Cruising Down the Strange Highway of Life: Composer Gity Razaz on Her Debut Album and Finding Inspiration in the Surreal
Gity Razaz. Credit: Ronald Andrew Schvarztman.
The cover art for most classical albums usually relies on a glamorous studio shot of the artist or a generically tranquil landscape that hardly relates to the music we're about to experience.
But that's not at all the case on the cover of The Strange Highway, the debut album from composer Gity Razaz. A pencil and ink drawing depicting a cloaked figure with an arrow through the heart, whose head is a series of celestial orbs and auras, this artwork from Daniel Martin Diaz not only draws us in — it perfectly captures Razaz's sound world, one inspired by the Surrealism art movement of the early 20th century.
"I am a visual person, and my music has a tendency to be visual," Razaz says on the latest episode of the Classical Post podcast. "My current obsession is Remedios Varo — her works unfold over broader, mystical, and metaphysical realms."
And like Varo and her fellow Surrealists, who balanced rational takes on everyday life with fantastical elements rooted in the dreams and nightmares of the subconscious mind, Razaz's compositions find her translating her intellectual and metaphysical curiosities into vivid, incredibly gripping music.
"I usually write visceral music that's dramatically supercharged and energetic, but I also try to balance that with some lyricism and mystery. I feel it's a byproduct of living in our time, where there's this sense of being disconnected from reality. I feel like my music attempts to bring some peace and connection to reality, to the present."
In this conversation, we discuss more about her BIS Records album, which brings together a wide variety of work she's composed over 15 years. Plus, she shares the prebiotic/probiotic powder that helps her jumpstart her mornings, how finding inspiration is as simple as watching her three-year-old daughter at play, and her go-to place for incredible oysters and martinis in New York City.
Listen to The Strange Highway wherever you stream or download music.
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