Christopher Jesina 12/10/24 Christopher Jesina 12/10/24

American Counterpoints Receives Two GRAMMY® Nominations - Named One of NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2024

American Counterpoints Receives Two GRAMMY® Nominations

Best Classical Compendium
Best Classical Instrumental Solo for Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto

Named One of NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2024 and Top 10 Classical Albums of 2024

Experiential Orchestra
James Blachly, Music Director
Curtis Stewart, Violin Soloist

Available Now on Bright Shiny Things

“This important – arguably long overdue – album spotlights two versatile mid-20th century artists whose music fell into neglect.”
– NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2024

"a fine example of the sober yet seething angularity of its era, leavened with warm strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness"
– The New York Times on Perry's Violin Concerto

“It’s not often you can claim a CD offers true revelations, but that’s the case with this fascinating release”
– The Strad

Stream the Album Now
Downloads and CDs available for press on request.

jamesblachly.com | experientialorchestra.com | curtisjstewart.com | brightshiny.ninja

American Counterpoints – the newest album and co-creation between James Blachly, GRAMMY®-winning founder and Music Director of Experiential Orchestra, and GRAMMY®-nominated violinist Curtis Stewart, whom The New York Times credits with “combining omnivory and brilliance” – celebrates the centenary of composer Julia Perry, as well as the work of fellow composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson.

This album, which Tom Huizenga of NPR Music writes presents “strong performances” by the Blachly-led Experiential Orchestra and a “committed performance” of Perry’s Violin Concerto by Curtis Stewart, received two GRAMMY® nominations in the categories of Best Classical Compendium and Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The 2025 GRAMMYs will take place Sunday, February 2 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and will broadcast live on the CBS Television Network and stream live and on demand on Paramount+. This is the first GRAMMY nomination for the music of Julia Perry.

In addition to the world premiere recording of Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, American Counterpoints includes her Prelude for Strings, Symphony in One Movement for Violas and Basses, and Ye, Who Seek the Truth, as well as Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s Sinfonietta No. 1 and Louisiana Blues Strut for solo violin. Curtis Stewart’s We Who Seek complements both composers’ works, and serves as the album’s finale. The album is produced by GRAMMY-winner Blanton Alspaugh and Soundmirror.

American Counterpoints has also been named as one of NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2024 across all genres, as well as one of NPR Music’s Top 10 Classical Album of 2024. NPR’s Tom Huizenga reports, “After the start of the Black Lives Matter movement, steps (albeit small ones) have been taken to better represent the work of Black American composers, past and present. This important – arguably long overdue – album spotlights two versatile mid-20th century artists whose music fell into neglect. The once-celebrated Julia Perry died in 1979, leaving her arresting violin concerto in disarray. Recently reconstructed, it receives a committed performance by Curtis Stewart, keen to the score's chromatic nuances. Her Prelude is serene, unlike the experimental Symphony in One Movement, which probes dark harmonies with the urgency of a search party. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, an agile pianist-composer who collaborated with Max Roach and Marvin Gaye, channels Handel in his neoclassical Sinfonietta No. 1 and conjures gritty southern styles in Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk for Violin. These strong performances by the Experiential Orchestra will hopefully spark a resurgence in the music of these exceptional composers.”

Julia Perry (1924-1979) was an African American composer, born in Lexington, Kentucky and raised in Akron, Ohio. Her early career was filled with promise: she spent two summers at the Berkshire Music Center, studied with Luigi Dallapiccola and briefly with Nadia Boulanger, won the Prix Fontainebleau and two Guggenheim Fellowships, and her Study for Orchestra was performed by the New York Philharmonic in 1965. But tragically, many of her roughly 100 compositions remain unknown. Perry suffered a paralytic stroke in 1970. As musicologist J. Michele Edwards writes, “Her letters reveal her effort to walk, talk, and conduct again. She did learn to write with her left hand and resumed composing; however, she endured tragic emotional and financial difficulties.”

Through the research work of the non-profit organization Videmus led by Dr. Louise Toppin, in partnership with Boosey & Hawkes, many of Julia Perry’s unpublished works are now being discovered and made available for performance for the first time. The core of the effort to publish Perry’s music has been the three-person Videmus editorial team of Louise Toppin; conductor Christopher Wilkins, music director of the Akron Symphony; and James Blachly. Blachly first encountered Perry’s music in 2014, and in addition to his work on the editorial team, has championed Perry’s music in performances for the past five years. With Toppin, he co-directed the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in March 2024. The four-day Festival brought together 140 performers and scholars in New York in the largest Julia Perry celebration in the world to date. Blachly has also brought Perry’s music to new audiences through performances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Experiential Orchestra, and Johnstown Symphony Orchestra.

Known as “Perky," Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was said to have had a musical talent rivaled only by Leonard Bernstein. He played jazz piano with Max Roach, studied conducting at Berkshire Music Center, and was a prolific and accomplished composer. While he composed roughly 30 works in a classical idiom, the vast majority of his compositions were for film and television.

American Counterpoints aims to dramatically change the visibility and reputation of these two extraordinary African American composers, bringing their works to a much wider audience and a place of higher prestige, as well as to help inspire more frequent performances of their music throughout the world.

Of their intention in making this album, Curtis Stewart and James Blachly say:

"The title American Counterpoints refers to the compositional technique of interweaving independent melodies into a powerful whole, and the strength, integrity, and imaginative music that results. It underscores how these two masterful composers were required to create new musical paths for themselves because the mainstream of classical music did not have a place for them centerstage. Julia Perry flourished in Europe, with only limited success in the United States. Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's boundless musical talents found most success in film and television, jazz and popular music. Yet despite being marginalized and largely ignored for many decades, both composers are essential to American classical music, and our intention with this album is to advocate for their music to claim its rightful place within the core of our American repertoire."

The juxtaposition of the two composers on the album forms its own counterpoint, adding a layer to the compositions themselves; Curtis Stewart’s final track weaves together all three compositional voices.

ALBUM TRACKLIST
American Counterpoints
James Blachly, Experiential Orchestra, Curtis Stewart
Bright Shiny Things | Release Date: March, 1, 2024

1. Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
Curtis Stewart, violin

2. Prelude for Strings by Julia Perry, Arr. Roger Zahab

3-5. Sinfonietta No. 1 by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
I: Sonata Allegro
II: Song Form-Largo
III: Rondo-Allegro furioso

6. Symphony in One Movement for Violas and String Basses by Julia Perry

7. Ye, Who Seek the Truth by Julia Perry, Arr. Jannina Norpoth

8-13. Concerto for Violin and Orchestra by Julia Perry
I. Slow; Moderate; Fast; Moderate
II. Slow; Moderate; Fast
III. Moderate
IV. Fast
V. Slow; Fast
VI. Fast; Moderate; Fast
Curtis Stewart, violin

14. We Who Seek by Curtis Stewart
Curtis Stewart, violin

Album co-curated by Curtis Stewart and James Blachly
Executive Producer James Blachly
Director of Artistic Planning Pauline Kim Harris
Produced by Blanton Alspaugh (Soundmirror)
Engineering, Mixing and Mastering by Mark Donahue (Soundmirror)

Christopher Jesina 12/10/24 Christopher Jesina 12/10/24

Feb. 8: Telegraph Quartet in Sound Imagined – Performing in Madison

Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.

Telegraph Quartet in Sound Imagined
Presented by Madison Performing Arts Foundation

Performing the Music of Rebecca Clarke,
Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bedřich Smetana

Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 7:00pm
The Picker House | 110 St. Michaels Ave. | Madison, IN
More information

“soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail ... an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape.”
– San Francisco Chronicle

www.TelegraphQuartet.com

Madison, IN – On Saturday, February 8, 2025 at 7:00pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented in concert by the Madison Performing Arts Foundation at The Picker House (110 St. Michaels Ave). The award-winning ensemble will perform a program titled Sound Imagined, which features the music of Rebecca Clarke, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bedřich Smetana.

The Telegraph Quartet formed in 2013 with an equal passion for standard and contemporary chamber music repertoire. Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape” and “powerfully adept… with a combination of brilliance and subtlety,” the Telegraph Quartet was awarded the prestigious 2016 Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award and the Grand Prize at the 2014 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

Known for their technical prowess and appreciation for the history behind music, the Telegraph Quartet bring their well-honed musical chemistry and expressive performance to a program titled Sound Imagined. The idea that a composer might never actually hear their own creation might at first seem like an oxymoron: unheard music. The Telegraph Quartet explores just that - compositions that may never have been fully experienced by the creators themselves. Rebecca Clarke, a truly accomplished composer of the 20th century, composed her Poem for string quartet but would never see the work published and disseminated in her lifetime. Beethoven had begun losing his hearing by his late 20s and by the time the good-natured “Harp” Quartet was composed, its cheery quality belied the composer’s 11-year-long struggle with hearing loss that would have kept him from fully experiencing this work. Similarly, Smetana would not have been able to even hear his own first string quartet at all, as he fell victim to severe hearing loss in 1874. His own autobiographical string quartet, for all its joy and enthusiasm, ends with a piercing e-string note that denotes the onset of that hearing loss two years prior to the quartet’s creation.

The Telegraph Quartet’s latest album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths, was released in 2023 on Azica Records. The first in the Telegraph’s three-album series focused on string quartets of the first half of the 20th century, Divergent Paths explores the bewildering and unbridled creativity of the period through the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel, whose music on this album weaves threads of great contrast and surprising similarity. The album has been met with critical acclaim, with The New York Times reporting, “[I]n the Schoenberg, they achieve something truly special, meticulously guiding its often wayward progress. At times Schoenberg makes the four strings sound almost orchestral, but the Telegraph players can also make his contrapuntal tangles radiantly clear. Every minute of their account sounds gripping and purposeful, which is one of the highest compliments you can pay the piece.”

More about Telegraph Quartet: The Quartet has performed in concert halls, music festivals, and academic institutions across the United States and abroad, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. The Quartet is currently the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Michigan.

Notable collaborations include projects with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; and the St. Lawrence Quartet and Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by Osvaldo Golijov, John Harbison, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger.

In August 2023, the Telegraph Quartet released its latest album Divergent Paths, the first in a series of recordings titled 20th Century Vantage Points, on Azica Records. This first volume features two works that (to the best of the Quartet’s knowledge) have never been recorded on the same album before: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7. Through this series, the Telegraph Quartet intends to explore string quartets of the 20th century – an era of music that the group has felt especially called to perform since its formation. The New York Times praised the Telegraph’s performance as “…full of elegance and pinpoint control…” Divergent Paths follows Into The Light (Centaur, 2018), an album highlighting a gripping set of works by Leon Kirchner, Anton Webern, and Benjamin Britten.

Beyond the concert stage, the Telegraph Quartet seeks to spread its music through education and audience engagement. The Quartet has given master classes at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Collegiate and Pre-College Divisions, through the Morrison Artist Series at San Francisco State University, and abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan. In fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet. In the summers of 2022 and 2024, the Telegraph Quartet traveled to Vienna to work with Schoenberg expert Henk Guittart in conjunction with the Arnold Schoenberg Center, researching all of Schoenberg's string quartets.

For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Concert details:

Who: Telegraph Quartet
Presented by Madison Performing Arts Foundation
What: Music by Rebecca Clarke, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bedřich Smetana
When: Saturday, February 8, 2025 @ 7:00 PM
Where: The Picker House, 110 St. Michaels Ave., Madison, IN 47250
Tickets and information: www.madisonperformingartsfoundation.com

Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as having “soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail” and being “an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape,” is presented by the Madison Performing Arts Foundation on Saturday, February 8, 2025. The concert will feature Rebecca Clarke’s Poem for String Quartet Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 74 “Harp” and Bedřich Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 “From My Life,” in a program curated by the ensemble and titled Sound Imagined. Through this performance, the Telegraph Quartet explore the idea that a composer may never actually hear and experience their own creations.

Christopher Jesina 12/10/24 Christopher Jesina 12/10/24

Dec. 22: Ethan Iverson Performs Music from Playfair Sonatas at Mezzrow

Ethan Iverson Performs Music from Playfair Sonatas at Mezzrow

Clockwise: Pianist Ethan Iverson, Violinist Miranda Cuckson, Pianist Hiroko Sasaki, Trumpeter Tim Leopold

Ethan Iverson Performs Music from His Album
Playfair Sonatas at Mezzrow

Violin Sonata with Miranda Cuckson, violin
Trumpet Sonata with Tim Leopold, trumpet
Plus Sonata for Piano Four-Hands, with Hiroko Sasaki, piano

Playfair Sonatas is Available Now on Ulricht AudioVisual
Stream the Album

Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 4pm
Mezzrow | 163 West 10th Street | New York, NY
Free Admission

“a welcome stream of fully notated music by the jazz pianist and composer Ethan Iverson” – The New York Times

CDs and press downloads available upon request.

https://iverson.substack.com | www.urlicht-av.com

New York, NY – On Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 4pm, pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson performs music from his recently released album Playfair Sonatas – Violin Sonata with violinist Miranda Cuckson and Trumpet Sonata with trumpeter Tim Leopold plus his Sonata for Piano Four-Hands with pianist Hiroko Sasaki – at Mezzrow (163 W 10th St). Admission is free. Located in Manhattan’s West Village, Mezzrow, is a cultured jazz club at which Iverson has performed on several different occasions, including a duo engagement with bassist Ron Carter during the club’s first month of operation.

Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas album was released on the Urlicht AudioVisual label on November 15. The recording features six sonatas composed by Iverson for six different instruments and piano, and recorded by Iverson with some of today’s most vibrant classical performers – Miranda Cuckson, violin; Makoto Nakura, marimba; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Mike Lormand, trombone; Taimur Sullivan, saxophone; and Tim Leopold, trumpet. The album is bookended by a Fanfare and Recessional performed by the whole ensemble.

Playfair Sonatas was born in 2020 during the pandemic, when Iverson met curator, producer, and frequent commissioner of new work Piers Playfair for a summertime outdoor dinner. Like most musicians that year, Iverson had downsized and was concerned about making a baseline income. He had recently moved and rented a smaller, cheaper studio, and when Playfair asked if there was anything he could help with, Iverson replied, “Yeah, I’d love to cover the studio rent for a few months.” The two agreed that in exchange for six months of rent, Iverson would write six sonatas, and that Playfair would be allowed to choose the instrumentation.

Writing these Playfair Sonatas led Iverson to composing larger works, including his Piano Sonata, recently recorded as part of his album Technically Acceptable on the Blue Note label. Seth Colter Walls wrote of the piece in The New York Times, “Classical in conception... it also contains traces of crunchy harmonic modernism and the bumptious sounds of vintage American jazz styles.”

Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas similarly showcase this signature approach. The sonatas intertwine 21st-century jazz gestures with the formal structures of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn. While the outer movements are titled with traditional tempo indications (Allegro, Rondo, Scherzo, and similar), the middle movements of each work are dedicated to an artist whose work blended jazz and classical.

"These dedications came about late in the game," says Iverson. "I had scrapped a previous Adagio for clarinet, and wrote a new middle movement I really liked. However, was this ‘oom-pah' rhythm too much like one of Carla Bley's amusing ‘music hall’ pieces? Well, what if I dedicated the movement to her? That would fix the issue of appropriation. As it turned out, Carla passed away the same day I finished ‘Music Hall’ and devised the ‘dedications’ stratagem. The other five salutations to Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Paul Desmond, Joe Wilder, and Roswell Rudd came easily, for they had been in the back of my mind the whole time."

Piers Playfair adds, “It’s cool that out of a Covid dinner we were able to put a project together that so encapsulates one of our joint core beliefs, that the divisions that divide music, such as jazz, classical, blues etc, into neat little boxes are really just names that people put on them and shouldn’t define the artists."

“Ethan and Piers assembled an absolute dream team of soloists, each of who brought their A game to Oktaven Audio for two days of amazing and inspiring music-making,” says producer Gene Gaudette. “The recording sessions were spirited, crackling with energy, and seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye. The Playfair Sonatas are such terrific music – engaging, witty, and still fresh even after multiple hearings. They will no doubt find not only a wide listening audience via this recording but surely be embraced by players looking for new, challenging, genre-crossing repertoire.”

Read Ethan Iverson’s notes on each of the Playfair Sonatas, including the dedication movements, here.

Alongside the album, Iverson is publishing the scores for all of the Playfair Sonatas, making them available to interested musicians free of charge.

Playfair Sonatas are commissioned by Piers Playfair and 23Arts Initiative.

The album is released worldwide on Gene Gaudette’s Ulricht AudioVisual label.

