| Chimeras | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | John Zorn |
| Cover: | Chimeras.jpg |
| Released: | April 22, 2003 |
| Recorded: | January 3 & 4, 2003, SUNY Purchase, New York "Postlude" recorded July 8, 2009, Jordan Hall, Boston |
| Genre: | Avant-garde, contemporary classical music |
| Length: | 33:44 |
| Label: | Tzadik TZ 7085 |
| Producer: | John Zorn |
| Chronology: | John Zorn |
| Prev Title: | Voices in the Wilderness |
| Prev Year: | 2003 |
| Next Title: | The Unknown Masada |
| Next Year: | 2003 |
Chimeras (sub-titled A Child’s Adventures in the Realms of the Unreal) is an album of contemporary classical music by American composer John Zorn featuring a 12 part piece inspired by Arnold Schoenberg's atonal composition "Pierrot Lunaire".[1] In 2010 the album was revised and re-recorded, with an additional "Postlude".[2]
The Allmusic site awarded the album 3½ stars.[3] Writing for Pitchfork Media, Alexander Lloyd Linhardt stated "the piece itself is thrillingly diverse, suddenly going from luminous to lugubrious and from classical to chaotic. It's a bold, unexpected new chapter in Zorn's corpus, or it would be if we didn't expect that from him".[4] The Free Jazz Collective stated "it can be described as an absolute musical nightmare. It is dark, frightening, with light touches beaming through, like a lullaby arising out of violence, like a tiny light in the darkness giving you false hope of rescue, like friendly faces turning into gargoyles. Human warmth is present, but only as a delusion or deception... The music is as ambitious as it is pretentious, although it will not leave you indifferent".[5]
All compositions by John Zorn