Tapping the Furnace

Over the last two decades, Miami-based composer Dorothy Hindman has created music that delves into process, perception, profundity, and entropy. On her debut solo release Tapping the Furnace, her fascinating and ear-grabbing works are interpreted by some of today’s top new music performers, including cellist Craig Hultgren, pianist Laura Gordy, guitarist Paul Bowman, and percussionist Stuart Gerber. The result is a wide-ranging collection that touches on the visceral contained within Hindman’s highly structured compositions.

At the core of Hindman’s music is a belief in the power of simple materials worked in engaging and captivating fashion. While rock and punk energy is evident, her music also exhibits delicate timbres that might link her to European Post-Spectralist styles (though hers were developed independently of those trends).

Written for amplified cello, “drowningXnumbers” engages every part of the instrument, while “fin de cycle” combines the natural tones of the piano with digital manipulation that reveals rather than obscures. By the time we reach the album’s final piece—”Magic City,” performed by the Kiev Philharmonic—the focus on solo works makes it feel at first almost overwhelmingly lush, but the same essential focus draws it all together.

A committed new music advocate, Hindman is on the composition faculty at the University of Miami, hosts the Po Mo Radio show featuring new music since 1980 on WVUM, 90.5 FM Coral Gables, and reviews new music concerts for South Florida Classical Review and the Miami Herald. She has composed for new music’s top soloists and ensembles, including: Empire City Men’s Chorus, the Gregg Smith Singers, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Women’s Philharmonic Orchestra, Robert Black, dal niente, IonSound, Thamyris, and Goliard Ensemble.