About Ethan Iverson:

Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson was a founding member of The Bad Plus, a game-changing collective with Reid Anderson and David King. The New York Times called TBP “Better than anyone at melding the sensibilities of post-60’s jazz and indie rock.” During his 17-year tenure, TBP performed in venues as diverse as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, and Bonnaroo; collaborated with Joshua Redman, Bill Frisell, and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and created a faithful arrangement of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and a radical reinvention of Ornette Coleman’s Science Fiction.

Since leaving TBP, Iverson has released critically-acclaimed jazz albums on ECM and Blue Note, often accompanied by bonafide jazz stars such as Tom Harrell or Jack DeJohnette. Downbeat has called Iverson “A master of melody” while Hot House recently raved, "Known for his intellectual depth and adventurous musical spirit, Ethan Iverson has traversed the boundaries of jazz tradition while leaving an indelible mark on its evolution.” After witnessing a 2024 concert of standards spontaneously chosen by the audience, Stereophile wrote, “Iverson is a natural, consistent crowd-pleaser. For his entire career, he has been finding ways to be accessible while pushing the envelope.”

Iverson holds down the piano chair in the critically acclaimed Billy Hart quartet and has recorded with other elder statesmen like Albert “Tootie” Heath and Ron Carter. In terms of performing classical music, Iverson has accompanied Mark Padmore in Schubert’s Winterreise and Johnny Gandelsman in the three Brahms Violin Sonatas.

On top of his activities as a pianist and composer, Iverson has an active career as a writer, publishing significant criticism in The Nation, JazzTimes, The New York Times, and the Culture Desk of The New Yorker. He also posts frequently on his Substack, Transitional Technology.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson performs music from his recently released album Playfair Sonatas (Urlicht AudioVisual) –– which The New York Times calls “a welcome stream of fully notated music” –– with violinist Miranda Cuckson and trumpeter Tim Leopold, plus his Sonata for Piano Four-Hands with pianist Hiroko Sasaki at Mezzrow, on Saturday, December 22, 2024 at 4pm. Admission is free.

Concert details:

Who: Ethan Iverson with Miranda Cuckson, Tim Leopold, and Hiroko Sasaki
Presented by Mezzrow
What: Selections from Ethan Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas, plus his Sonata for Piano Four-Hands
When: Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 4pm
Where: 163 West 10th Street, New York, NY 10014
Free Admission

About the Instrumentalists:

Miranda Cuckson, violin: www.mirandacuckson.com
Makoto Nakura, marimba: www.makotonakura.com
Carol McGonnell, clarinet: www.carolmcgonnell.com
Mike Lormand, trombone: www.deviantseptet.com/mike-lormand
Taimur Sullivan, saxophone: www.taimursullivan.com
Tim Leopold, trumpet: www.mostlymodernfestival.org/tim-leopold-trumpet

Album Track List:

Playfair Sonatas
Music by Ethan Iverson

Ethan Iverson, piano; Miranda Cuckson, violin; Makoto Nakura, marimba; Carol McGonnell, clarinet; Mike Lormand, trombone; Taimur Sullivan, saxophone; and Tim Leopold, trumpet
Ulricht AudioVisual | Release Date: November 15, 2024

CD 1

1. Fanfare [1:54]
The Full Ensemble

2. Violin Sonata: I. Andante – Allegro moderato [7:14]

3. Violin Sonata: II. Blues (for Ornette Coleman) [3:50]

4. Violin Sonata: III. Rondo. Allegro [5:25]
Miranda Cuckson, violin • Ethan Iverson, piano

5. Marimba Sonata: I. Allegro [5:13]

6. Marimba Sonata: II. Blues (for Eric Dolphy) [2:10]

7. Marimba Sonata: III. Cadenza [3:13]

8. Marimba Sonata: IV. Rondo. Presto [3:04]
Makoto Nakura, marimba • Ethan Iverson, piano

9. Clarinet Sonata: I. Allegro [5:22]

10. Clarinet Sonata: II. Music Hall (for Carla Bley) [3:06]

11. Clarinet Sonata: III. Scherzo – Minuet [2:25]

12. Clarinet Sonata: IV. Rondo. Allegro moderato [3:45]
Carol McGonnell, clarinet • Ethan Iverson, piano

CD 2

1 Trombone Sonata: I. Allegro moderato [4:32]

2 Trombone Sonata: II. Hymn (for Roswell Rudd) [4:14]

3 Trombone Sonata: III. Rondo [5:30]
Mike Lormand, trombone • Ethan Iverson, piano

4 Alto Saxophone Sonata: I. Allegro [5:44]

5 Alto Saxophone Sonata: II. Melody (for Paul Desmond) [5:16]

6 Alto Saxophone Sonata: III. Allegro [5:17]
Taimur Sullivan, alto saxophone • Ethan Iverson, piano

7 Trumpet Sonata: I. Allegro [5:56]

8 Trumpet Sonata: II. Theme (for Joe Wilder) [4:30]

9 Trumpet Sonata: III. Rondo [4:34]
Tim Leopold, trumpet • Ethan Iverson, piano

10 Recessional [1:16]
The Full Ensemble

Recorded December 2 & 3, 2023 at Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, NY
Recording engineer: Ryan Streber
Piano technician: Shane Hoshino
Edited by Ryan Streber and Gene Gaudette
Produced by Gene Gaudette
Executive producer: Piers Playfair
Cover art: Roz Chast

Christopher Jesina 12/10/24 Christopher Jesina 12/10/24

Jan 19: GRAMMY-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Performs in Mobile

Photo by Tanya Braganti available in high resolution here

GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performs Reflections

A Concert Shaped by Musical Interconnection
Presented by Mobile Chamber Music Society

Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 3pm
USA Laidlaw Performing Arts Center
5751 USA South Drive | Mobile, AL
Tickets and More information

“colorful and idiosyncratic”
– The New York Times

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Mobile, AL – GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” performs on Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 3pm at the USA Laidlaw Performing Arts Center (5751 USA South Drive) presented by the Mobile Chamber Music Society.

Dinnerstein –– who is celebrated for her Bach recordings –– will perform the music of J. S. Bach and other Baroque era-inspired selections in a program titled Reflections, which includes Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations On A Chorale By J.S. Bach (2002); Gavotte et 6 Doubles from Nouvelles Suites de Pieces de Clavecin by Jean-Philippe Rameau (c. 1729-30); J. S. Bach’s Fifteen Sinfonias, BWV 787–801 (1720-23); and Encore From Tokyo (1978) by Keith Jarrett.

“I have titled this program Reflections, as I think that each work sounds unusual because of the way it is reflected against the music around it,” Dinnerstein says. “To enhance this quality, I play each half of the program (Rameau-Lasser and Bach-Jarrett) without pause between the pieces.”

Simone Dinnerstein has been playing Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach for over two decades –– including as part of The Berlin Concert, her 2008 album. Lasser takes the chorale from Cantata No. 101 in which, he says, “Bach chooses a particular melodic moment from the Lutheran hymn and infuses all the other voices of the Chorale with this unique sonority, with an almost maniacal insistence. In my Variations, I take on this mania to see how far one can go.”

Bach’s contemporary Rameau also composed a set of variations but on his own gavotte: Gavotte et 6 doubles from Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin. In his preface, Bach wrote that his Fifteen Sinfonias were, “An honest guide by which the amateurs of the keyboard – especially, however, those desirous of learning – are shown a clear way…to achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition." Keith Jarrett’s Encore from Tokyo embraces the Baroque convention of a descending repeating bass line and builds a harmonically adventurous and wide-ranging improvisation around it.

Dinnerstein released her newest album, The Eye is the First Circle, on October 18, 2024 via Supertrain Records. The album features Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata and its release was timed to coincide with the American composer’s 150th birthday (October 20, 1874). The new album is a live recording of the premiere of Dinnerstein’s multimedia production of the same title, which she conceived and directed. The performance took place at the Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, New Jersey on October 17, 2021. The Eye is the First Circle also marks Dinnerstein’s fourteenth and final recording produced with the late Adam Abeshouse.

About Simone Dinnerstein: American pianist Simone Dinnerstein first came to wider public attention in 2007 through her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, reflecting an aesthetic that was both deeply rooted in the score and profoundly idiosyncratic. She is, wrote The New York Times, “a unique voice in the forest of Bach interpretation.”

Dinnerstein has played with orchestras ranging from the New York Philharmonic and Montreal Symphony Orchestra to the London Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai. She has performed in venues from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Seoul Arts Center and Sydney Opera House. She has made thirteen albums, all of which topped the Billboard charts and were recorded by GRAMMY Award-winning producer Adam Abeshouse. During the pandemic she recorded three albums which form a trilogy: A Character of Quiet, An American Mosaic, and Undersong. An American Mosaic was nominated for a GRAMMY.

In recent years, Dinnerstein has created projects that express her broad musical interests. She gave the world premiere of The Eye Is the First Circle at Montclair State University, the first multi-media production she conceived, created, and directed, which uses as source materials her father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’s Piano Sonata No. 2. She premiered Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic, a tribute to those affected by the pandemic, in a performance on multiple pianos throughout Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following her recording Mozart in Havana, she brought the Havana Lyceum Orchestra from Cuba to the U.S. for the first time, performing eleven concerts. Philip Glass composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 for her, co-commissioned by twelve orchestras. Working with Renée Fleming and the Emerson String Quartet, she premiered André Previn and Tom Stoppard’s Penelope at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, and performed it at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and presented by LA Opera. Dinnerstein has also created her own ensemble, Baroklyn, which she directs. The Washington Post comments, “it is Dinnerstein’s unreserved identification with every note she plays that makes her performance so spellbinding.” In a world where music is everywhere, she hopes that it can still be transformative. For more information, please visit www.simonedinnerstein.com.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY-nominated® pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” will perform a program of Baroque-era inspired works in a concert presented by the Mobile Chamber Music Society. Her program, titled Reflections, will include J.S. Bach’s Fifteen Sinfonias (1720-23), Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach (2002), Keith Jarrett’s Encore From Tokyo (1978), and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Gavotte et 6 Doubles from Nouvelles Suites de Pieces de Clavecin (c. 1729-30).

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by the Mobile Chamber Music Society
What: Reflections – Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser, Keith Jarrett, Jean-Philippe Rameau
When: Sunday, January 19, 2025 at 3pm
Where: USA Laidlaw Performing Arts Center, 5751 USA South Drive, Mobile, AL 36608
Tickets and information: www.mobilechambermusic.square.site

Christopher Jesina 12/5/24 Christopher Jesina 12/5/24

Composer Julia Perry’s Previously Unavailable Catalog of Music Published by Videmus Inc. Through New Relationship with Boosey & Hawkes

Julia Perry (Photo: Rider University Libraries’ Julia A. Perry Collection); high resolution photos available here.

Videmus Inc. Publishes Julia Perry’s Previously Unavailable Catalog of Music

Through New Relationship with Boosey & Hawkes

www.videmus.org | www.boosey.com/composer/julia+perry

NEW YORK, NY (December 5, 2024) – Videmus Inc. announced today that through a new relationship with Boosey & Hawkes, one of the world’s leading classical music publishers, it will make available the previously unpublished music of composer Julia Perry, whose work fell into obscurity after her death in 1979 and is only now beginning to receive the attention it has so richly deserved. Directed by Dr. Louise Toppin, Videmus is a non-profit arts organization dedicated to the promotion of concert works by African American, women, and under-presented composers, providing access to the work of marginalized composers through educational programming, performance opportunities, and scholarly research. In 2024, Julia Perry’s centennial year, the Estate of Julia A. Perry assigned all copyrights for her unpublished work to Videmus Inc. Perry’s music is also currently GRAMMY-nominated for the first time, as part of the American Counterpoints album from Experiential Orchestra, music director James Blachly, and violinist Curtis Stewart.

As a non-profit, mission-based organization, Videmus supports the research, publication, recording, and performances of Perry’s music, creating accurate materials serving the practical needs of performers and providing regularly updated editions. Videmus intends for this endeavor to serve as a model for others seeking to bring works of unjustly ignored composers to light. Additionally, the publication of Perry's works will help scholars to reconstruct her musical and personal journey, providing a valuable resource to future biographers. For distribution of Perry’s works, Videmus is proud to partner with Boosey & Hawkes to make Perry’s music available worldwide through print, performance, and licensing.

Louise Toppin says, “Julia Perry’s prominence in music history as an African American woman composer has been erased for too long. Her story as a rising star in the world of composition and conducting during the years of extreme segregation in the United States is both compelling and astonishing. Her compositions (although to date her known output is small) show craftsmanship of the highest caliber that appeal to performers and audiences alike. Many of her compositions remain lost. Videmus is devoted to uncovering any works that still lie in publishers’ archives, university libraries, or in public or private collections. The neglect Perry’s music has faced is not unique. We hope that this endeavor might serve as a model for others seeking to bring additional works of unjustly ignored composers to light.”

“During her too-brief career, Julia Perry’s compositions earned praise in every esteemed musical circle from New York to Paris, despite the immense systemic challenges she faced,” says Steven Lankenau, Senior Vice President of Boosey & Hawkes. “She is an indisputably important figure in the history of 20th-century American music, and Boosey & Hawkes is proud to partner with Videmus to bring her unpublished works to the public as this noteworthy composer’s larger legacy continues to unfold.”

Julia Perry’s Works to be Published:

The Julia Perry catalog published by Videmus, which will be released across multiple years, includes a broad range of works for orchestra, choir, chamber ensemble, songs, and piano music.

The following works are immediately available from Boosey & Hawkes:

Three Spirituals for Orchestra (1965–67)

Prelude for Piano (1946/1962)

Prelude for Strings (Prelude for Piano 1946/1962; arr. for strings by Roger Zahab, 2020)

Symphony in One Movement for Violas and String Basses (1961)

Quartette for Wind Quintette (Symphony No. 13 for Wind Quintet) (1963/1976)

Quinary Quixotic Songs for Bass-Baritone and Five Instruments (1976)

Works planned for future release include Four Spirituals for orchestra, Contretemps for orchestra, Hymn to Pan for choir, and The Selfish Giant: A Sacred Musical Fable (piano reduction of a three-act opera).

The Path to Publication:

The path to publication of Julia Perry’s catalog was complex and spanned many years, involving a dedicated volunteer working group of musicians and scholars galvanized by a desire to bring her music to a wider public, and brought together by Dr. Louise Toppin at Videmus Inc.

When Julia Perry died without a will on April 24, 1979, twenty-one of her approximately one hundred works had been published, and there was no mechanism to secure permission to publish the rest of her music. Beginning in 2021, the Akron Symphony sought a legal solution, and with the support of Probate Judge Elinore M. Stormer of Summit County, Ohio, an estate was opened in Julia Perry’s name on October 12, 2022. Over the course of two years, the estate granted permission for performances and recordings, and ultimately transferred copyrights to Perry’s unpublished music to Videmus Inc. in September 2024.

Concurrent to the legal process, Louise Toppin brought together a Julia Perry working group in 2021 to coordinate the various efforts underway internationally to promote Perry’s music and to share new research with each other. Since then, the core of the effort to publish Perry’s music has been the three-person Videmus editorial team of Louise Toppin; conductor Christopher Wilkins, music director of the Akron Symphony; and conductor James Blachly, music director of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and Experiential Orchestra.

For over 30 years, Louise Toppin has specialized in performing, promoting, commissioning, and educating students on music by African American composers, including lectures around the world, co-founding and directing the George Shirley Competition, and her creating of the African Diaspora Music Project (ADMP) a digital online catalog including over 3,000 songs searchable by voice type, and over 1,400 works for orchestra. She also brings her decades of experience working with heirs, including her work with the heirs of Margaret Bonds, which ultimately led to the successful publication of Bonds’ music in recent years. In co-curating with James Blachly the four-day 2024 Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York, Toppin gathered scholars at The New School to deliver 14 lectures and keynote addresses on Julia Perry’s life and music. Through her direction of Videmus, Toppin wrote grants and raised funds for the legal fees as well as engraving and editorial costs.

In Perry’s hometown of Akron, Ohio, conductor Christopher Wilkins began researching Perry’s works in 2018 and created the Julia Perry Project with the Akron Symphony in 2021, including six archival recordings of previously unheard works, and recorded interviews with violinist, conductor, and scholar Roger Zahab, and Ophelia Averitt, a neighbor and friend of Julia Perry. Since 2021, Wilkins has led multiple reading and recording sessions and performed many of Perry’s unpublished works with the Akron Symphony. He also spearheaded the legal effort with Akron attorneys Dave Lieberth and Kevin Davis.

