KEBYART releases * UNRAVELED*: a contemporary tribute to Maurice Ravel
The year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Maurice Ravel, one of the most refined and unique figures in 20th-century music. To commemorate this occasion, Kebyart presents UNRAVELED, its new album released by Linn Records – Outhere Music, which explores and reinterprets the French composer’s legacy from a bold and deeply personal perspective, even though Ravel never wrote for a saxophone quartet.
Far from being a simple transcription, UNRAVELED it offers a sonic journey thatunravelsthe elegant complexity of Ravel’s language. The album brings together Kebyart’s own arrangements of seminal works such as *Le Tombeau de Couperin* and the *Pavane pour une infante défunte*, along with a wide selection of French Baroque pieces by Jean-Philippe Rameau. This dialogue between eras highlights Ravel’s admiration for the ornamentation, formal clarity, and rhythmic refinement inherited from the Baroque tradition.
Rameau's presence is no coincidence: his Pièces de clavecin serve here as a historical mirror reflecting many of Ravel's aesthetic ideas. Through these works, Kebyart connects past and present, revealing how 18th-century French music continues to resonate in modern compositional thinking.
The album is rounded off with two commissions from contemporary composers who engage directly with Ravel's musical philosophy. In Les perfectibilités – traité d’ornement, Mikel Urquiza explores the notion of ornamentation, radical simplicity, and constant refinement, articulating a fragmented and poetic discourse. For his part, Joan Pérez-Villegas paysan energetic and provocative tribute with Debout, Maurice!, a work that reactivates the spirit of Ravel from a contemporary perspective.
Recorded at the Josep Carreras Auditorium in Vila-seca, UNRAVELED it is the result of an intense artistic and sonic endeavor, captured in great detail by sound engineer Sixto Cámara Moya. The album not only celebrates Ravel but also questions, reimagines, and projects his legacy into the future, solidifying Kebyart’s collaboration with Linn Records – Outhere Music in a project of great artistic ambition.
And as a final nod—and perhaps as a bit of poetic justice—it’s worth remembering that, although Ravel never wrote for a saxophone quartet, he was genuinely fascinated by the instrument: so much so that in his famous *Boléro*, he gave the saxophone two of its most unforgettable solos. Who knows… perhaps UNRAVELED this is, after all, the album that Ravel would have enjoyed listening to.
