Raymond J. Lustig: Semmelweis Raymond J. Lustig, Charlotte Mundy & The Rhythm Method

• Raymond J. Lustig: What Is the Day:
• 1 Lustig: What Is the Day 05:39
• Market Squares:
• 2 Lustig: Market Squares 01:45
• Give Birth on the Earthworks:
• 3 Lustig: Give Birth on the Earthworks 03:09
• Best Idea:
• 4 Lustig: Best Idea 02:44
• My Doctor's Hands:
• 5 Lustig: My Doctor's Hands 00:56
• Never a Choice:
• 6 Lustig: Never a Choice 04:01
• Out in the Yard:
• 7 Lustig: Out in the Yard 01:10
• Archaeology:
• 8 Lustig: Archaeology 03:32
• Our Skin So Fair:
• 9 Lustig: Our Skin So Fair 05:11
• As If Your Body Were a Cathedral:
• 10 Lustig: As If Your Body Were a Cathedral 03:10
• You Cannot Stay:
• 11 Lustig: You Cannot Stay 00:51
• My Dark Disgrace:
• 12 Lustig: My Dark Disgrace 04:07
• Etiology:
• 13 Lustig: Etiology 03:54
• Eureka:
• 14 Lustig: Eureka 05:53
• I Am the Experiment:
• 15 Lustig: I Am the Experiment 04:22
• Madness:
• 16 Lustig: Madness 02:10
• Once a Candle:
• 17 Lustig: Once a Candle 01:35
• The Only One:
• 18 Lustig: The Only One 05:51
• Lullaby:
• 19 Lustig: Lullaby 03:35
• Finale:
• 20 Lustig: Finale 01:53
• Total Runtime 01:05:28

Info zu Raymond J. Lustig: Semmelweis

For many years, composer Raymond Lustig has been intrigued and inspired by Dr. Semmelweis. He first conceived of a stage work around the doctor’s story in 2007. At the time, he was a graduate student in music, but he had spent several years doing biomedical research. After many iterations, the fully staged production of SEMMELWEIS came to fruition in 2018, when Lustig joined forces with writer Matthew Doherty and Hungarian director Martin Boross, and the world premiere performances were presented by Budapest Operetta Theatre and Bartók Plusz Opera Festival.

The song cycle recorded here derives from that production. “Our goal was to make a true studio album, rather than a capture of the stage work,” Lustig says. “I knew I wanted to work with Charlotte Mundy, whose voice has always been the ideal for me for this work. We then decided that, rather than try to build a choir of matching female voices, we would instead use only Charlotte’s voice, multiplied over itself, spread out in the stereo field, one unified voice totally surrounding and overwhelming. These female voices often represent a chorus of ghosts of the mothers he could not save (or ‘mother ghosts,’ as we call them), who haunt Dr. Semmelweis. Engineer and co-producer Maximilien Hein and I, as well as engineer Drew Schlingman, recorded with the musicians in my studio at Respirano on Hudson and at The Hit Factory in New York. The theatrical experience and private listening are very different. We knew we needed to rebuild the music from the ground up, reconsidering every detail, refining and elaborating, revising and revising, to get to the true emotional heart of the story as an auditory experience.”

The entire action of SEMMELWEIS may be seen as a reflection – a fever dream or death dream – of Ignaz Semmelweis’ inner psyche at his life’s end. Dr. Semmelweis re-experiences events from throughout his life, perhaps out of sequence, distorted, or unreliable, as if through a lens of a mind in turmoil.

“We envisioned it as a story made of glass that had fallen to the floor, smashed, and the shards lay there reflecting only segments of the meaning, but somehow, gazing upon all of them, letting them come back together in the mind, the meaning might be perceived,” explains Lustig. “Maybe, or maybe just partially, or maybe not at all.”

Charlotte Mundy, voice of Woman and the Mother Ghosts
Raymond J. Lustig, voice of Semmelweis, piano, organ, accordion, music boxes
The Rhythm Method:
Leah Asher, violin
Meaghan Burke, cello
Ranjit Prasad, double bass
Chrystof Knoche, bass clarinet

Recorded at The Hit Factory, NYC and Respirano on Hudson, NYC from 2023 to 2025
Recorded by Maximilien Hein and Drew Schlingman
Additional Production by Drew Schlingman (“Best Idea”, “Eureka”)
Mixed by Maximilien Hein
Mastered by Daniel Shores
Produced by Raymond J. Lustig and Maximilien Hein
Executive Produced by Raymond J. Lustig

Raymond J. Lustig
Composer Raymond J. Lustig’s music has been described as, “entrancing…surreally beautiful… ecstatic…rapturous,” by The New York Times. Born in Tokyo and raised in Queens, New York, Lustig received his B.A. from Holy Cross College, where he pursued his interests in music and the sciences. Before coming to Juilliard to complete his Master’s and Doctorate degrees in composition, Lustig was a published researcher in molecular biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Columbia University. As a composer, he remains deeply inspired by science, nature, and the mind. His awards include the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Rudolf Nissim Prize, and the Aaron Copland Award. In 2016, he was invited by TEDx to speak about his practice of looking to constraint for new inspiration, in both scientific and creative work. Lustig has been commissioned and performed by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall Seattle, The Juilliard Orchestra, Caramoor Music Festival, Metropolis Ensemble, TENET Vocal Ensemble, the Grand Rapids Symphony, and numerous other orchestras and institutions across the country. His work has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, American Music Center’s Live Music for Dance Project, and the European American Musical Alliance in Paris.