Conductor James Blachly first encountered Perry’s music in 2014, and in addition to his work on the editorial team, has championed Perry’s music in performances for the past five years. With Louise Toppin, he co-directed the Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in March 2024. The four-day Festival brought together 140 performers and scholars in New York in the largest Julia Perry celebration in the world to date. Blachly has also brought Perry’s music to new audiences through performances with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Experiential Orchestra, and Johnstown Symphony Orchestra. His latest album with Experiential Orchestra, American Counterpoints on the Bright Shiny Things label, features the first commercial recording of Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra performed with soloist Curtis Stewart, and is currently nominated for two 2025 GRAMMY® Awards in the Classical Compendium and Best Classical Instrumental Solo categories. This is the first GRAMMY nomination for the music of Julia Perry.

In addition to the editorial team of Toppin, Wilkins, and Blachly, the assistance of composer, conductor, violinist and scholar Roger Zahab has been essential in the path to publication. Zahab has been researching and creating editions of Perry's music for more than 30 years, including his widely performed arrangement Prelude for Strings, and has given several notable premieres of her works both as a violinist and conductor. He is also one of the only musicians alive who had direct communication with Julia Perry during the final years of her life.

About Julia Perry:

Julia Amanda Perry
Born: March 25, 1924, Lexington KY
Died: April 24, 1979, Akron OH

Julia Perry is a unique figure in American music. In her twenties, she gained international recognition for her modernist classical compositions, while also publishing vocal and choral works inspired by Black American musical traditions. She composed across nearly every genre, including orchestral and choral works, operas, chamber music, solo instrumental pieces, and vocal compositions. Her eclectic style constantly evolved as she experimented with new forms and responded to the shifting cultural landscape around her.

An accomplished performer, Perry excelled as a mezzo-soprano soloist, orchestral and choral conductor, violinist, and pianist. She trained with some of the most esteemed teachers and institutions in the field. She studied voice and composition at Westminster Choir College, worked with composer Luigi Dallapiccola at Tanglewood, received orchestral conducting training through the extension division of the Juilliard School, and attended Nadia Boulanger’s renowned composition class at Fontainebleau.

In November 1951, Perry moved from New York City to Florence, Italy, to continue her studies with Dallapiccola. While in Italy, she gained increasing recognition as a composer, with critics especially praising her setting of the Stabat Mater, noting her sensitivity to the language and her compelling performance as the vocal soloist. Perry spoke fluent Italian, setting an Italian text in a vocal-orchestral cantata and creating an Italian version of her opera The Cask of Amontillado. She also wrote original poetry and prose—often composing her own texts and librettos—and translated seventy-eight African fables into English from a book she had acquired in Italy.

Her achievements were recognized through two Guggenheim Fellowships, two Marian Anderson Awards for vocal excellence, a "Grand Prix" in Boulanger’s class, prizes from the National Association of Negro Musicians, a National Institute of Arts and Letters award, and eight residencies at MacDowell.

After touring European cities with support from the U. S. Information Service—conducting her own compositions and lecturing on American music—she returned to the United States permanently in 1959. The 1960s began with promise, with support for recordings and more offers from publishing houses. In 1965, the New York Philharmonic performed her Short Piece for Orchestra.

However, despite her efforts to earn a living as a composer, Perry found that doors were not open to her in the United States as they had once been in Europe, and several of her most significant works were never performed or published. After suffering a paralytic stroke in 1970, she continued to compose with her left hand, despite the lack of professional opportunities, until her death on April 24, 1979. Through the research work of Videmus, in partnership with Boosey & Hawkes, many of Julia Perry’s unpublished works are now being discovered and made available for performance for the first time.

About Videmus Inc.:

Videmus Inc. is a non-profit arts organization dedicated to the promotion of concert works by African American, women and under-presented composers. The organization’s vision is to provide access to marginalized composers through educational programming, performance opportunities, and scholarly research. Videmus produces recordings, created an annual competition for students ages 14-35, created and maintains a scholarly research database, produces concerts and conferences, encourages research and publication in scholarly books and journals, creates editions for publication, and collaborates with other organizations to strengthen the diverse perspectives of our industry.

Videmus Inc. was founded and incorporated (501c3) in Massachusetts (1986) by Vivian Taylor. For the first ten years the arts organization presented concerts in New England and world premiere recordings of African American composers including William Grant Still, Donal Fox, T.J. Anderson, David Baker, Olly Wilson, George Walker, Undine Smith Moore, Florence Price, Julia Perry, Margaret Bonds, and Betty Jackson King.

In 1997, Videmus Inc. appointed Louise Toppin as the Director of the organization and under her leadership, its catalog of recordings expanded to include the world premiere vocal recordings of Leslie Adams and Robert Owens with tenor Darryl Taylor, the world premiere of William Grant Still opera Highway One, USA, the first recordings of the Sphinx organization finals, the world premiere recording of Leslie Adams’ 24 etudes on two CDs (Maria Corley and Thomas Otten, pianists), and many more.

Videmus’s recording strategy has been to fill in historic gaps by documenting the works of well-established composers such as Still, Baker, Bonds, Price, Moore, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Hall Johnson, Adolphus Hailstork, and many others, while presenting world premiere recordings (symphonic, chamber and solo) of newer composers such as Richard Thompson, Stephen Newby, Bill Banfield, Nkeiru Okoye, Robert Morris, and many more. In addition to its own recordings, Videmus has assisted many artists with repertoire, liner notes and introductions for their recordings that have received GRAMMY nominations, including Lawrence Brownlee and Will Liverman.

Videmus continues to curate concerts throughout the United States, has created scholarship programs including the Bridges Award and The George Shirley Vocal Competition; conferences such as “Reflecting on the Past Reaching Toward the Future” and the four-day “Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival” co-presented with Experiential Orchestra, created a database in the African Diaspora Music Project; and published scores of vocal, instrument, chamber and orchestral repertoire with Classical Vocal Reprints, Hal Leonard, Hildegard Press, Carl Fischer and Boosey & Hawkes.

About Boosey & Hawkes:
Boosey & Hawkes, a Concord company, is the world’s largest specialist classical music publishing company. Together with its sister company Sikorski, it owns an unrivaled catalog of music copyrights including the works of such major 20th century composers as Stravinsky, Copland, Britten, Bartók, Shostakovich, Prokofieff, Khachaturian, Strauss and Rachmaninoff. In the 21st century, Boosey & Hawkes continues to publish the very best in new music and has exclusive agreements with many of the leading international classical composers of today, including John Adams, Unsuk Chin, Anna Clyne, Sofia Gubaidulina, Karl Jenkins, James MacMillan, Olga Neuwirth, Steve Reich and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

Boosey & Hawkes is a global publisher, with offices in the cultural hubs of New York, London, and Berlin, as well as a network of agents in other countries. It promotes its repertoire throughout the music world and seeks to lead artistic and creative taste, and continue to invest in development towards a fully digital future.

Boosey & Hawkes serves many different customers: licensing and renting music for performance, recording and broadcast; licensing music for film, TV, advertising, video games and online use; and publishing sheet music for purchase.

Boosey & Hawkes’s extensive catalog of printed and digital music for the professional, student and leisure markets ranges from instrumental, band and choral to market-leading tutor books and creative teaching materials.

Christopher Jesina 12/5/24 Christopher Jesina 12/5/24

Jan. 26: GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Performs Reflections: A Concert Shaped by Musical Interconnection – Presented by Chamber Music Wilmington

Photo by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here

GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Performs Reflections

A Concert Shaped by Musical Interconnection
Presented by Chamber Music Wilmington

Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 4pm
Beckwith Recital Hall | 5270 Randall Drive | Wilmington, NC
Tickets and More information

“an artist of strikingly original ideas and irrefutable integrity”
– The Washington Post

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Wilmington, NC – GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “an intrepid artistic personality,” performs on Sunday, January 26, 2025 at the Beckwith Recital Hall (5270 Randall Drive) presented by Chamber Music Wilmington.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY-nominated® pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described as “an intrepid artistic personality” by the Philadelphia Inquirer, will perform a program of Baroque-era inspired works in a concert presented by Chamber Music Wilmington. Her program, titled Reflections, will include J.S. Bach’s Fifteen Sinfonias (1720-23), Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach (2002), Keith Jarrett’s Encore From Tokyo (1978), and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Gavotte et 6 Doubles from Nouvelles Suites de Pieces de Clavecin (c. 1729-30).

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by Chamber Music Wilmington
What: Reflections – Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser, Keith Jarrett, Jean-Philippe Rameau
When: Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 4pm
Where: Beckwith Recital Hall, 5270 Randall Drive, Wilmington, NC 28403
Tickets and information: www.uncwarts.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=1908

Christopher Jesina 12/5/24 Christopher Jesina 12/5/24

Jan. 26: Jupiter Quartet Perform the World Premiere of Singing Land with the University of Illinois Chamber Singers at Krannert Center – Music by Su Lian Tan & Text by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Jan 26: Jupiter Quartet Performs the World Premiere of Singing Land with the University of Illinois Chamber Singers

L-R Robin Wall Kimmerer, Photo by Dale Kakkak; Jupiter Quartet, Photo by Todd Rosenberg; Su Lian Tan, Photo courtesy of artist

The Jupiter String Quartet
and the University of Illinois Chamber Singers

Perform the World Premiere of Singing Land
Music by Su Lian Tan & Text by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Commissioned by the Jupiter String Quartet

Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 3:00pm
University of Illinois | Krannert Center | Foellinger Great Hall
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL
Tickets and Information

“an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” – The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Urbana, IL – On Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 3:00pm, the Jupiter String Quartet –– internationally acclaimed winners of the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition who are known for their “compelling” performances (BBC Music Magazine) –– will start the new year at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, giving the highly-anticipated world premiere of Singing Land, performed with the University of Illinois Chamber Singers, in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S. Goodwin Ave). Singing Land, a collaboration with Potawatomi botanist/writer Robin Wall Kimmerer and composer Su Lian Tan, is the latest in a series of Jupiter Quartet-commissioned works celebrating the environment. The program will also feature Michi Wiancko’s To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores –– a work written in 2020 specifically for the Jupiter Quartet, which was commissioned by Bay Chamber Concerts in partnership with the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign –– as well as a series of works for chamber choir alone and in collaboration with the quartet. Ms. Kimmerer, author of the profound and popular Braiding Sweetgrass, as well as other works, will also be featured throughout the program. Interactive events will follow in the Krannert Center Stage 5 lobby.

Su Lian Tan and Robin Wall Kimmerer describe Singing Land as, “a new garden of sound, recalling ancient and modern voices and the mysticism of string instruments, voices of bullfrogs, and hawks who cry warnings. The circle of life continues and we create a world that is both spiritual and material. Text becomes music, music weaves the lushness of greenery and the breath exchanging on our planet, perhaps with the required urgency. Are we now in the aubade or the twilight? We can love the earth back to wholeness.”

Of this unique collaborative program, Jupiter Quartet says:

”We are honored to share the stage with two powerfully artistic women, author Robin Wall Kimmerer and composer Su Lian Tan. It will be a joy to explore their work together, and to collaborate with students, faculty, and community members at our home base of the University of Illinois.”

[Based in Urbana, IL and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Brought together by ties both familial and musical, the Jupiter Quartet has been performing together since 2001. Exuding an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, the Quartet celebrates every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style to audiences. Their connections to each other and the length of time they’ve shared the stage always shine through in their intuitive performances. The Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall, and more.

In addition to performances worldwide, the Jupiter has been in residence at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program. This season, they perform four concerts at the Krannert Center including this season opener on October 20; a concert on November 12, 2024; a program of sextets with two of their Ying Quartet colleagues, violist Phillip Ying and cellist David Ying on February 4, 2025; and a concert of octets including the Mendelssohn Octet with the Aris Quartet on March 13, 2025.

A dedicated flutist, composer, and teacher, Su Lian Tan is a professor of music at Middlebury College who has received accolades and awards from ASCAP, the Academy of Arts and Letters of Québec, the Toulmin and Naumburg Foundations, and the Yaddo and MacDowell arts colonies. Her “wonderfully dramatic music” (Gramophone) is inspired by tonalities, timbres, and themes of her Malaysian Chinese heritage. Previous commissioning collaborators include the Grammy-winning Takács String Quartet, Da Capo Chamber Players, Vermont Symphony, and author Jamaica Kincaid. The Jupiter Quartet introduced Krannert Center audiences to the music of Su Lian Tan last season (November 2023) in their program “Folk Encounters.”

A mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author of the award-winning books Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. The 2022 MacArthur Fellow lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of environmental biology and the founder/director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which The New Yorker describes as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity,” gives the world premiere of Singing Land, a collaboration with Potawatomi botanist/writer Robin Wall Kimmerer and Malaysian-Chinese composer Su Lian Tan, with the University of Illinois Chamber Singers. Singing Land is the latest in a series of Jupiter Quartet-commissioned works celebrating the environment.

Concert details:
Who: Jupiter String Quartet with the University of Illinois Chamber Singers
What: Singing Land – music by Su Lian Tan and text by Robin Wall Kimmerer
When: Sunday, January 26, 2025 at 3:00pm
Where: University of Illinois; Krannert Center for the Performing Arts; Foellinger Great Hall; 500 S Goodwin Ave.; Urbana, IL
Tickets and information: https://krannertcenter.com/events/rescheduled-jupiter-string-quartet-ui-chamber-singers-and-special-guests-robin-wall-kimmerer

Christopher Jesina 12/5/24 Christopher Jesina 12/5/24

Jan. 25: GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein Performs Reflections: A Concert Shaped by Musical Interconnection – Presented by the American Music Festival

GRAMMY®-nominated Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by the American Music Festival
Performs Reflections: A Concert Shaped by Musical Interconnection

Saturday, January 25, 2025 at 7pm
First Presbyterian Church | 1604 Arendell St. | Morehead City, NC
Tickets and More information

“Innovatively thematic, masterful, and emotional”
– The Boston Music Intelligencer

Simone Dinnerstein: www.simonedinnerstein.com

Morehead City, NC – GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” will be presented in concert as part of the American Music Festival on Saturday, January 25, 2025 at 7pm at First Presbyterian Church (1604 Arendell St.).

For Calendar Editors:

Description: GRAMMY-nominated® pianist Simone Dinnerstein, described by The New Yorker as an artist of “lean, knowing, and unpretentious elegance,” will perform as part of The American Music Festival. The program, titled Reflections, will feature an assortment of Baroque-era inspired works. Her program, titled Reflections, will include J.S. Bach’s Fifteen Sinfonias (1720-23), Philip Lasser’s Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach (2002), Keith Jarrett’s Encore From Tokyo (1978), and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Gavotte et 6 Doubles from Nouvelles Suites de Pieces de Clavecin (c. 1729-30).

Concert details:

Who: Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
Presented by American Music Festival
What: Reflections – Music by J.S. Bach, Philip Lasser, Keith Jarrett, Jean-Philippe Rameau
When: Saturday, January 25, 2025 at 7pm
Where: First Presbyterian Church, 1604 Arendell St., Morehead City, NC 28557
Tickets and information: https://www.americanmusicfestival.org/

Christina Jensen 11/25/24 Christina Jensen 11/25/24

The New School’s College of Performing Arts Welcomes Andy Akiho, Alison Deane, Jack Schatz and Jeffrey Zeigler to Faculty

(Left to right) Andy Akiho, Alison Deane, Jack Schatz, Jeffrey Zeigler

The New School’s College of Performing Arts Welcomes Andy Akiho,
Alison Deane, Jack Schatz and Jeffrey Zeigler to Faculty

New York, NY (November 25, 2024) – The New School’s College of Performing Arts – Mannes, Jazz, Drama, today announced the appointment of Andy Akiho, Alison Deane, Jack Schatz, and Jeffrey Zeigler to the distinguished faculty of the celebrated performing arts school. As faculty members in the Mannes School of Music, the acclaimed musicians will lead classes and ensembles, teach private lessons, develop and create new projects, and more.

“In 1916, David and Clara Mannes hired a full roster of brand new faculty including the likes of Ernest Bloch, Angela Diller, Elizabeth Quaile, and their dear friend, Pablo Casals as a regular guest artist. In that spirit, we announce a wonderful slate of new faculty, including the brilliant composer and percussionist Andy Akiho, the wonderful pianist and pedagogue Alison Deane, the mainstay of bass trombone in the New York area, Jack Schatz, and returning to Mannes after a few years in Miami, the creative powerhouse cellist Jeffrey Zeigler. I am sure David and Clara Mannes would be impressed by this remarkable group of new faculty members,” said Richard Kessler, Executive Dean of the College of Performing Arts and Dean of Mannes School of Music.

