care if You Listen • Modern Notebook • American Viola Society

CBC ‘In Concert’ Album of the Week • #2 on Billboards • Featured on AnEarful Podcast • Featured in BBC Late Night • Bandcamp Best Contemporary Classical Album (Sept) • Reviewed by Gramophone Magazine • Fanfare Magazine • The Whole Note • Musical America • I care if You Listen • Modern Notebook • American Viola Society

Tallā Rouge's debut album, "Shapes in Collective Space," reflects on life's fleeting yet profound moments, weaving together a narrative of love, loss, childlike glee, and reflection. Featuring diverse and genre-defying compositions by inti figgis-vizueta, Akshaya Avril Tucker, Kian Ravaei, Karl Mitze, Gala Flagello, Gemma Peacocke, and Leilehua Lanzilotti, Tallā Rouge sonically explores the raw emotions that shape our collective humanity — beckoning us to embrace and cherish the impermanence of life.

To our amazing mentors, family, composers, colleagues, and friends who have supported this album with love, and extra special thanks to Elaine Martone for bringing our vision to life ❤️

Seesaw                                                    Karl Mitze (b. 1989)

Navazi: I. Arise                                  Kian Ravaei (b. 1999)

Fluorescein                                            Gemma Peacocke (b. 1984)

Navazi: II. Hide                                   Kian Ravaei

Shapes in Collective Space             inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993)

Navazi: III. Rejoice                            Kian Ravaei

Burn as Brightly                                  Gala Flagello (b. 1994)

Navazi: IV. Return                              Kian Ravaei

Breathing Sunlight                              Akshaya Avril Tucker (b. 1992)

silhouette, mirror                               Leilehua Lanzilotti (b. 1983)

  • Seesaw is an exploration of the way that human brains, especially children’s brains, can bounce from idea to idea quickly and without effort when they aren’t inhibited by the structures and concerns of our busy adult lives. The melodies bounce around with joyous abandon and then find their way into deeper, more grounded thoughts before once again returning to the carefree, and natural flow of the beginning of the piece.

    -Karl Mitze

  • Navazi is a collection of composed improvisations inspired by the kamancheh, a traditional Iranian bowed string instrument resembling a Western fiddle. The title is a Persian word meaning both “to play an instrument” and “to caress.” Each movement draws from different sectiopns of Dastgah-e Nava, one of the musical modes in Iranian classical music.

    -Kian Ravaei

  • Fluorescein is a fluorescent compound that is often used as a flower tracer; a fluid used to track flow, magnitude, direction, and circulation patterns of another fluid. For this piece I thought of the two violas as two separate but intertwined fluids, one always circling and darting around to keep up with the other.

    -Gemma Peacocke

  • I think the capacity to hold multiple truths in one space is essential to experimental practices. I believe bending and twisting sound & notation, or communicative structures in general, is a path towards achieving a limitless/borderless/joyous (sonic) world.

    -inti figgis-vizueta

  • Burn as Brightly was inspired by and titled after a quote by playwright George Bernard Shaw: “I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

    -Gala Flagello

  • Breathing Sunlight is about moments spent with those who will leave us soon. Simple things, like lying on the grass, in the sun, breathing - these moments of conscious stillness, within a mind racked by mental and physical discomfort - are as significant as they are fleeting. The love we feel in those moments is strong, transcending our physical boundaries, and becoming memories for those left behind.

    -Akshaya Avril Tucker

  • The musical material for silhouette, mirror comes from Lanzilotti’s string orchestra work, with eyes the color of time, a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music. The title of silhouette, mirror specifically refers to two works of art that were featured in The Contemporary Museum (Spalding House) in Honolulu when it first opened: the bronze doors at the entrance of the museum by Robert Graham which had silhouettes of women in them, and James Seawright’s Mirror XV(1987).

    -Leilehua Lanzilotti