An Associate Professor at the Eastman School of Music, Brad Lubman is also the founding Music Director of Ensemble Signal. He has conducted major orchestras around the world, and has worked with some of the most important contemporary music ensembles, including the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Steve Reich and Musicians, and the LA Phil New Music Group. He has a CD of his own compositions, Insomniac, out on the Tzadik label. Tangents was commissioned by the LA Phil for this concert, and Lubman wrote the following note:

“I have always been fascinated by the types of complex and sometimes nonsensical or irreconcilable narratives one may find in certain dreams.  Additionally, I enjoy the various odd or extraordinary coincidences that sometimes occur in everyday life.  Along those lines, I construct much of my music to avoid following a given or predictable narrative. Here’s an example:  You think you’re about to bite into a steak but it actually turns out to be peanut butter ice-cream which, as you’re eating it, turns into a beautiful salad that turns out to taste like the steak you thought you were about to eat, when you realize it’s none of the above and you’re simply holding a glass of sherry which as you sip it turns out to be a review textbook for algebra which you then drop onto the table in shock, noticing that it was actually a stack of pancakes.  My idea is to enter a world of dreams, where the imagination flows freely from moment to moment, so that each turn of events is about the moment we enter the moment.”