Composer Andy Akiho, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and multi-GRAMMY® nominee, brings a visionary approach to contemporary classical music to Mannes. Hailed as a “trailblazing” artist by the Los Angeles Times, Akiho has gained worldwide acclaim for his genre-defying compositions. His works have been featured by leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony, and National Symphony Orchestra, and he has been called “increasingly in demand” by The New York Times for his ability to craft music that emphasizes the natural theatricality of live performance. Akiho collaborates closely with College of Performing Arts Ensemble-in-Residence, Sandbox Percussion for whom he wrote Seven Pillars, a boldly genre-defying audio and video collaboration for percussion quartet, commissioned by Sandbox Percussion. “Seven Pillars is pretty much as pure as music gets — it’s only ‘about’ its own structure and self-imposed constrictions” (The New York Times). Akiho’s most recent release, BeLonging, is nominated for GRAMMYs in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo and Best Classical Compendium categories.

Read the full announcement about Andy Akiho’s appointment here .

Pianist Alison Deane brings a wealth of experience and talent, and her passion for music, along with her commitment to excellence, will greatly contribute to the vibrant musical community at Mannes. She has graced stages across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe, and her extensive career as both a soloist and chamber musician is marked by numerous accolades, prizes, and awards. A native New Yorker, Deane holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, where she was honored with the school’s highest award, the Harold Bauer Award. The New York Times described her playing as “a dazzling affair…has the fingers of a really first-class technician…her performances are exhilarating…the virtuoso demands suited her superbly.”

Read the full announcement about Alison Deane’s appointment here .

Trombonist Jack Schatz’s bold work spans orchestral, operatic, Broadway, and jazz, alongside an equally accomplished career as an educator. He has performed with premiere ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera–where he recorded Wagner’s Ring Cycle, as well as the National Grand Opera, the Houston Opera, and the New Jersey Symphony. On Broadway, Schatz’s credits include Phantom of the Opera, A Chorus Line, The Music Man, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Damn Yankees, Hello, Dolly!, and Side Show, among others. Schatz played and toured with the Big Bands of Bob Mintzer, Tom Pierson, Louie Bellson, and Bobby Watson. He has recorded with The Ed Palermo Big Band, James Moody, Alan Pasqua, and Ted Nash.

Read the full announcement about Jack Schatz’s appointment here.

A celebrated musician with a reputation for his innovative approach to both classical and contemporary repertoire, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler brings a wealth of experience and passion for teaching to the Mannes community. His career has spanned the globe, with performances in major concert halls, collaborations with celebrated composers, and advocacy for new music. As a member of the internationally acclaimed Kronos Quartet, he performed and recorded for nearly a decade. Throughout his career, Zeigler has been a powerful voice in the intersection of classical music and modern composition. Strings Magazine described his most recent solo album, Houses of Zodiac, as “one of the greatest and most ambitious solo cello albums of all time.” This year, he gave the world premiere of Andy Akiho’s new cello concerto, Nisei. In his teaching, Zeigler brings a student-centered philosophy that emphasizes creativity, technical mastery, and an exploration of the cello’s rich potential in both solo and ensemble settings.

Read the full announcement about Jeffrey Zeigler’s appointment here.

The College of Performing Arts at The New School was formed in 2015 and draws together the Mannes School of Music, the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, and the School of Drama. With each school contributing its unique culture of creative excellence, the College of Performing Arts is a hub for vigorous training, cross-disciplinary collaboration, bold experimentation, innovative education, and world-class performances.

The 1,000 students at the College of Performing Arts are actors, performers, writers, improvisers, creative technologists, entrepreneurs, composers, arts managers, and multidisciplinary artists who believe in the transformative power of the arts for all people. Students and faculty collaborate with colleagues across The New School in a wide array of disciplines, from the visual arts and fashion design, to the social sciences, public policy, advocacy, and more.

The curriculum at the College of Performing Arts is dynamic, inclusive, and responsive to the changing arts and culture landscape. New degrees and coursework, like the new graduate degrees for Performer-Composers and Artist Entrepreneurs are designed to challenge highly skilled artists to experiment, innovate, and engage with the past, present, and future of their artforms. New York City’s Greenwich Village provides the backdrop for the College of Performing Arts, which is housed at Arnhold Hall on West 13th Street and the historic Westbeth Artists Community on Bank Street.

Founded in 1916 by America’s first great violin recitalist and noted educator, David Mannes, and pianist and educator Clara Damrosch Mannes, the Mannes School of Music is a standard-bearer for foundational excellence and radically progressive music education, dedicated to supporting the development of creative and socially engaged artists. Through its undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies programs, Mannes offers a curriculum as imaginative as it is rigorous, taught by a world-class faculty and visiting artists. Distinguished Mannes alumni include the 20th-century songwriting legend Burt Bacharach, the great pianists Michel Camilo, Richard Goode, Murray Perahia, and Bill Evans, acclaimed conductors Semyon Bychkov, Myung-Whun Chung, JoAnn Falletta, and Julius Rudel, beloved mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, as well as the great opera stars of today, Yonghoon Lee, Danielle de Niese, and Nadine Sierra. As part of The New School’s College of Performing Arts, together with the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and the School of Drama, Mannes makes its home on The New School’s Greenwich Village campus in a state-of-the-art facility at the newly renovated Arnhold Hall.

Founded in 1919, The New School was established to advance academic freedom, tolerance, and experimentation. A century later, The New School remains at the forefront of innovation in higher education, inspiring more than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students to challenge the status quo in design and the social sciences, liberal arts, management, the arts, and media. The university welcomes thousands of adult learners annually for continuing education courses and public programs that encourage open discourse and social engagement. Through our online learning portals, research institutes, and international partnerships, The New School maintains a global presence.

Christina Jensen 11/25/24 Christina Jensen 11/25/24

Dec-Jan: GatherNYC Presents Mindful Musical Mornings with W4RP, Excelsis Percussion Quartet, Emi Ferguson + Dan Tepfer, and Gabriel Cabezas

GatherNYC Launches 2024-2025 Season in NYC
at Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Columbus Circle

Every Other Sunday Morning at 11AM

Coming Up Next in December and January

Season Schedule - Every Other Sunday Morning at 11AM:

12/8 W4RP
12/22 Excelsis Percussion Quartet
1/5 Emi Ferguson + Dan Tepfer
1/19 Gabriel Cabezas

Spring 2025 GatherNYC Concerts:

2/2 ensemble 132
2/16 Sarah Elizabeth Charles + Jarrett Cherner
3/2 Toomai Quintet
3/16 Daedalus Quartet
3/30 MATA
4/13 Deborah Buck + Orli Shaham
4/27 ETHEL + Layale Chaker
5/11 Solomiya Ivakhiv + Friends: Music from Ukraine
5/25 Rupert Boyd, guitar
6/8 Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl

“thoughtful, intimate events curated with refreshing eclecticism by its founders, the cellist Laura Metcalf and the guitarist Rupert Boyd, complete with pastries and coffee”
– The New Yorker

“A sweet chamber music series”
– The New York Times

“Impressive Aussie/American led concert series proves music can be a religion.”
– Limelight Magazine

Museum of Arts and Design | The Theater at MAD | 2 Columbus Circle | NYC

Tickets & Information: www.gathernyc.org

New York, NY – GatherNYC, a revolutionary concert experience founded in 2018 by cellist Laura Metcalf and guitarist Rupert Boyd, continues its 2024-2025 season at the series’ home venue, Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) (2 Columbus Circle) with four upcoming concerts in December and January - W4RP on December 8, Excelsis Percussion Quartet on December 22, Emi Ferguson (flute) + Dan Tepfer (clavichord) on January 5, and cellist Gabriel Cabezas on January 19. The season runs through June 2025, with concerts held every other Sunday at 11am in The Theater at MAD. Coffee and pastries are served before each performance at 10:30am. Admission for children under 12 is free.

Guests at GatherNYC are served exquisite live classical music performed by New York’s immensely talented artists, artisanal coffee and pastries, a taste of the spoken word, and a brief celebration of silence. The entire experience lasts one hour and evokes the community and spiritual nourishment of a religious service – but the religion is music, and all are welcome.

Spoken word artists perform briefly at the midpoint of each concert, many of whom are winners of The Moth StorySLAM events. “It’s an interesting moment of something completely different from the music, and it often connects with the audience,” Metcalf told Strings magazine in a feature about the series last year. “Then we have a two-minute celebration of silence when we turn the lights down, centering ourselves in the center of the city. Then the lights come back on, and the music starts again out of the silence. We find that the listening and the feeling in the room changes after that.”

Metcalf and Boyd say, “We are thrilled to be returning to the beautiful Museum of Arts and Design, offering 17 concerts throughout our 2024-25 season, our largest lineup yet. We look forward to inviting audiences to join us for these mindful, musical mornings with world-class artists in an intimate, unique setting – complete with spoken word, silence, coffee and a communal, welcoming environment.”

Up Next, Sundays at 11AM:

Dec. 8: W4RP
Described as, “a talented group that exemplifies the genre-obliterating direction of contemporary classical music” (Columbia Free Times), W4RP (née Warp Trio) is an internationally touring cross-genre chamber music experience. Reflecting the combination of Juilliard-trained members juxtaposed with members steeped in rock and jazz styles, the one-of-a-kind trio ensemble can be seen performing classical works in prestigious halls on the same tour where they headline a standing-room-only show at a rock venue.

Dec. 22: Excelsis Percussion Quartet
Hailed as, "one of the most innovative and exciting percussion ensembles to emerge in the golden age of chamber music" (Jonathan Haas, New York University) for their immersive sound world, this international group of women with a multilingual combination of five languages join together to speak the universal language of rhythm, rooted in their belief that music possesses an ability to unite us all. Excelsis brings vibrancy to its audiences through eclectic programming, innovative storytelling, and embracing their intersectional identities.

Jan. 5: Emi Ferguson (flute) + Dan Tepfer (clavichord)
Two of NYC’s most acclaimed and versatile artists come together for a program of baroque delights by Bach, Bonporti and more. Tepfer is a #1 Billboard-charting keyboard player who is equally at home in classical and jazz realms, while Ferguson is a 2023 recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, known for her performances alongside the likes of Yo-Yo Ma and Paul Simon. The pair brings the spirit of their far-reaching musical practices to breathe new life into ancient music.

Jan. 19: Gabriel Cabezas
Acclaimed cello soloist and chamber musician Gabriel Cabezas shares a creatively constructed solo cello program that explores a wide range of timbral possibilities on the instrument. Bringing his thoughtful virtuosity to music by some of the most important compositional voices of his generation including Jessie Montgomery, Allison Loggins-Hull, Paul Wiancko, Alyssa Weinberg and more, Cabezas masterfully takes listeners on a journey through the world of the cello alone.

GatherNYC's Spring 2025 Schedule – All Concerts Take Place at 11AM:

Feb. 2: ensemble132
ensemble132 presents a genre-bending program honoring the expansive legacy of two musical icons for their joint 150th birthday: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Maurice Ravel. This group of all-star chamber musicians drawn from the rosters of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Marlboro Music Festival, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and more, explores these composers’ influence on other visionaries through the 20th and 21st centuries. ensemble132 traces these connections in a program featuring movements from Ravel’s and Coleridge-Taylor’s string quartets along with special e132 arrangements and a rollicking finale by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson.

Feb. 16: Sarah Elizabeth Charles + Jarrett Cherner
Vocalist and composer Sarah Elizabeth Charles, hailed as “soulfully articulate” by The New York Times, and acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Jarrett Cherner will present music from their debut album as a duo. The album, called Tone, centers its concept on the magical, fleeting and delicate nature of life as well as the need to take care of ourselves and the world around us as best as we possibly can.

Mar. 2: Toomai Quintet + Maria Brea
Toomai String Quintet, an ensemble dedicated to expanding the Latin American chamber music repertoire, presents this family-friendly concert of music from Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico. The program features Cuban composer Keyla Orozco’s The Song of the Cicada (2024) for narrator and quintet, inspired by Onelio Jorge Cardoso’s vivid children’s story of the same title. Also on the program are Toomai’s original arrangements of works by Hermeto Pascoal, Israel “Cachao” Lopez, Léa Freire, and Manuel Ponce.

Mar. 16: Daedalus Quartet
Winners of the highest honor in string quartet playing, the Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Daedalus Quartet will perform the visceral, folk-inspired sixth string quartet by Béla Bartók, alongside the atmospheric, pop-influenced Space Between by acclaimed composer and Guggenheim fellow Anna Weesner.

Mar. 30: MATA
Music at the Anthology (MATA), an incubator for adventurous emerging artists in the early stages of their careers, presents, supports, and commissions composers, regardless of their stylistic views or aesthetic inclinations. Founded by Philip Glass, Eleonor Sandresky, and Lisa Bielawa in 1996 as a way to address the lack of presentation opportunities for unaffiliated composers, MATA composers have since emanated to include future Rome, Alpert, Takemitsu, Siemens, and Pulitzer Prize-winners, Guggenheim Fellows, and MacArthur “Geniuses.” In 2010 MATA was awarded ASCAP’s prestigious Aaron Copland award in recognition of its work. For its first collaboration with GatherNYC, MATA will showcase highlights from previous festivals as well as selected works from its global Call for Submissions. The New Yorker has hailed MATA as, “the most exciting showcase for outstanding young composers from around the world.” The New York Times has called it “nondogmatic, even antidogmatic;” and The Wall Street Journal said that it “tells us a lot about how composers are thinking now.”

Apr. 13: Deborah Buck + Orli Shaham
Violinist Deborah Buck, praised by The Strad as having a “surpassing degree of imagination and vibrant sound,” and Orli Shaham, described as a “brilliant pianist” by The New York Times, present a program to celebrate Clara Schumann's legacy. In addition to works by Robert and Clara Schumann, the program features the couple's circle of friends, including the music of Amanda Maier.

Apr. 27: ETHEL + Layale Chaker
From their beginnings in 1998, the members of ETHEL have prized collaboration. In recent years, the quartet has struck up a particularly fruitful collaboration with the Lebanese-born, Brooklyn-based violinist and composer Layale Chaker. Their album Vigil offers a chance to document some of that collective work, with each member of ETHEL contributing a piece and Chaker contributing two works, one of which is the remarkable work that gives the project its name.

May 11: Solomiya Ivakhiv + Friends: Music from Ukraine
Acclaimed violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv is known for channeling her award-winning virtuosity as a means of championing worthy music by lesser or unknown composers from her native Ukraine. For her first appearance at GatherNYC, Solomiya is joined by violist William Frampton and cellist Laura Metcalf to present a forgotten masterwork by Fedir Yakymenko, a colorful and rhapsodic piece written around the turn of the 20th century. Ukrainian by birth and spending his life in Russia and France, Yakymenko deftly blends French and Ukrainian sounds and styles into this delightful piece, which deserves to be heard and remembered.

May 25: Rupert Boyd, guitar
GatherNYC artistic director and classical guitar virtuoso Rupert Boyd takes listeners on a journey across centuries and continents on the six strings of his guitar. From Malian kora music to atmospheric sounds from Japan to contemporary music from his home country of Australia to classic works for the Spanish guitar, Boyd’s riveting program has something for everyone.

June 8: Orpheus + Boyd Meets Girl
Building on a highly successful collaboration during the 2023-24 season, GatherNYC artistic directors Laura Metcalf and Rupert Boyd in their duo formation of Boyd Meets Girl once again team up with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for an expanded collaborative program featuring classical favorites and creative, virtuosic takes on popular tunes.

For tickets and information, visit www.gathernyc.org.

Press photos available here.

Christopher Jesina 11/25/24 Christopher Jesina 11/25/24

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album: Opus - Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto's Final Concert

(left) *Opus* Cover Art | Download
(right) Credit: Neo Sora © 2022 Kab Inc. | Download

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album
A Final Concert From Legendary Composer Ryuichi Sakamoto
Opus

Available via Milan Records
Listen Here

Listen To “For Jóhann”
Watch Video

A New Work Composed and Performed by Sakamoto in Honor of his Friend, The Late Composer Jóhann Jóhannson

Press downloads available upon request

Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus - The Film Now Available on
The Criterion Channel

Ars longa, vita brevis.
Art is long, life is short.

