- Eric Nathan, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Gil Rose, et. al.: “Missing Words” (New Focus Recordings)
- Danielle Eva Schwob, PUBLIQuartet, et. al.: “Out of the Tunnel” (Innova)
- Judd Greenstein, yMusic: “Together” (New Amsterdam)
A few weeks ago, in this column, I wrote about that moment when you’re driving along a highway at consistent speed and you can’t tell what’s moving and what isn’t. Galileo described this sensation as relative motion (or would have if cars and highways existed in 17th-century Florence). Siddhartha Gautama described it as emptiness (or would have if cars and highways existed in 5th-century BCE India). It’s not the same exact sensation, but modern-day Germans have, along with cars and highways, a word for something similar: Eisenbahnscheingbewegung. Literally “railway-illusion-motion,” it’s described by writer Ben Schott as “the false sensation of movement when, looking out from a stationary train, you see another train depart.”