Sufjan Stevens is many things: indie composer, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist (did you know he plays the English Horn?), and paradigm-shifter, to name a few. But a classical composer? Shudder the thought!
While Stevens has flirted with the classical music scene throughout his career (collaborations with the Osso String Quartet and Nico Muhly come to mind), he established himself first and foremost as a singer-songwriter. And sing and song-write he did! With 13 albums, three compilation albums, three soundtracks, two mixtapes, thirteen EPs, twenty singles (including one as a featured artist), eight promotional singles, eight music videos, and Grammy and Academy Award nominations under his belt with no signs of stopping any time soon, in spite of recent revelations regarding his health, Stevens has firmly cemented his reputation as an artist to be reckoned with.
But In 2019, Stevens dipped his toes a little deeper into the classical waters when Houston Ballet commissioned “Reflections,” a ballet scored simply for two pianists and 11 dancers with choreography by Justin Peck.
Recorded in 2023 by pianists Timo Andres and Conor Hanick and released as an album, the approximately 25-minute work unfurls heretofore hidden layers of Stevens’s musicality.
If the listener is expecting Carrie and Lowell or Javelin in this release, they won’t find it. Reflections abandons the electronic finesse, somber tone, and lyrical introspection that Stevens has become synonymous with in his songwriting. But fear not! In its place, a kaleidoscopic whirlwind of harmony and texture emerges, along with some of the most genuinely electric piano writing I’ve heard in recent years.
Broken up into seven quirkily named movements, the ballet ranges from ecstatic and frenetic, like the aptly named Ekstasis (Greek for “ecstasy,” with the literal translation “to be or stand outside oneself”):
…To the subdued, gentler Rodinia (named after the supercontinent that encompassed most of the earth’s land mass nearly a billion and a half years ago):
And with perhaps the strangest name of the album, enter the glittery, dazzling, and bizarre pomp and circumstance that is And I Shall Come To You Like A Stormtrooper In Drag Serving Imperial Realness:
Though the ballet has no obvious narrative, Stevens still clearly relishes the opportunity to communicate something more to the listener through the titles of each track. Other highlights include Mnemosyne (titled after the Greek goddess of memory), Revanche (defined by Merriam-Webster as a “political policy designed to recover lost territory or status” ), and Reflexion (French for “reflection”); I’ll leave it to you to interpret what they may suggest.
Reflections is stormy, colorful, weird, wonderful, and wildly expressive. It is as much Sufjan Stevens as Sufjan Stevens has ever been, despite being so radically different from anything he’s ever composed, performed, recorded, or collaborated on. I couldn’t possibly recommend it more.