“This testament to Sakamoto’s music underlines an artist's commitment to his work that was there, to the very end. ‘Opus’ is all about death, with segments, like the title piece that ends the album, resonating like a solemn prayer. Here is a man unafraid to face his catalog of works and give it his own personal interpretation, knowing it would be his last.”
– Associated Press

“Sakamoto plays like a dancer, or a conductor; his hands shape the sound on the keys, but also take flight at times, as if he’s coaxing a tone out of the instrument, or himself.”
– The New York Times

“Rather than mythologize his life in narrative songwriting or theatrical instrumental fireworks, he’s chosen a quiet grace, one more subtle and restrained than even his softest prior work.”
– Pitchfork

The late legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s highly anticipated posthumous album, Opus – a collection of works performed as a final concert in the fall of 2022 before Sakamoto’s death in early 2023 and which was just nominated for a GRAMMY® in the category of Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album – is available now via Milan Records - listen here.

Alongside the release of Opus is a video of Sakamoto performing “for Jóhann,” one of the newly composed pieces on the album. It is a tribute to Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannson, one of Sakamoto’s close friends and colleagues, who passed away in 2018. watch here.

In late 2022, the Japanese composer, producer, and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto sat down at the piano for a final performance. Too ill to complete an entire set at once, Opus is garnered from multiple sessions shot and recorded in Tokyo’s legendary NHK 509 Studio. The concert was filmed and recorded without an audience, directed by Sakamoto’s son Neo Sora and turned into a film Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, now available on The Criterion Channel.

Opus was carefully curated by Sakamoto, with selections including his iconic film scores, Yellow Magic Orchestra classics, alongside pieces reflective of his eclectic career. “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” perhaps one of his most famous melodies, and beloved works "Andata,” "Aqua" and "Trioon" are represented as well as entirely new or never-before-recorded compositions. “for Jóhann”, dedicated to the late composer and Sakamoto’s friend Jóhann Jóhannsson, “BB,” a tribute to filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, and “20180219 (w/prepared piano),” a previously unreleased solo prepared-piano track, are all new to Sakamoto’s vast repertoire.

Sakamoto provided a statement on the project after it was recorded, saying:

The project was conceived as a way to record my performances—while I was still able to perform—in a way that is worth preserving for the future. In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new ground. Simply playing a few songs a day with a lot of concentration was all I could muster at this point in my life. Perhaps due to the exertion, I felt utterly hollow afterwards, and my condition worsened for about a month. Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death—a performance that I was satisfied with.

Ryuichi Sakamoto was a musician of incredible breadth and ambition, whose work spanned genres, forms, and ideas. Much of his music followed a similar transformation—often, Sakamoto would take his works and morph them, from their original shape as pop songs or film scores, and translate them for orchestras or for solo piano or for large museum installations. He was like an alchemist altering the states of an element, granting each piece many lives. It is perhaps the best illustration of the strength of Sakamoto’s songwriting that a composition could change many times, sturdy yet mutable, that he could deconstruct and remake his own work over and over.

These chosen works tell the story of not only a prolific musician, but a tirelessly curious artist. It is a reflection of Sakamoto’s own life and work as he faces death, on his own terms. On this album, the performer is dying, but through the performance, he lives forever.

Opus – Tracklisting

1. Lack of Love*
2. BB*
3. Andata
4. Solitude
5. for Jóhann*
6. Aubade 2020
7. Ichimei - small happiness
8. Mizu no Naka no Bagatelle
9. Bibo no Aozora
10. Aqua
11. Tong Poo*
12. The Wuthering Heights
13. 20220302 - sarabande
14. The Sheltering Sky
15. 20180219 (w/prepared piano)*
16. The Last Emperor
17. Trioon*
18. Happy End
19. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
20. Opus - ending

*New arrangement or never-before-recorded

Credit: Neo Sora © 2022 Kab Inc. | Download

About Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto was a composer, producer, and artist born in Tokyo. His diverse résumé includes pioneering electronic works in the legendary techno group Yellow Magic Orchestra, producing pop albums and numerous classical compositions, two operas, and nearly 45 original film/TV scores for directors, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Pedro Almodóvar, Brian De Palma, and Alejandro González Iñárritu. His film soundtracks have won prestigious awards, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, and many more.

Sakamoto also made considerable contributions to the art world with both solo and collaborative installations and multi-piece exhibitions presented in galleries and museums worldwide.

On January 17th, 2023, his 71st birthday, Ryuichi released 12, his 15th solo album. The new album is a collection of 12 songs selected from musical sketches Sakamoto recorded like a sound diary during his two-and-a-half-year battle with cancer.

Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away in March 2023 at the age of 71.

In memory of Ryuichi, his family and friends launched TREES FOR SAKAMOTO, a tree planting initiative to enable fans to donate to planting trees in various regions simply and transparently.

Connect With Ryuichi Sakamoto:
Instagram | X | Facebook

Christopher Jesina 11/25/24 Christopher Jesina 11/25/24

Feb. 28 - Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Stereo Recordings 1964–1983

Sony Classical Presents Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Stereo Recordings 1964–1983

Sony Classical Presents
Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Stereo Recordings 1964–1983

Album Release Date: February 28, 2025
Reviewer Rate: $140.00 + shipping/handling fees
Pre-Order Available Now

This massive new reissue from Eugene Ormandy’s stereo discography collects all the Columbia Masterworks recordings he made in Philadelphia between the early 1960s and early 1980s. Sony Classical’s new 94-CD box set, which will be released on February 28, 2025 (pre-order available now) once again demonstrates what noted critic Jed Distler, reviewing the previous installment of this ambitious project “The Columbia Stereo Collection 1958–1963” in Gramophone’s December 2023 issue, characterized as “the Philadelphia Orchestra’s brilliance and versatility as well as Ormandy’s unflappable consistency and habitually underestimated interpretative gifts”. Some of these performances – including the complete recording of Bach’s St. John Passion, Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, Schubert’s Sixth Symphony and a disc of opera choruses with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, as well as Ginastera’s Concerto for Strings and the ballet music from Massenet’s opera Le Cid – have never appeared before in the digital medium, and they shine a light into new corners of Ormandy’s astonishingly large repertoire.

Also new to CD are two late symphonies by Haydn – No. 96 “The Miracle” and No. 101 “The Clock” – a prime example of Ormandy excelling in repertoire not normally associated with him. Gramophone’s reviewer wrote that he “apparently uses a quite large body of strings, which makes the perfection of their playing the more praiseworthy. The nimble unanimity of the violins in the finale of No. 96 really is something to be heard. It is, indeed, all very stylish and excellently done.” High Fidelity concurred: “Ormandy favors tradition in texts, tempos, and timbre, but there is genuine pleasure to be found in his handling of the slow movements and the crisp rhythms of the finales. In the first movement of No. 96 his eminently zestful reading evokes the brilliance of a London premiere, and the cohesion of the orchestra is especially commendable.”

Another composer for whom Ormandy showed a perhaps unexpected affinity was Bruckner, as can be heard in his recording of the Fifth Symphony (1965) and Te Deum (1966). “Ormandy is not a meditative conductor, but a sculptor in sound, a man who has an uncanny ear for balance and texture … The bare contrasts of string against woodwind, and brass against them both, are given an electrifying freshness … As for the Philadelphia strings they give a resonance and warmth which is ravishing on the ear, not just in the obvious passages of the slow movement, where bows always tend to dig deep, but in such passages as the pianissimo tremolo at the end of the first movement exposition, as it dies down to nothing” (Gramophone).

The new set contains many more of Ormandy’s acclaimed interpretations of the symphonic repertoire, including his pioneering recording of Mahler’s Tenth, in the performing version by Deryck Cooke – “They bring a sense of wonder and discovery and I think you really can sense their missionary zeal in this recording. It must also be said that the playing of the Philadelphia Orchestra is superb in every department … Ormandy was a great conductor and this version of the Tenth is a fine example of his art” (MusicWeb International). The new set also contains Ormandy’s complete traversal of the symphonies by Beethoven and Brahms, as well as Nielsen’s First and Sixth, in which “Ormandy disentangles the strands and presents the spare work with the clarity called for in a symphony that rejoices in chamber textures” (MusicWeb International).

Ormandy’s full-bodied approach to Russian repertoire can be heard here in symphonies by Tchaikovsky, No. 4, Prokofiev’s “Classical” and Fifth, the Shostakovich Fifth and Tenth and two symphonies by the conductor’s friend Rachmaninoff, the First (“...gorgeous in its tonal beauty and irresistible in its kinetic impact. The recorded sound does the musicians superb justice.” – HiFi Stereo Review) and Third, of which “he gives a mature, most satisfying performance – and the famous Philadelphia string tone is, of course, made for Rachmaninov” (Gramophone).

Ormandy’s iconic 1966 recording of the Mussorgsky-Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition was recently acclaimed by ClassicsToday as the finest version of the work ever committed to disc: “Great playing and a big, gutsy interpretation that not only characterizes each section beautifully but also welds the suite together into an extremely satisfying whole. The panoramic final pages, from the start of the tolling bell section, have no peer in terms of detail and sheer sonic splendor, and this is one of the best-sounding recordings that Ormandy and Philly ever got from Sony.”

American music is represented by Ives and Gershwin, of course, but also by Paul Creston and Ferde Grofé; British music by Elgar’s Enigma and Cockaigne and Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. In French repertoire such as Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole and Debussy’s Nocturnes, wrote Gramophone, Ormandy’s early-60s recordings are “really first-rate in every way. In the Ravel the Philadelphia Orchestra’s virtuosity seems to have no bounds, while elsewhere there is much beautiful and sensitive playing.” And naturally there are important works here by Ormandy’s Hungarian compatriots Bartók and Kodály, including their Concertos for Orchestra, the suite from The Miraculous Mandarin and Háry János and the Bartók Divertimento from 1968, new to CD.

Ormandy was regarded by many as one of the finest accompanists in the business, and the new set features many classic concerto recordings – of works by composers including Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, Gershwin, Prokofiev, Bruch, Ravel, Lalo and Rodrigo, played by such regular partners of the conductor as Isaac Stern, Rudolf Serkin, Eugene Istomin, Philippe Entremont and Leonard Rose. Reviewing Stern and Ormandy’s Prokofiev Concertos from 1963, Gramophone wrote that “their First in particular has rarely been matched and perhaps never quite surpassed. Stern’s stunning virtuosity is entirely apt in the most entertaining scherzo ever recorded … Ormandy matches him with characterful orchestral playing.” And of the Brahms Double Concerto with Stern and Rose from 1964, the same publication said that “each soloist plays not only with the utmost skill and sensitivity, which really goes without saying, but also with the utmost sympathy for the other … The orchestra respond in an exemplary way, and the whole is handled by Ormandy most effectively.”

There are other large-scale works here, including Beethoven’s Christ on the Mount of Olives (Gramophone: “Ormandy directs the oratorio with a passionate belief in its worth … and transmits that to his singers and orchestra. The result is a remarkably fine performance, very well recorded”) and the Requiem settings by Berlioz and Verdi, as well as numerous smaller, often lesser-known works for which Ormandy had a special flair. But it would be a fitting close to point out the only recording in this massive collection that wasn’t made in the “New World”. In 1967, the conductor was in London to record Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony with the LSO, yet as Gramophone wrote, “to a remarkable degree Ormandy secures an Ormandy sound of the kind one recognizes in Philadelphia performances. The concern for texture and inner balancing is astonishingly acute … If CBS wanted to experiment in having Ormandy record in Europe for a change, the result is an outstanding success … At any price this is one of the very best ‘New World’ performances available.”

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1:
Bach, J.S.: Oster-Oratorium, BWV 249

DISC 2:
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25 "Classical"
Prokofiev: Lieutenant Kijé Suite, Op. 60
Prokofiev: The Love for Three Oranges (suite), Op. 33bis

DISC 3:
Strauss, R.: Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30

DISC 4:
Offenbach: Gaîté Parisienne
Bizet: L'Arlésienne Suite No. 1
Bizet: L'Arlésienne Suite No. 2

DISC 5:
Hindemith: Mathis der Maler Symphony
Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber

DISC 6:
Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, Op. 71, TH 14 (Extracts)
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, TH 42 (1880 Version)

DISC 7:
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116

DISC 8:
Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90 "Italian"
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, incidental music, Op. 61

DISC 9:
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major, M. 83
Falla: Noches en los Jardines de España, IMF 8

DISC 10:
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63

DISC 11:
Traditional: Oh Tannenbaum
Traditional: It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Simeone: Little Drummer Boy
Niles: I Wonder as I Wander
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: For unto us a Child is bor
Traditional: Here We Go A-Caroling
Traditional: Good King Wenceslas
Traditional: Away in a Manger
Traditional: Jingle Bells
Traditional: We Three Kings of Orient Are
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56: Hallelujah Chorus
Traditional: We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Pergolesi: Glory to God in the Highest
Franck: Psalm 150 in D Major, FWV 69
Robertson: How Beautiful Upon the Mountain
Schubert: Psalm 23, D. 706
Beethoven: Christus am Ölberge, Op. 85: Hallelujah

DISC 12/13:
Verdi: Messa da Requiem

DISC 14:
Strauss, R.: Der Rosenkavalier Suite, TrV 227d
Strauss, R.: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28
Strauss, R.: Salome, Op. 54, TrV 215: Dance of the Seven Veils

DISC 15:
Mendelssohn: Concerto for 2 Pianos in E Major, MWV O 5
Mendelssohn: Concerto for 2 Pianos in A-Flat Major, MWV O 6

DISC 16:
Copland: Fanfare for the Common Man
Copland: Lincoln Portrait
Ives: 3 Places in New England (Orchestral Set No. 1)
Ives: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor

DISC 17:
Schumann: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Schumann: Introduction & Allegro appassionato, Op. 92 "Konzertstück"

DISC 18:
Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole, M. 54
Debussy (orch. Ravel): Danse, L. 69 "Tarantelle styrienne"
Debussy: Nocturnes, L. 91
Debussy (arr. William Smith): Rêverie, L. 68
Debussy (orch. Smith): 2 Arabesques, L. 66: 1. Andantino con moto
Debussy (orch. Smith): Préludes, Livre 1, L. 117: 8. La fille aux cheveux de lin
Debussy (orch. Büsser): Petite Suite, L. 65: 1. En bateau

DISC 19:
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70, Act II: Festmarsch
Wagner: Lohengrin, WWV 75: Prelude to Act III
Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86b, Act III: Magic Fire Music
Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86b Act III: The Ride of the Valkyries
Wagner: Tannhäuser, WWV 70: Overture
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90: Prelude & Liebestod
Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96, Act I: Prelude

DISC 20:
Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11

DISC 21:
Dvorák: Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, B. 191
Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33

DISC 22:
Brahms: Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra in B-Flat Major, Op. 83

DISC 23:
Brahms: Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102
Beethoven: Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello & Piano in C Major, Op. 56

DISC 24:
Mozart: Symphony No. 30 in D Major, K. 202
Mozart: Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 297 "Paris"
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15

DISC 25:
Stravinsky: Petroushka Ballet Suite

DISC 26:
Kodály: Háry János Suite
Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite (1919 Version)

DISC 27:
Foster (arr. Harris): Camptown Races
Traditional (arr. Harris): When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Traditional (arr. Harris): Sailor's Hornpipe
Paderewski (arr. Harris): Minuet in G Major Op. 14, No. 1
Rameau (arr. Harris): The Hen
Benjamin (arr. Harris): Jamaican Rumba
Debussy: General Lavine
Harris: March of the Mandarins
Traditional (arr. Harris): Londonderry Air
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Flight of the Bumblebee
Grieg (arr. Harris): March of the Dwarfs (Arranged by Arthur Harris)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Procession of the Nobles from "Mlada" Suite
Halvorsen: March of the Boyars
Chabrier: Joyeuse Marche for Orchestra
Saint-Saëns: Suite algérienne, Op. 60: IV. Marche militaire française
Mendelssohn: War March of the Priests from "Athalie, Op. 74"
Rimsky-Korsakov: Farewell of the Tsar from "Tsar Saltan Suite, Op. 57"
Ippolitov-Ivanov: Caucasian Sketches Suite, Op. 10: Procession of the Sardar

DISC 28:
Guthrie (arr. Cormier): This Land is Your Land
arr. Hunter: Down in the Valley
arr. De Cormier: She'll be coming round the mountain
Foster (arr. Robertson): Beautiful Dreamer
arr. De Cormier: Sweet Betsy from Pike
Gould: Spirituals for Orchestra: Gospel Train - Old Time Religion
arr. De Cormier: When I First Came to This Land
arr. De Cormier: Shenandoah (or, Across the Wide Missouri)
arr. De Cormier: Home on The Range
arr. De Cormier: He's Got the Whole World in His Hands
arr. Harris: I Wonder as I Wander
Foster (arr. Shaw): Oh, Susanna
Traditional: Deep River

