Alexej Gerassimez is one of the world’s most extraordinary percussionists – a musician who continually redefines the boundaries of his instrument with inexhaustible curiosity, technical brilliance and artistic vision. With ‘Black Mountain’, he is now releasing his new album – also his first featuring his own compositions for percussion and orchestra. The live recording of two concerts with the NDR Radiophilharmonie conducted by Gordon Hamilton (May 2025) presents a musical journey between archaic rhythms, orchestral soundscapes and delicate chamber music moments.
The initial spark for the programme’s development was Gerassimez’s idea of ‘Elements of Drums’: an exploration of the basic material components of percussion instruments – water, wood, stone, metal and skin – and their sonic development into orchestral spheres.
Black Mountain is not just an album, but a document of curiosity, devotion and wonder at what sound can be. Every beat, every rustle, every metallic shimmer tells of movement and metamorphosis – of the transformation of ice into water, rhythm into melody, silence into sound. Or, as Alexej Gerassimez himself describes it: ‘Black Mountain is like a travelogue of all my recent musical discoveries, experiences and encounters. And it’s fantastic to be able to tell this story together with the NDR Radiophilharmonie and Gordon Hamilton.’
