With the increase in technology available to musicians, many have feared that work in the so-called "classical" style is doomed to extinction. However, as long as composers/artists like Mary Lou Newmark emerge, nothing could be further from the truth. Although Newmark takes the very modern route of writing and playing every note on the album, her virtuosity is a trademark of the days before digital editing and step-by-step sequencing. Newmark plays her five-string electric violin with such mastery and taste, it is not surprising that the liner notes boast a list of credentials as long as my arm. However, make no mistake, she does not play by the music school rules. On "Voices of Faith," Newmark combines her string-work with tribal chants, spoken word and drum loops to create something more adventurous than academic. During this ten minute head-trip, her violin moves from gypsy fiddle to Irish jig to timbres strange enough to make you double-check that it actually is a violin. "Comments on the Cosmos" similarly explores the musique concrete tradition by melding drum loops, electronic trills and a monologue regarding religion and physics.

Not everything here is an avant-garde reverie, however. The opening "Prayer" is a haunting piece that drips with cathedral ambience. With a sound as old as blood and stone, this composition will appease the hardliners. "Meditation" stands as a bridge between the antique and the avant-garde. While its structure and feel is traditional, the tone of the solo violin is just electric enough to make you aware that something new is afoot. The sustain on the last note holds it just to that point where a teetering balance is achieved between the desire for resolution and the excitement of perpetual longing. The suite "3 on the Green" also mixes the older style with the new technology. In particular, its first movement uses a delay to build an almost baroque solo piece.

At the center of the album is the seven-part song cycle "Seven Sacred Stones." Beginning with pizzicato strings, it glides into heavily processed legato swoops before descending into a cavern of glissando that emerges from the darkness like luminous insects. From here, Newmark runs her violin through almost metal distortion and flange effects before finishing the cycle with an exercise in tones I simply do not have words to describe.

Intelligent and skillful, Newmark presents compositions that will challenge listeners from both the classical and modern camps. Even more impressively, she has done so in a way that will win accolades from both.