DISC 29:
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major, Op. 44
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 75

DISC 30:
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 4 in F Minor, Op. 36
Tchaikovsky (arr. Harris): None but the Lonely Heart, Op. 6, No. 6
Tchaikovsky (arr. Gould): The Seasons, Op. 37a: No. 6, June. Barcarolle

DISC 31:
Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22
Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 44

DISC 32:
Berlioz: Grande messe des morts, H 75

DISC 33:
Mozart: Concerto No. 1 in D Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 412
Mozart: Concerto No. 2 in E-Flat Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 417
Mozart: Concerto No. 3 in E-Flat Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 447
Mozart: Concerto No. 4 in E-Flat Major for Horn and Orchestra, K. 495

DISC 34:
Bartók: A csodálatos mandarin, Op. 19 "The Miraculous Mandarin"
Bartók: 2 Pictures, Op. 10
Bartók: 2 Portraits, Op. 5

DISC 35:
Sarasate: Introduction and Tarantelle for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 43
Cooley: Aria and Dance for Viola and Orchestra
Fauré: Élégie for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 24
Vanhal: Concerto in E Major for Bass and Orchestra
Riisager: Concertino for Trumpet and Orchestra, Op. 29
Saint-Saëns: Morceau de concert, Op. 94
Guilmant: Morceau Symphonique for Trombone and Orchestra, Op. 88

DISC 36:
Mahler: Symphony No. 10 in F-Sharp Minor (1976 Version)

DISC 37:
Haydn: Symphony No. 96 in D Major, Hob. I:96, "Miracle"
Haydn: Symphony No. 101 in D Major, Hob. I:101 "Clock"

DISC 38:
Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez
Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Concerto in D Major for Guitar and Orchestra, Op. 99

DISC 39:
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-Flat Major, K. 595

DISC 40:
Beethoven: Christus am Ölberge, Op. 85 (Christ on the Mount of Olives)
Bruckner: Te Deum

DISC 41:
Rossini (arr. Respighi): La boutique fantasque: 2. Tarentella "La Danza"
Rossini (arr. Respighi): La boutique fantasque: 4. Danse Cosaque. Allegretto marcato
Rossini (arr. Respighi): La boutique fantasque: 5. Can-Can. Allegretto grottesco "Petite Caprice Style Offenbach"
Ponchielli: La gioconda, Op. 9, Act III: Dance of the Hours
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5 in F-Sharp Minor
Falla: El amor brujo: 8. Ritual Fire Dance
Smetana: The Bartered Bride: Dance of the Comedians
Rossini: Dance for Six from William Tell
Weinberger: Polka from "Schwanda"
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, TH 5: Polonaise
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 6 in D Flat Major3:22

DISC 42:
Dvorák: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53
Dvorák: Romance in F Minor, Op. 11, B. 39
Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

DISC 43:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36

DISC 44:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, "Eroica"

DISC 45:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 60
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67

DISC 46:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastoral"

DISC 47:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92
Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93

DISC 48:
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral"

DISC 49:
Nielsen: Symphony No. 6, Op. 116 "Sinfonia Semplice"
Nielsen: Maskarade Overture
Nielsen: Maskerade: Prelude to Act II

DISC 50:
Tchaikovsky: Italian Capriccio, Op. 45, TH 47
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, TH 5: Waltz
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34
Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d'or - IV. Bridal Procession and Lamentable Death of Tsar Dodon

DISC 51:
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

DISC 52:
Nielsen: Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 7
Nielsen: Helios Overture, Op. 17
Nielsen: Pan and Syrinx, Op. 49
Nielsen: Rhapsodisk ouverture, CNW 39 "An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands"

DISC 53:
Marcello: Concerto in C Minor for Oboe and Orchestra
Weber: Hungarian Fantasy for Bassoon and Orchestra
Debussy: Danse sacrée et danse profane, L. 103
Creston: Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra, Op. 21
Bloch: Suite Modale for Flute and Orchestra
Debussy: Rhapsody No. 1 for Clarinet and Orchestra, L.116
Liszt: Fantasie über ungarische Volksmelodien, S. 123

DISC 54:
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 13

DISC 55:
Lalo: Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21
Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26

DISC 56:
Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F Major
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

DISC 57:
Orff: Catulli Carmina
Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel): Pictures at an Exhibition, IMM 50

DISC 58:
Kodály: Concerto for Orchestra
Kodály: Dances of Galanta
Kodály: Dances of Marosszék

DISC 59:
Berg: Lulu Suite
Schoenberg: Theme and Variations, Op. 43B
Webern: Im Sommerwind
Webern: Three Pieces for Orchestra, Posth.

DISC 60:
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, WAB 105

DISC 61:
Bizet: Les Voici from "Carmen"
Mascagni: The Lord Now Victorious from "Cavalleria Rusticana"
Gounod: Soldiers' Chorus from "Faust"
Wagner: Hail, Bright Abode from "Tannhäuser"
Puccini: Humming Chorus from "Madama Butterfly"
Verdi: Il Trovatore, Act II: Anvil Chorus
Wagner: Pilgrims' Chorus from "Tannhäuser"
Leoncavallo: Bell Chorus from "I Pagliacci"
Wagner: Bridal Chorus from "Lohengrin"
Weber: Huntsmen's Chorus from "Der Freischütz"
Verdi: Grand March from "Aida"

DISC 62:
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 44
Rachmaninoff: Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14

DISC 63:
Dinicu (arr. Heifetz): Hora Staccato
Dvorák: Humoresque
Rimsky-Korsakov: The Flight of the Bumblebee
Tchaikovsky (arr. Frost): String Quartet No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11: II. Andante cantabile
Strauss, Johann II and Josef: Pizzicato-Polka
Bach, J.S. (arr. Kresiler/Smith): Preludium in E Major
Paganini (orch. Ormandy): Moto Perpetuo
Granados (arr. Harris): Andaluza, Op. 37, No. 5
Schubert, François (arr. Harris): The Bee
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5
Novacek: Perpetual Motion
Kreisler (arr. Leidzen): Liebesfreud (Love's Joy)

DISC 64:
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58

DISC 65:
Respighi: Vetrate di chiesa
Respighi: Gli uccelli

DISC 66:
Gershwin: An American in Paris
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture (Arr. for Orchestra by Robert Russel Bennett)
Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite

DISC 67:
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C Major, D. 944 "The Great"

DISC 68:
Handel: Awake the Trumpet's Lofty Sound from Samson
Handel: Judas Maccabaeus, HWV 63: See, the Conqu'ring Hero Comes!
Handel: Sing Unto God from Judas Maccabaeus
Handel: Messiah, HWV 56
Handel: Let Their Celestial Concerts All Unite from Samson
Handel: Welcome, Welcome Mighty King from Saul
Handel: David, His Ten Thousands Slew from Saul
Handel: Zadok the Priest - Coronation Anthem
Handel: Hallelujah Chorus from Messiah, HWV 56
Handel: Holy Art Thou (Largo from "Xerxes")
Handel: How Excellent Thy Name from "Saul"
Handel: Hallelujah, Amen from Judas Maccabaeus
Handel: But as for his people from Israel in Egypt
Handel: Sing Ye to the Lord from Isreal in Egypt

DISC 69:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47

DISC 70:
Bach, J.S.: Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring (From "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147"
Bach, J.S.: "What Tho' the World Be Full of Sin" from Cantata No. 80
Bach, J.S.: A Mighty Fortress is Our God from Cantata No. 80, BWV 80
Bach, J.S.: "Ah, Dearest Jesus" from "The Christmas Oratorio", BWV 245
Bach, J.S.: "Sleepers Awake" from Cantata No. 140
Bach, J.S.: "Zion Hears the Watchmen's Voices" from Cantata No. 140
Bach, J.S.: "My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord" from Magnificat, BWV 243
Bach, J.S. (arr. Walton/Katherine Davis): Sheep May Safely Graze (From "The Birthday Cantata, BWV 208)
Bach, J.S. (arr. Gounod): Father in Heaven (Ave Maria)
Bach, J.S.: "Now Keep We All This Holy Feast" from Cantata No. 4
Bach, J.S.: "Come, Sweet Death", BWV 478
Bach, J.S.: "Now Thank We All Our God" from Cantata No. 79
Bach, J.S.: In Deepest Grief - From the "St. Matthew Passion"

DISC 71:
Mendelssohn: Capriccio brillant, Op. 2
Schumann: Introduction & Allegro, Op. 134
Strauss, R.: Burleske, TrV 145: Allegro vivace

DISC 72:
Alfén: Midsommarvaka, Op. 19 "Swedish Rhapsody No. 1"
Sibelius: Karelia Suite, Op. 11
Grieg: Norwegian Dance, Op. 35, No. 2: Allegretto tranquillo e grazioso
Grieg: Sigurd Jorsalfar (suite), Op. 56, No. 3: Huldigungsmarsch. Allegro molto
Grieg: Lyric Pieces, Op. 54, No. 2: Gangar. Allegretto marcato "Norwegian March"
Sibelius: Finlandia, Op. 26
Grieg: Lyric Suite, Op. 54, Nr. 4: Notturno. Andante

DISC 73:

Ravel: Boléro, M. 81
Massenet: Le Cid (Ballet Suite)
Falla: El Sombrero de Tres Picos, Parte II

DISC 74:
Bach, J.S. (arr. Ormandy): Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
Bach, J.S. (arr. Smith): Cantata No. 156, BWV 156 - Sinfonia "Arioso"
Bach, J.S. (arr. Frost): Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach: Little Suite
Bach, J.S. (arr. Harris): A Mighty Fortress is Our God
Bach, J.S. (arr. Cailliet): Cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147: Jesu, Joy of Man's
Desiring
Bach, J.S. (arr. Smith): Fugue in G Minor "The Little"
Bach, J.S. (arr. Busoni): Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542 "Great"
Bach, J.S. (arr. Walton): Sheep May Safely Graze (from Cantata No. 208)
Bach, J.S. (arr. Taynton): Come, Sweet Death
Bach, J.S. (arr. Bantok): Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140 "Sleepers Awake": I. Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme

DISC 75:
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis in D Major, Op. 123

DISC 76:
Lalo: Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in D Minor
Saint-Saens: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 33
Fauré: Élégie for Cello and Orchestra in C Minor, Op. 24

DISC 77:
Berlioz: Harold in Italy, H. 68

DISC 78:
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93

DISC 79:
Rossini (arr. Respighi): The Magic Toy Shop
Adam: Giselle Ballet Suite (Excerpts)
Meyerbeer: Les patineurs Ballet Suite
Waldteufel: Estudiantina Waltz, Op. 191
Waldteufel: Les patineurs, Op.183
Goundod: Faust: Waltz
Ivanovici: Danube Waves

DISC 80:
Boccherini: String Quintet in E Major, Op. 13, No. 5. Minuet
Beethoven (arr. Smith): Bagatelle in A Minor, WoO 59 "Für Elise"
Handel: Largo from Xerxes
Mozart: Don Giovanni, KV527 - Minuet
Handel (arr. Harty): Water Music Suite
Clarke: Trumpet Voluntary
Beethoven (arr. Burmester): 6 Minuets, WoO 10: No. 2 in G Major
Hofstetter (attr. Haydn): String Quartet no. 5 in F Major, Op. 3 "Serenade"
Gluck (arr. Frost): Iphigénie en Aulide, Wq. 40: Gavotte
Gluck: Armide, Wq. 45: Musette
Gluck: Orpheo ed Euridice, Wq. 30, Act II: Dance of the Blessed Spirits
Fauré: Pavane in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 50
Menotti: Sebastian Suite: II Barcarolle
Brahms (arr. Jacques): 11 Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, No. 8: Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen
Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel: Abends, will ich schlafen gehn
Schumann (arr. T. Frost): Kinderszenen, Op. 15: No. 7, Träumerei
Saint-Saens: Carnival of Animals: The Swan
Massenet (arr. Frost): Élégie

DISC 81/82:
Bach, J.S.: Johannespassion, BWV 245

DISC 83:
Respighi: Fountains of Rome
Respighi: The Pines of Rome

DISC 84:
Elgar: Enigma Variations (Variations on an Original Theme), Op. 36
Vaughan-Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis - Largo sostenuto
Elgar: Cockaigne Overture (In London Town), Op. 40

DISC 85:
Gounod: Faust, Act V, Ballet Music
Thomas: Mignon: Gavotte
Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann. Prelude to Act II: Minuet
Wolf-Ferrari: I gioielli della Madonna: Intermezzo from Act III
Verdi: Aïda, Act II, Gran marcia trionfale
Verdi: La Traviata: Overture
Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo
Berlioz: Les troyens, H. 133: Marche troyenne
Rossini: Guillaume Tell: Overture
Jaernfelt: Praeludium für kleines Orchester
Liszt: Grand galop chromatique
Pierné: Cydalise et le chèvre-pied. Act I, Marche des petits faunes
Mendelssohn: Midsummer Night's Dream, op. 61 - Intermezzo

DISC 86:
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68

DISC 87:
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73
Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90

DISC 88:
Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80

DISC 89:
Schubert: Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, D. 417 "Tragic"
Schubert: Symphony No. 6 in C Major, D. 589 "Little"
Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a

DISC 90:
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104 "Romantic" (1886 Version, ed. L. Nowak)

DISC 91:
Bartók: Divertimento for String Orchestra
Ginastera: Concerto per Corde

DISC 92:
Strauss, R.: Der Bürger als Edelmann Suite, Op. 60
Strauss, R.: Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 11

DISC 93:
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major, Op. 107
Kabalevsky: Cello Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 49

DISC 94:
Dvorák: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 "From the New World" (London Symphony Orchestra)

Christopher Jesina 11/25/24 Christopher Jesina 11/25/24

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Historical Album: Paul Robeson Voice of Freedom – The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings

GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Historical Album

Paul Robeson - Voice of Freedom
The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings
Out Now via Sony Classical

Robeson's Life and Legacy Featured on NPR Morning Edition in Interview with Shana Redmond
Listen Here

Review in the Wall Street Journal
Read Here

“[T]his comprehensive survey of his recording career stands as a testament not just to Robeson’s incomparable talents and achievements, but also to the substantial hurdles faced by Black Americans generally during his lifetime.” – Wall Street Journal

Reviewer Rate: $55.16 + shipping/handling fees
Available Now

Paul Robeson—African-American bass-baritone, stage and film actor, All-American football player, lawyer, and advocate for civil rights—was outspoken against racism, colonialism, and social injustice. Rutgers graduate, scholar of world cultures, and speaker of more than 20 languages, he worked tirelessly to break down political and racial barriers, and to build bridges between the peoples of this world. However, with the advent of the Cold War and the Red Scare following World War II, the political climate changed. Doors began to close for Robeson as concert halls and radio stations shut him out. In July 1950, the US State Department revoked the blacklisted artist’s passport thus preventing him from pursuing his successful international career as a singer and actor. But international audiences continued to honor and call out for him, and he found technologically advanced and effective ways to reach his communities all over the world.

Today, his remarkable voice and unrivaled stage presence live on in sound recordings and films. This 14-CD edition on Sony Classical, is the first ever release of his complete Columbia, HMV and Victor recordings from 1925 to 1947. All of his American recordings have been meticulously restored from the original master discs and tapes, and 25 studio recordings—as well as his complete historic New York and London recitals from 1958—are presented here for the first time on CD. The richly illustrated 160-page book, with essays by Shana L. Redmond and Susan Robeson, pays tribute to a cultural icon of the 20th century.

Blacklisted and erased from American history, many of Robeson’s recordings in the U.S. remained unreleased – until now
Special 14-CD edition, documenting his complete major-label discography, recorded 1925–1947
First release of Robeson’s groundbreaking Victor recordings on CD, 16 recordings reissued for the first time, 5 previously unreleased
First restoration of Robeson’s famous 1944 Othello stage production with Uta Hagen and José Ferrer from the original 33 master disc sides
His complete remastered Columbia albums (Songs of Free Men, Popular Favorites, Spirituals)
First release of his historic 1958 recitals at Mother A.M.E. Zion Church, New York, and Royal Albert Hall, with 30 previously unissued recordings
Richly illustrated 160-page book with essays by Shana L. Redmond and Susan Robeson, a wealth of photos and facsimiles from the archives of The Paul Robeson Trust, the Academy of the Arts, Berlin, and Columbia Records, plus complete discographical notes

Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass baritone concert artist and stage and film actor who became famous both for his work as singer and actor and for his political activism.

