With Malice Towards None

ALBUM NOTES

With Malice Toward None (2020) for string quartet and electric violin
J. Kimo Williams, composer • Tracy Silverman, electric violin • Apollo Chamber Players

Anchored in an optimistic synthesis of classical, folk, rock, and electronic music, With Malice Toward None explores and elevates the idea of what it means to be human in the 21st century. Pamela Z artfully deconstructs her folk-rock heroes while honoring the spark of youthful nostalgia and early songcraft. Christopher Theofanidis and Mark Wingate shape a jagged, ethereal adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s haunting final masterpiece. Eve Beglarian’s epic Armenian fantasia, We Will Sing One Song, taps into an elemental desire for connection — its yearning duduk-inspired glissandi and enchanting melismas weaving through luminous digital soundscapes before opening into virtuosic, improvisatory percussion and a sense of sonic clarity.

With tradition calling forward, newly arranged Armenian folk songs reclaim their voices more than a century after their ethnomusicological origins.

At the heart of the album, the title track embodies the life and vision of composer J. Kimo Williams, merging storytelling, cultural tensions, and Enlightenment-era ideals with the pulse of rock ’n’ roll. Through this powerful collaboration — uniting Williams’s bold compositional voice, Tracy Silverman’s trailblazing electric violin artistry, and the expressive depth of Apollo Chamber Players — the ensemble extends its adventurous exploration of our contemporary experience, reaching beyond boundaries of time, place, and pandemic.