Guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson has released a video of her performing her song “Night Shift” live with a newly formed sextet of master improvisers—Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, Nick Dunston on bass, Tomas Fujiwara on drums, Jacob Garchik on trombone, and Adam O’Farrill on trumpet—at Roulette in Brooklyn on September 8, 2021. The performance took place just three days before the musicians went to Sear Sound in Manhattan to record the piece for Amaryllis, one of Halvorson’s two Nonesuch debut albums, along with Belladonna, released this past May. You can watch the performance below and hear the albums here.

“Amaryllis features some of my favorite musicians on the planet,” Halvorson says. “I started writing the music in 2020, when the world slowed and most activities came to a halt, and all I had was my guitar, a pencil, some staff paper, and a computer. The pleasure of imagining what the music might sound like kept me sane during that time and gave me reason to push forward.”

The two suites of Amaryllis and Belladonna, which Halvorson describes as “modular and interlocking,” were produced and mixed by John Dieterich (Deerhoof) for the albums. Amaryllis is a six-song suite performed by the sextet. The Mivos string quartet— Olivia De Prato (violin), Maya Bennardo (violin), Victor Lowrie Tafoya (viola), and Tyler J. Borden (cello)—joins for three of the songs, making this the largest ensemble for which Halvorson has written to date. The suite showcases Halvorson’s many musical influences from jazz, experimental, new music, and beyond.

Belladonna is a set of five compositions written for Halvorson on guitar plus the Mivos Quartet. It is Halvorson’s first time writing for a string quartet. Mivos’ parts are through-composed and augmented by Halvorson’s guitar improvisations.