Robeson attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where he was an All-American football player. Upon graduating from Rutgers at the head of his class, he rejected a career as a professional athlete and instead entered Columbia University. He obtained a law degree in 1923, but, because of the lack of opportunity for blacks in the legal profession, he drifted to the stage, making a London debut in 1922. He joined the Provincetown Players, a New York theatre group that included playwright Eugene O’Neill, and appeared in O’Neill’s play All God’s Chillun Got Wings in 1924. His subsequent appearance in the title role of O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones caused a sensation in New York City (1924) and London (1925). He also starred in the film version of the play (1933).

In addition to his other talents, Robeson had a superb bass-baritone singing voice and studied more than 20 languages. In 1925 he gave his first vocal recital of African American spirituals in Greenwich Village, New York City, and he became world famous as Joe in the musical play Show Boat with his version of “Ol’ Man River.” His characterization of the title role in Othello in London (1930) won high praise, as did the Broadway production (1943), which set an all-time record run for a Shakespearean play on Broadway.

Robeson’s recorded repertoire spanned many styles, including Americana, popular standards, classical music, European folk songs, political songs, poetry and spoken excerpts from plays.

Returning to the United States in 1939, during World War II Robeson supported the American and Allied war efforts. However, his history of supporting civil rights causes and pro-Soviet policies brought scrutiny from the FBI.

In 1949, a concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27 in Lakeland Acres, just north of Peekskill, New York. Before Robeson arrived, a mob of locals attacked concertgoers with baseball bats and rocks. The local police arrived hours later and did little to intervene. Thirteen people were seriously injured, Robeson was lynched in effigy and a cross seen burning on an adjacent hillside. The concert was then postponed until September 4. Following the concert, request for Klan memberships from the Peekskill area numbered 748 persons.

Paul Robeson moved to Harlem and from 1950 to 1955 published a periodical called Freedom which was critical of United States policies.

In the McCarthy era, Robeson's passport was revoked, his records disappeared from stores, his name was blacklisted, which equated to a ban on performing in the United States. International committees were formed demanding freedom for Robeson to travel, particularly in Britain. In May 1957, members of the British House of Commons organized a "transnational" concert by telephone in London's St. Pancras Town Hall. He was only allowed to leave the U.S.A. again in 1958 as a result of a 1958 United States Supreme Court decision.

In the early 1960s he retired and lived the remaining years of his life privately in Philadelphia.

Robeson became the main mentor to the young Harry Belafonte, who became one of the most popular black entertainment stars of the early 1950s, but also a protagonist of the African American civil rights movement. Belafonte referred to Robeson both artistically and politically.

SET CONTENTS

DISC 1: THE EARLY VICTOR AND RCA RECORDINGS 1925–1940

Spirituals · Ol’ Man River · Ballad for Americans
16 recordings restored for the first time from the original masters, 5 recordings previously unreleased, all others newly remastered

DISCs 2–8: THE HMV RECORDINGS 1928–1939

DISC 9: THE COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS RECORDINGS 1942/1947

Songs of Free Men · Popular · Favorites · Joe Louis Blues
All recordings newly remastered · 1 recording previously unreleased

DISC 10: THE COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS RECORDINGS 1945/1947

Go Down, Moses · Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and 22 more spirituals
All recordings newly remastered

DISC 11: LIVE IN NEW YORK, JUNE 1, 1958

Spirituals · Arias · Folk Songs · Ode to Joy

First restoration of the historic recital at Mother A.M.E. Zion Church
14 recordings previously unreleased

DISC 12: LIVE IN LONDON, AUGUST 10, 1958

First restoration of Robeson’s return to Royal Albert Hall
16 recordings previously unreleased

DISCs 13/14: SHAKESPEARE: OTHELLO (1944)

Columbia Masterworks’ first album of an entire stage production, restored from the original 33 disc sides

Christopher Jesina 11/15/24 Christopher Jesina 11/15/24

Jensen Artists: Selected 2024 Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Selected 2024 Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Neave Trio: A Room of Her Own (Chandos)
Listen on Apple Music or Spotify

James Blachly, Experiential Orchestra, Curtis Stewart:
American Counterpoints (Bright Shiny Things)
GRAMMY Nominated for Best Classical Compendium
GRAMMY Nominated for Best Classical Instrumental Solo
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Maya Beiser x Terry Riley: In C (Islandia Music Records)
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David Crowell: Point / Cloud (Better Company Records)
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Sophia Jani: Six Pieces for Solo Violin (Squama Recordings)
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Elizabeth Chang: Sonatas & Myths (Bridge Records)
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Neave Trio: Rooted (Chandos)
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David Kaplan: New Dances of the League of David (New Focus Recordings)
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Charlotte Hu: Liszt: Metamorphosis (Pentatone)
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Tina Davidson: Barefoot (New Focus Recordings)
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Alex Sopp: The Hem & The Haw (Sono Luminus, CD)
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Simone Dinnerstein: The Eye is the First Circle (Supertrain Records)
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Kristin Lee: American Sketches (First Hand Records)
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Ethan Iverson: Playfair Sonatas (Urlicht AudioVisual)
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Neave Trio – A Room of Her Own | February 2, 2024 (Chandos Records)
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“[T]he four works by Chaminade, Tailleferre, Smyth, and Lili Boulanger, are well chosen, both for themselves and for the way they work with and against each other.” “Throughout, the string tone is the most beautiful I’ve heard in a long time.” – Roger Nichols, BBC Music Magazine

“Naturally the case for all four composers is strengthened by these illustrious performances: the Neave Trio delivers perceptively characterised interpretations that are by turns individual and blended, supported by a pleasingly warm recording.” – Joanne Talbot, The Strad

“The Neave Trio has obviously invested time and emotional commitment into these pieces, and the album was splendidly recorded at Potton Hall in Suffolk. A superior chamber music release.” – James Manheim, AllMusic

On the Neave Trio’s fifth from Chandos Records, A Room of Her Own, two generations of composers are represented: Cécile Chaminade and Ethel Smyth were born in 1857 and 1858 respectively, while Germaine Tailleferre and Lili Boulanger were born in 1892 and 1893. All four were in their early twenties when they composed the works on this album. Smyth had just begun composing in her late teens, and the Piano Trio is one of her earliest known works, while Chaminade and Boulanger had been writing prolifically from an early age; Boulanger died prematurely, at the age of twenty-four, and her piano trios were among her final compositions, while the longest-lived of these composers, Tailleferre, returned to revise her forgotten early trio in her mid-eighties. The early lives of these composers were shaped by varying levels of familial support and educational opportunity, and each had to contend – in different ways – with the gendered barriers that faced women in music throughout their lifetimes.

The Neave Trio says of the album, “By recording and performing these trios, we aim to celebrate the richness of their musical contributions and emphasize the importance of recognizing and promoting the works of wonderful composers who happened to be women.”

James Blachly, Experiential Orchestra, Curtis Stewart – American Counterpoints | March 1, 2024 (Bright Shiny Things)
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Classical Compendium
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Classical Instrumental Solo

“American Counterpoints shines a much-deserved light on [Julia Perry and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor,] two important, and thankfully rediscovered, figures in American classical music.” – Thomas Huizenga, NPR Music

“[Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto] is a fine example of the sober yet seething angularity of its era, leavened with warm strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness.” – Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times

“It’s not often you can claim a CD offers true revelations, but that’s the case with this fascinating release featuring US violinist and composer Curtis Stewart.” “a disc of musical discoveries, conveyed in compelling performances and warm, close sound.” – David Kettle, The Strad

American Counterpoints is the first album released by Experiential Orchestra since their Grammy® Award in 2021, and is the co-creation of GRAMMY®-winning conductor James Blachly, and 4-time GRAMMY® nominated violinist and composer, Curtis Stewart. Featuring the first commercial recording of Julia Perry's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, the album asserts the central importance of composers Julia Perry and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson in American classical music, juxtaposing early and late works of both composers and interweaving their compositions with original music by Curtis Stewart.

Maya Beiser x Terry Riley – In C | April 5, 2024 (Islandia Records)
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“This album is a musical journey for mind and body — both a stimulant and a sedative. It offers many engaging stopovers, from an oasis of calm where the pulse evaporates, to Led Zeppelin-like headbanging reminiscent of ‘Kashmir,’" to moments where the cello loops interleave with the sweet delicacy of Vivaldi. If you have a spare hour to let this singular, hypnotic music wash over you, the world might just seem a little brighter.” – Tom Huizenga, NPR’s All Things Considered

“Listen as cellist, producer, and adventurous artist Maya Beiser, turns Terry Riley’s minimalist classic, “In C”, into a captivating soundscape with her cello. In her version, the open-scored page is transformed into a series of drones and live cello loops, along with contributions from two of her long-time collaborators, the drummers Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer.” – John Schaefer, New Sounds

“an ecstatic, hypnotic piece of minimalism with sacred overtones” – John Lewis, The Guardian

Maya Bieser recreates Terry Riley’s In C as a series of ever-evolving cello loops. Enveloped by live drumming by Shane Shanahan and Matt Kilmer, Maya constructs a hypnotic, rapturous soundscape that re-envisions this classic 1964 Minimalist masterpiece, marking its 60th anniversary. “To me,” Maya says, “Terry Riley’s In C is an amalgamation of an ‘open source’ and ‘sacred text.’ In creating this album I was interested in finding the serendipitous rhythmic and melodic connections that emerge when reconstructing In C’s 53 melodic cells as a series of cello loops, floating above continuous C string cello drones. The cello’s lowest, most lush string, with its overtones and harmonics, forms the depth and resonance of the album.”

Terry Riley describes Maya's performance on the recording as, “stunningly beautiful.” He says, “The overall shape flows so naturally and her cello sound is so warm and powerful.”

David Crowell – Point / Cloud | May 3, 2024 (Better Company Records)
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”The New York multi-instrumentalist, who has played with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, shows great flair for making minimalism rich and harmonically complex.” – John Lewis, The Guardian – Contemporary Album of the Month

Featured on New Releases, April 2024 – John Schaefer, WNYC’s New Sounds

“[O]n Point / Cloud, composer, saxophonist, guitarist, and producer David Crowell proves his expertise at creating nuanced landscapes of feeling,” – Jeremy Shatan, anEarful

Point / Cloud is The Guardian’s Contemporary Album of the Month, described as “music that glistens, sparkles and dances with joy.” The album features David Crowell’s music performed by the GRAMMY®-nominated Sandbox Percussion, the versatile and gifted guitarists Dan Lippel and GRAMMY®-nominated Mak Grgić, and the musically meditative duo eco|tonal – David Crowell and cellist/singer/improviser Iva Casián-Lakoš. The album’s four sonically intricate and imagery-laden works prompt the idea of embracing respite while on journeys of travel and change – from the familiarity of highway drives, to enigmatic excursions, to pipe organs played by the ocean’s tides, to reprieve from musical progressions.

Sophia Jani – Six Pieces for Solo Violin | May 17, 2024 (Squama Recordings)
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“[Y]ou’ll want to explore more of [Sophia Jani’s] compositions just as much as I do once you listen to [Teresa] Allgaier’s performance of these seemingly simple, but deceptively complicated, works.” – Craig Byrd, Cultural Attaché

“The music here draws on the entire history of solo violin music to create something out-of-time yet contemporary…it’s rare to encounter a new piece that feels timeless from the outset.” – Peter Magarsak, Bandcamp

Six Pieces for Solo Violin was composed by Sophia Jani and recorded by violinist Teresa Allgaier Jani composed Six Pieces for Solo Violin between 2020 and 2023, and with it challenges the notion of simplicity as a parameter, weaving a tapestry of gentle consonance that invites contemplation and honors the violin as an instrument.

Of Six Pieces, Jani says, “What I find interesting about the violin is that it has remained the same for a few hundred years and has not really evolved. The great important violin cycles (Bieber, Bach, Paganini, Isaye, Lang) were not so much a reaction to the development of the instrument itself – unlike the piano for example – but about what kind of music could be written on it and what the players should be able to do. So the repertoire developed more based on the tastes of a certain period and who wrote for whom than motivated by technical advancement. Teresa and I asked ourselves what our contribution as two women of the 21st century could be in this context.”

Elizabeth Chang – Sonatas & Myths | May 17, 2024 (Bridge Records)
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“[Elizabeth] Chang is fiercely invested in this recording and her playing reflects a true understanding of these works. For 66 minutes, she and [Stephen] Beck give you music that obviously inspired countless composers who followed these three gentlemen.” – Craig Byrd, Cultural Attaché

“[Elizabeth Chang] is blessed with a beautiful tone, has fascinating musical ideas and a technique to burn.” “[Y]ou’ll be inspired and thrilled by great musicians performing wonderful repertoire at the highest level. Very highly recommended. – Anthony Kershaw, Audiophilia

Recorded with Elizabeth Chang’s longtime collaborator pianist Steven Beck, Sonatas and Myths features a collection of three seminal works from the early 20th century – Karol Szymanowski’s Mythes: Trois Poèmes, Op. 30 from 1915; Ernst von Dohnányi’s Violin Sonata in C# Minor, Op. 21 from 1912; and Béla Bartók’s Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano from 1921.

Sonatas and Myths portrays the profound teacher/student relationships from Chang’s artistic heritage, reflecting the influences and deep cross-generational connections between these composers. She explains, “I trace my connection to these composers through Carl Flesch, the great violin pedagogue who taught two of my teachers (Max Rostal and Roman Totenberg) and who was saved from deportation to a concentration camp by Dohnányi.”

Neave Trio – Rooted | July 5, 2024 (Chandos Records)
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“The Neave Trio have a way of making me fall in love with every oft-overlooked chamber work they record. Their latest release is chock full of Czech romanticism with trios by Smetana and Suk, as well as lovely folk-inspired works from Coleridge-Taylor and Martin.” – Emma Bauchner, Have You Heard - August 2024, WQXR

“[T]he virtues predominate, and the album's high points remain longest in your heart.” “A collection well worth experiencing.” – Peter J. Rabinowitz, Gramophone

“Such an inspired programme not only has immense musical appeal but also works superbly to the trio's advantage in enabling the group to demonstrate its versatility.” – Ron Schepper, Textura

Rooted features a range of works centered around folk music Piano Trio, Op. 15 in G minor by Bedřich Smetana; Five Negro Melodies from Twenty-four Negro Melodies, Op. 59 No. 1, for Solo Piano by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; Petit Trio, Op. 2 in C minor by Josef Suk; and Trio sur des mélodies populaires irlandaises (on Popular Irish Melodies) by Frank Martin.

Smetana’s distinctive nationalistic style was largely based on the inclusion of bohemian rhythmic and melodic elements, and he was acclaimed in his native Bohemia as the father of Czech music. His Trio in G minor was composed in 1855 as a response to the death of his four-year-old daughter and shows the influence of Liszt. Josef Suk was a favorite pupil of Antonin Dvořák’s, and his early Piano Trio, while shorter in length and less intense than Smetana’s, is embedded in that Czech tradition. Also deeply influenced by Dvořák, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was inspired by his African heritage, and his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies for Piano was a prime example of his research. He subsequently arranged five of these pieces into the suite for piano trio that we hear on this album. The album concludes with Frank Martin’s Trio from 1925, which is based on several well-known traditional Irish melodies.

Of the new album, the Neave Trio writes, “ Each composer drew deeply from their personal lives and cultural roots, creating musical stories that are both universal and intimate. Working on these pieces has inspired us to reflect on our own stories and how our roots shape us artistically and beyond.”

David Kaplan – New Dances of the League of David | July, 12, 2024 (New Focus Recordings)
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“It’s obvious that Kaplan has devoted much time, care and consideration to honoring each composer’s wishes, including Schumann himself.” – Jed Distler, Gramophone

“the whole point is [the commissions’] diversity; Kaplan champions them all with spirit.” – Richard Fairman, Financial Times

“On this splendid release, the LA-based [David Kaplan] presents the composer's Davidsbündlertänze but with a twist . .the result is a riveting portrait in twenty-eight parts, thirteen short pieces from the original alongside fifteen reimaginings.” – Ron Schepper, Textura

New Dances of the League of David features 15 new piano miniatures commissioned by David Kaplan between 2013 and 2015 from some of today’s leading American composers, interwoven with Robert Schumann’s Davidsbündlertanze, Op. 6. The commissioned composers are Augusta Read Thomas, Martin Bresnick, Michael Stephen Brown, Marcos Balter, Gabriel Kahane, Timo Andres, Andrew Norman, Han Lash, Michael Gandolfi, Ted Hearne, Samuel Carl Adams, Mark Carlson, Ryan Francis, Caroline Shaw, and Caleb Burhans. Schumann’s Davidsbündlertanze is a collection of 18 short works from the 1830s, which the composer described as dances of the “League of David,” a musical society he created consisting of both real and imagined members – including the fictional characters Florestan and Eusebius, representing the two extremes of his own personality. The collection was dedicated to Robert Schumann’s wife, the composer and pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, and a mazurka she composed serves as its point of departure.

