Empty Ensemble

Empty Ensemble announces a new single arriving on Feb. 24, 2024. “Theme and Variants” continues the Orchestral Songs series with a 3-minute piece of theme and variations — or rather, “variants”, since the theme never really goes away.

The new piece will be available on streaming services and Bandcamp.

Empty Ensemble starts the new year with a new single titled “Black Transits.”

The piece started out as a project assignment in 2017, and in 2022, Empty Ensemble revisited the piece to clean up the mix.

“Black Transits” uses the urban environmental sounds of Seattle’s public transit system as a basis for a three-part work. More information is available on the release page.

The single arrives Jan. 27 on Bandcamp and streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music.

At long last, Empty Ensemble has some official releases lined up!

Gakusei and 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」 were posted on this site in demo form, and now those recordings have been refined to the point for an actual release. (You can still listen to them on the Releases page.) Gakusei starts things off with a digital and physical release on May 27, 2016. 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」 follows on October 28, 2016, also in digital and physical forms.

Gakusei means “student” in Japanese, and the works featured on the 21-minute EP are all student works. 「弦楽四重奏曲其の一」 translates to “String Quartet Songs, Vol. 1”. This nine-part work originally appeared as an album of piano pieces, which have now been arranged for string quartet. The album is rounded out by an orchestral work, Soliloquy of a Vampire, the first of its kind for Empty Ensemble.

CDs will be available exclusively at the Empty Ensemble Shop on Bandcamp. The digital release includes all the usual suspects — iTunes, Spotify, Amazon MP3 Store and Google Play Music.

So as not to confuse matters, some previously posted demo projects have been removed from the Releases page. They’ll be back as they too get refined for an eventual release.