Dissolve
World Premiere Recording
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PRISM Quartet
Timothy McAllister, soprano saxophone
Zachary Shemon, alto saxophone
Matthew Levy, tenor saxophone
Taimur Sullivan, baritone saxophone
Track Listing:
Dissolve (2018) by Emily Cooley (b. 1990)
1. Evenly (7:11)
2. Slow (5:10)
Liner Notes:
Emily Cooley‘s music has been described as “a beautiful delicacy” by Vermont Today. She notes that many of her compositions were “written in dialogue with and in response to works of contemporary fiction and critical theory. My music questions conventions of narrative and explores the dynamics of power and vulnerability.” Teaching music in Pennsylvania prisons in 2016 led her to a new career: law. Working with incarcerated people “reignited my interest in social justice, and I became a licensed attorney in October 2024.” She currently works in legal aid.
She describes Dissolve as “beginning with the statement of a musical idea in its complete form: an angular, urgent melody that bounces from player to player. As the first movement progresses, this melody warps, becomes layered, and occasionally returns in its original form, but ultimately dissolves into silence. The second movement is a kind of hymn, a quiet reflection on the process that happened in movement one. There is a quality of sadness to this hymn, but it is meant to be more nostalgic than desolate. It ends with a dissolution of its own, recalling the form of the first movement.”
PRISM Quartet’s founding tenor saxophonist and Executive Director Matthew Levy adds, “There is an aura of tenderness emanating from Dissolve, and particularly the second movement. The work has a mesmerizing spiritual quality that washes over the listener and is a hallmark of much of Emily’s music.”
Cooley composed Dissolve in 2018 as the winner of PRISM Quartet’s inaugural Robert Capanna Commissioning Award. The award honors the memory of Robert Capanna (1952-2018), an extraordinary composer and arts leader who served as Executive Director of Settlement Music School for 27 years, as chair of PRISM’s board of directors for 11, and in leadership roles with The Presser Foundation, the Musical Fund Society, and Prudent Management Associates. He was pivotal to the Quartet’s development as a professionally-staffed nonprofit organization, transforming the scale and ambition of the ensemble’s work. Subsequent winners of the Robert Capanna Commissioning Award are Teddy Poll for a work that will premiere in June 2026, and Nick DiBerardino for a 2027 work. This recording follows the 2025 release of PRISM’s world premiere recording of Capanna’s Piccolo Concertante for saxophone quartet and string quintet with guest ensemble Network for New Music.
Robert Capanna
Credits:
Executive Producer; Editing/Mixing/Mastering: Matthew Levy
Produced by PRISM Quartet (Timothy McAllister, Zachary Shemon, Matthew Levy, Taimur Sullivan)
Recorded March 25, 2023 at Elm Street Studios, Conshohocken, PA
Lead Session Engineer: John O. Senior
Assistant Engineer: Nancy Kimmons
Artwork/Design: Jon Rohrer, OfficeOfDevelopment.com
Acknowledgments:
This recording has been made possible with generous support from the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University.
UPC: 850022293146
Record Label / Catalogue Number:
XAS 125
Release Date:
February 13, 2026