SEEING NEW MUSIC – Contemporary classical music through the eyes of a graphic designer

In 2015, I published a book of short stories about the making of 24 album covers for new music called “Seeing New Music – Contemporary classical music through the eyes of a graphic designer”. I wrote about the challenges of interpreting the artisitic universes of composers and also of my own personal development from confused music novice to a designer willing to engage with the often highly conceptual world of experimental art music. The stories are illustrated with photographs of the album artwork.

The book is available to buy (see links below) and you can also read it on its own dedicated website: seeingnewmusic.com

Hardback book with screen-printed cover, 72 pages, ISBN 978-87-997969-0-8

Available on Amazon | Cantaloupe Music (US)
Dacapo Records (DK) | Saxo (DK) | from the author (signed copies available)

Composers and artists represented in Seeing New Music include:
Per Nørgård (DK), Paul Hillier (UK), Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen (DK), Jexper Holmen (DK), Anders Koppel (DK), Julia Wolfe (USA), Vagn Holmboe (DK), David Lang (USA), Michael Gordon (USA), Helene Gjerris (DK), Ejnar Kanding (DK), Frank Bretschneider (DE), Bent Sørensen (DK), Morten Olsen (DK), Rune Glerup (DK) and Peter V. Swendsen (USA).

REVIEWS:

“The work of Denise Burt, a New Zealand-born designer based in Copenhagen, makes an elegant visual argument for the enduring value of CD cover design in her limited-edition book Seeing New Music…  Burt’s graphics respond to the radical nature of the music within, as with In C and Timber with a visual shorthand that promises a sensual, emotional experience as well as an intellectual one. Seeing New Music’s 24 items make much recent ‘cover design’ for rock and pop look hackneyed and anaemic.”
– John L. Walters, editor, Eye Magazine (UK), September 2017
> Read the review here

“What Does Music Look Like?” – An audio-visual story about 8 album designs
“… Burt has designed nearly 300 album covers for Dacapo and other labels. We asked her to explain eight of them. Here they are, followed by the music that inspired them. ”
– Tom Huizenga, NPR (US), July 2015
> See the whole story, with music, on National Public Radio’s “Look at this” series

Classical cover art: the good, the bad and the ugly
“Burt’s thoughtfulness, imagination and visual variety is an insight into what can happen when label, composer and artist are working in creative synergy. I especially like what she came up with for Per Nørgard and Pelle Gundmundsen-Holmgreen, images that satisfy on their own terms but which intrigue and entice you to hear the music, the subtle balance that classical cover art should always try to achieve.”
– Tom Service, The Guardian, August 2015
> Read the whole article here

“In a cultural climate where there is considerable, daily navel-gazing, bewailing even, of how to make Classical music—let alone the frightening
contemporary stuff!—relevant and appealing to today’s audiences, this is a book the relevance of which utterly belies the modesty of its scale…
What is refreshing about this story is her openness and honesty… Seeing New Music is beautifully produced and I have found it a delight to read—and to return to.”
– Guy Rickards, Gramophone (UK), May 2015
> See full review here

“Denise Burt is as sensitive to the meaning of the music as are the musicians who perform it. She listens closely to the
music, she studies it, she thinks hard about it, she interprets it. The CDs we have made together, such as ‘death speaks’
and ‘the difficulty of crossing a field’ are beautiful objects but they are also a visual window into the heart of the music.
I never knew that a CD package could do that.”
– David Lang, composer (US), June 2015