Charlotte Mundy
Mundy’s 24/25 season is full of world premieres in venues across the US, Canada, Argentina and Germany. Past performances include critically acclaimed renditions of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maître, Feldman's Three Voices, George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, Iannis Xenakis’ Akanthos, and a set of music for voice and electronics presented by New York Festival of Song, described as "an oasis of radiant beauty" by the New York Times.

As a founding member of TAK ensemble, “one of the most prominent ensembles in the United States practicing truly experimental music” (I Care If You Listen), Mundy has performed at Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress, premiering works by Tyshawn Sorey, Erin Gee, Eric Wubbels, Brandon Lopez, and Natacha Diels. Mundy is also a core member of Ekmeles, described as "beyond expert - almost frightening in their precision” by Fanfare magazine and recent recipients of the Ernst von Siemens Ensemble Prize. As a soloist, Mundy’ recently performed in the world premiere of site specific opera Newtown Odyssey by Kurt Rohde and Marie Lorenz; a solo recital at The Americas Society; premieres of concert works by Francisco del Pino, Alyssa Regent and Aida Shirazi, and the debut of a new collaborative multimedia project with Christian Quiñones.

As a recording artist, Mundy is featured on recordings ranging from contemporary classical music to black metal to prog rock to ambient music. She is featured on guitarist/composer Ben Monder’s latest album, Planetarium, and is the vocal soloist on the studio recording of Bekah Simms’ 2022 Juno award winning composition Bestiary I & II. Her recordings as a member of TAK and Ekmeles have been widely praised.

Her compositions have been performed at Roulette, JACK theater, University of New Mexico, Fuse Factory, and the Higher Ground festival. They include SWEET FLAG!, whose score consists of home-made rosaries, The Empress Negligee and Leopard Queen Dream for voice, piñata/thurible/shakers and percussion, and the surround sound/light/wind/smell installation, Light as a Feather, presented by Harvestworks Digital Media Arts.

Fascinated by interdisciplinary work, Mundy has appeared at the Park Avenue Armory as part of a work by Martin Creed and the Metropolitan Museum singing with Oliver Beer’s Vessel Orchestra. She has an ongoing relationship with New Chamber Ballet led by Miro Magloire, in which she memorizes contemporary vocal works and moves as a member of Magloire’s choreography with the company’s trained dancers. She performed in the documentary music theatre work A Star Has Burnt My Eye, written by Howard Fishman, on the BAM Next Wave Festival.

Born in Toronto and based in Brooklyn, Mundy studied classical voice at the University of Toronto, contemporary performance at the Manhattan School of Music, and is working toward a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the CUNY Graduate Center.

The Rhythm Method
Praised as “fierce, fearless, and virtuosic… unapologetically stylistically omnivorous and versatile” (New Music Box) and “trailblazing...skillful composer-performers” (The New Yorker), The Rhythm Method strives to reimagine the string quartet in a contemporary, feminist context. The four performer-composers of The Rhythm Method continually expand their sonic and expressive palette through the use of improvisation, vocalization, graphic notation, songwriting, and theater.

The Rhythm Method has given performances at Roulette, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, the Met Museum, the Morris Museum, and the Noguchi Museum, and has been featured at the Lucerne Festival Forward, on the String Orchestra of Brooklyn’s String Theories Festival, MATA Festival, Music Mondays, TriBeCa New Music, and the Austrian Cultural Forum’s Moving Sounds Festival. The quartet tours regularly both in the US and abroad, and has performed internationally in France, Austria, and Switzerland. The Rhythm Method seeks to nurture ongoing relationships with universities and schools, cultivating multifaceted creativity and musicianship in students of all ages. They have been in residence at Tulane University, Arkansas State University, Zurich University for Art and Music, Hunter College, Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts, and New York University, and they serve as the quartet-in-residence for Lake George Music Festival’s Composers Institute.

This season’s highlights include the premiere of OCTET, a large-scale, multimedia, work by Paul Pinto, co-commissioned by Bergamot string quartet for string octet with pre-recorded video; the album release shows for both Carrie Frey's 'Seaglass' and Anaïs Maviel's 'Listen to the Rain'; residencies at Berklee, New York University, and the Lake George Music Festival; performances as featured ensemble of the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival; premieres of new works by all four members of The Rhythm Method; and the 7th annual Broad Statements Festival.

The Rhythm Method’s ongoing activities include the Hidden Mothers Project, a programming initiative that highlights works by historical women composers, and Broad Statements, an annual mini-festival celebrating creative music-making by women, non-binary, and gender-expansive people in a wide array of artistic styles.

In June 2024, the quartet released “Pastorale,” an album featuring music by Lewis Nielson, Paul Pinto, Marina Kifferstein on New Focus Recordings. Other releases include their 2022 self-titled debut album, comprised of music by all of the quartet members, “A Few Concerns” (2021), an album of cellist-singer-songwriter Meaghan Burke’s music, on Gold Bolus Recordings, and the group’s signature Wandelweiser Christmas arrangements, volumes I and II. The Rhythm Method’s recording of “Silence Seeking Solace” (with soprano Alice Teyssier) was featured on Dai Fujikura’s “Chance Monsoon” (SONY Japan).

“The American avant garde has a long and sometimes painfully precious tradition of art strictly for art’s sake – and this quartet seems hell-bent on changing that.” — New York Music Daily

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