Kaplan writes, “Literary meanings, multiple personalities, and the border between reality and imagination aside, the Davidsbündlertänze is in purely musical terms a masterwork of startling originality; its genre simply has no precedent. . . The Davidsbündlertänze innovate in the contradiction between their apparent disjointedness and their stealthy, mysterious unity: pieces in different keys, with different affects, characters, tempi, lengths, and forms play on the same essential motives, and coexist with unlikely apposition. In a way, the young Schumann had invented the mixtape.”

Charlotte Hu – Liszt: Metamorphosis | July 19, 2024 (Pentatone)
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“A splendid introduction to a talented pianist” – Peter J. Rabinowitz, Gramophone

“[The programme] showcases some truly beautiful piano playing.” – Patrick Rucker, International Piano

“The album is a real gem.” – Giorgio Koukl, EarRelevant

Charlotte Hu explores Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt’s chameleonic and evolving approach to composing – the metamorphosis of his music spanning from his early works inspired by Beethoven to the abstract tonality of his later works, as well as his incredible ability to transcribe and transform the music of other composers he admired.

Liszt: Metamorphosis includes Liszt’s Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este (The Fountains of the Villa d’Este) from 1877; his Lieder Transcriptions of art songs by Schumann and Schubert from 1838 and 1848; Three Concert Études from 1845-49; and Rhapsodie espagnole (Spanish Rhapsody) from 1858.

With this album’s release, Charlotte Hu announces a metamorphosis of her own – a new name. She says, “When I came to America from Taiwan at the age of 14, my Chinese name was translated to Ching-Yun. Though musical sounding, the translation from Chinese did not reflect its origin. I've long felt the need to embrace my evolving identity. To better reflect this new direction, I have chosen Charlotte Hu as my new stage name. Having lived as Ching-Yun in the media for decades and through so many important life milestones, it was not an easy decision. However, with time, experience, and self-realization comes strength to embrace change. Charlotte, with French origins, means freedom. As a Taiwanese-American, Charlotte embodies the core of my personality and lifelong aspiration to have the courage to act, think, and speak without hindrance or restraint.”

Tina Davidson – Barefoot | July 26, 2024 (New Focus Recordings)
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“Each of the five works inhabits a single, intense emotion, which Davidson pursues with her own energy, like a life force, barely concealed beneath the surface.” – Laurence Vittes, Gramophon

“the depth of representation and feeling [on Barefoot] is remarkable – James Manheim, All Music

“[Tina Davidson’s] use of lyrical lines gives her compositions a singing quality.” – Giorgio Koukl, EarRelevant

The new album highlights five of Davidson’s chamber music pieces for varying combinations of strings and piano, composed over the past decade, including Tremble (2013) for violin, cello and piano; the title track Barefoot (2011) for violin, cello, viola, and piano; Wēpan (2014) for string quartet and piano; Hush (2017) for violin and piano; and Leap (2021) for violin, cello, viola, and piano. Barefoot features performances by the Jasper String Quartet (violinists J Freivogel and Karen Kim, violist Andrew Gonzalez, and cellist Rachel Henderson Freivogel) and pianist Natalie Zhu.

All of the works are deeply personal for Davidson. She explains in her note for the album: “I am a composer who writes about where I am at that moment. For years I composed about a sense of connectedness to something larger than myself. But in this decade of life, I find myself returning to quieter issues. I have softened and come home to myself.”

Alex Sopp – The Hem & The Haw | September 27, 2024 (New Amsterdam Records [Digital], Sono Luminus [CD])
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“a colorful and vibrant blend of 80’s electronic pop with a dreamy and ethereal presence. There’s a bit of a Kate Bush element to [title track, “The Hem & The Haw”], with a very colorful and cinematic soundscape that Sopp perfectly combines with her seductive vocals. – Will Oliver, We All Want Someone To Shout For

"[an] utterly seductive album of ten smart and sophisticated pop songs." – The Wire

Flutist, composer, vocalist, and visual artist Alex Sopp’s new album The Hem & The Haw is a collection of 10 songs written by Sopp in 2020 during the pandemic. She explains, “This album came to me in a fit of stillness. I had been moving so much and for so long that I forgot that my favorite thing to do is to just sit. Sitting in stillness involves watching, waiting, listening, and observing. . . I have been writing many secret songs for a long time now, always teasing at my inner world without fully letting it see the light of day. Over the years the desire to make my own music has grown alongside the desire to make my own artwork. Like most of the world, the events of 2020 left me with a fresh batch of time and that is when I wrote this particular group of songs.”

Sopp’s songs on The Hem & The Haw find depth in their playfulness. The vocal work and lyrical expression are beautifully decorated by a wide palette of acoustic and electronic timbres. Ah Said Rosita greets the listener with an evolving vocal wall of sound that grows in intensity with each repetition. The strong sense of grounding in North Pole in Summer melts into an open sonic landscape, where instruments bloom from the central chord progression like a Glassian labyrinth playing out in double time. Like a Vine grows out of a central pulse while myriad synthesizers follow the lyrics down winding and unpredictable paths.

This is Sopp’s first non-classical album featuring her own songs. Of the musical path that led her to this point, she says: “I’ve been so fortunate to have such a rich musical life. I started singing as a child in the Virgin Islands, and then for a while I transferred my singing voice solely to the flute – the kind of fierce focus one has to have while studying in a conservatory environment at Juilliard. My flute playing took me to play for several years as a guest with the New York Philharmonic, and much to my great luck I grew into my beautiful chamber music family The Knights. Living in New York in the mid-2000s, the music scene was full of curiosity and dialogue between classical musicians and rock bands and singer songwriters. It was during this time that yMusic formed. I started using my voice again with yMusic, when I found myself collaborating with artists such as Sufjan Stevens, Ben Folds, and Paul Simon. I provided backup vocals on several albums and found myself singing more and more in live contexts, performing major roles in theatrical productions requiring musical chameleonhood by composers like Gabriel Kahane and Chris Thile. My confidence grew!”

Simone Dinnerstein – The Eye is the First Circle | October 18, 2024 (Supertrain Records)
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GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Simone Dinnerstein released her new album, The Eye is the First Circle featuring iconic American composer Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata, on October 18, 2024 via Supertrain Records – timed to coincide with Ives’ 150th birthday on October 20. The new album is a live recording of the premiere of Dinnerstein’s multimedia production of the same title, at the Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair State University, New Jersey on October 17, 2021. This recording is Dinnerstein's last to be released with her longtime recording partner, the late GRAMMY-winning producer Adam Abeshouse, who also produced her previous thirteen albums.

With her production The Eye is the First Circle, Simone Dinnerstein ventured into bold interdisciplinary artistic territory in collaboration with projection designer Laurie Olinder and lighting designer Davison Scandrett. Conceived and directed by Dinnerstein, the dynamic production deconstructs and collages elements from two iconic works of art – Simone’s father Simon Dinnerstein’s painting The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata – and also incorporates ambient sounds of children playing, night sounds from the pond, and birdsong.

Dinnerstein explains the work further. She writes in the liner notes: “We tend to think of identity as taking us back to our roots, the part of us which remains essentially the same across time. In fact, identity is always a never-completed process of becoming – a process of shifting identifications, rather than a singular, complete, finished state of being. Ives’ music teems with invention, with the music that was all around him – art music and popular music – from which he, in turn, created his own distinctive and changing voice. . . This artistic project was a way in which I could ponder the process we’ve all been through – the accretion of experiences and influences that brought me to the place I was. It was an attempt to do what Emerson argued that we all want to do: to draw a new circle.”

Kristin Lee – American Sketches | November 15, 2024 (First Hand Records)
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“With a relaxed, in the groove, almost laissez-faire approach, violinist Kristin Lee and pianist Jeremy Ajani Jordan deliver renditions of these pieces that feel so natural and off-the-cuff as to almost sound improvised, which suits this type of music extremely well.” – Jean-Yves Duperron, Classical Music Sentinel

American Sketches is Kristin Lee’s debut full-length recording, due for release on November 15, 2024 via First Hand Records. A milestone for the internationally acclaimed soloist, educator, chamber musician, and artistic director, Lee is joined by pianists Jeremy Ajani Jordan and Jun Cho on the album, with Jordan also contributing arrangements of selected works. American Sketches reflects the distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history, encompassing both Lee’s journey as an American, as well as the journeys of the composers she has selected.

A native of Seoul, Korea, she emigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven. During her childhood, playing the violin was a refuge from bullying and racism for Kristin – she moved to the U.S. not speaking any English, and felt the violin became her voice. As a foreign-born citizen of the U.S., Lee was compelled to select this repertoire to express her pride in the country she now calls her own, and has recorded works by American composers that have a distinct and recognizable sound of American music and its rich history.

American Sketches includes: Four Rags by John Novacek, Girl Crazy: But Not For Me (Arr. Jeremy Ajani Jordan, B. 1989) by George Gershwin, Lament (Arr. J.A. Jordan) by James Louis ‘J.J.’ Johnson, The Entertainer (Arr. J.A. Jordan) by Scott Joplin; Romance, Op. 23 by Amy Beach; Southland Sketches by Henry 'Harry' Thacker Burleigh non-poem 4 (Arr. for Violin and Piano, 2018) by Jonathan Ragonese Four Airs: IV. Air (Previously Called Aria) by Kevin Puts; Monk's Mood by Thelonious Monk.

Of what American Sketches means to her, Kristin Lee says:

“My inspiration for American Sketches lies in the celebration of differences. It is the differences of people, environment, and encounters that ignite our curiosity, fuel our motivation, and inspire our creativity. By accepting and appreciating these differences, we pave the way for changes to our society. Whilst adopting change is difficult for many people, it is a critical component in our ever-evolving world, particularly within the musical communities. The history of American music is a great example of this notion. From the Indigenous sounds of the Native Americans to the influences of Western Europe and Africa, the American sound merged and evolved into what we know as Ragtime, Appalachian Folk, Jazz, and so much more. The variety of musical styles represents the diverse culture of America, showcasing the beauty of individual expression and the celebration of American history.”

Ethan Iverson – Playfair Sonatas | November 15, 2024 (Urlicht AudioVisual)
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“[Playfair Sonatas] is a wonderful CD”; “an imaginative recording.” – Ken Talbot, Musicweb International

Playfair Sonatas, the new album from pianist, composer, and writer Ethan Iverson, features six sonatas composed by Iverson for six different instruments and piano, and recorded by Iverson with some of today’s most vibrant classical performers – violinist Miranda Cuckson; marimba player Makoto Nakura; clarinetist Carol McGonnell; trombonist Mike Lormand; saxophonist Taimur Sullivan; and trumpeter Tim Leopold.

Playfair Sonatas was born in 2020 during the pandemic, when Iverson met curator, producer, and frequent commissioner of new work Piers Playfair for a summertime outdoor dinner. Like most musicians that year, Iverson had downsized and was concerned about making a baseline income. He had recently moved and rented a smaller, cheaper studio, and when Playfair asked if there was anything he could help with, Iverson replied, “Yeah, I’d love to cover the studio rent for a few months.” The two agreed that in exchange for six months of rent, Iverson would write six sonatas, and that Playfair would be allowed to choose the instrumentation.

Iverson’s Playfair Sonatas showcases a signature approach: The sonatas intertwine 21st-century jazz gestures with the formal structures of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn. While the outer movements are titled with traditional tempo indications (Allegro, Rondo, Scherzo, and similar), the middle movements of each work are dedicated to an artist whose work blended jazz and classical.

Christopher Jesina 11/15/24 Christopher Jesina 11/15/24

Dec 6: Current GRAMMY Nominees James Blachly, Curtis Stewart, and Experiential Orchestra Give DC Premiere of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin from Nominated Album American Counterpoints

Photo of James Blachly and Experiential Orchestra by Allison Stock. High resolution images available here.

2025 GRAMMY®-Nominated Conductor, Soloist, and Ensemble Perform Music from Nominated Album American Counterpoints at Library of Congress on December 6, 2024

Experiential Orchestra Conducted by Music Director James Blachly with Violin Soloist Curtis Stewart and Narrator Ling Ling Huang

Featuring the D.C. Premiere of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin

with Soloist Curtis Stewart

2025 GRAMMY-Nominated for Best Classical Instrumental Solo & Best Classical Compendium

Listen: https://lnkfi.re/American-Counterpoints

Plus Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht
Reimagined with Narration by Ling Ling Huang

Friday, December 6, 2024 at 8pm
Pre-Concert Conversation at 6:30pm, Whittall Pavilion
Library of Congress | Thomas Jefferson Building | Coolidge Auditorium
10 1st Street SE, Washington, DC

Ticket Information: Free with RSVP
Note: This event is currently at capacity, but additional tickets will be released. You can join the waitlist here, and you will be notified when tickets become available. RUSH passes will also be available to walk-up patrons who do not have tickets.

www.experientialorchestra.com

Washington, D.C. – On Friday, December 6, 2024 at 8pm, the GRAMMY Award-winning, New York-based Experiential Orchestra (EXO) led by Music Director James Blachly brings one of its signature, immersive performances to the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium (Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 1st Street SE) to mark a trilogy of milestones – the Library’s 100th Anniversary, and two significant birth anniversaries for transformative composers Arnold Schoenberg (his 150th) and Julia Perry (her 100th). A pre-concert conversation with the artists will be held at 6:30pm in Whittall Pavilion. Tickets are free but an RSVP is required.

EXO's performances have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and bring listeners close to the music through imaginative and interactive experiences. At the Library of Congress, EXO gives the D.C. premiere of African American composer Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin with five-time GRAMMY nominee Curtis Stewart, who made the first commercial recording of this landmark 1965 work with EXO as part of their recently released album, American Counterpoints (Bright Shiny Things). In March, EXO, Blachly, and Stewart performed Perry’s Concerto for Violin at Lincoln Center as part of the 2024 Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival, co-presented by EXO and Videmus. For this concert, Stewart will play legendary violinist Fritz Kreisler’s Guarneri instrument from 1730, part of the Library of Congress’s collection.

Violinist Curtis Stewart, conductor James Blachly, and Experiential Orchestra are currently nominated for 2025 GRAMMY Awards for American Counterpoints and Julia Perry's Concerto for Violin in the Best Classical Compendium and Best Classical Instrumental Solo categories. The 2025 GRAMMY Awards take place on February 2, 2025. Listen to the album here.

The New York Times reported of EXO, Blachly, and Stewart’s world premiere recording of Perry’s Concerto for Violin:

“Julia Perry, who would have turned 100 this month, achieved some real recognition during her lifetime, but – in a tale all too common for composers who aren’t white men – fell into obscurity after her death in 1979. There have been recent efforts to revive her works, including her Violin Concerto, written in the 1960s and now recorded by the Experiential Orchestra under James Blachly, with Curtis Stewart as the soloist. This brooding, 25-minute piece begins with a passionate violin cadenza, played like the rest of the concerto with heated commitment from Stewart, and then evolves frequently, without defined section breaks. It is a fine example of the sober yet seething angularity of its era, leavened with warm strings and hints of Coplandesque expansiveness. It’s a vigorous work of mid-20th-century Neo-Classicism . . .”

To mark Arnold Schoenberg’s 150th birth anniversary, violinist and author Ling Ling Huang (Natural Beauty, Dutton 2023) reimagines his Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) from 1899 for a modern audience, with new narration that expands the concept of the poem by Richard Dehmel that inspired Schoenberg to write this piece.

In celebration of the Library’s 100th anniversary, other works from the Library’s collections will be highlighted, including Irving Fine’s lush Serious Song: A Lament for String Orchestra and Alan Hovhaness’ touching tribute, In Memory of an Artist.

This concert is presented through the generosity of the Verna and Irving Fine Endowment in the Library of Congress, with thanks to the EXO Creative Team and Pauline Kim Harris, Henry Wang, Ling Ling Huang, and Lady Jess for concept development.

Photo above: Julia Perry, Permission to use this photograph is granted by Talbott Music Library Special Collections and Westminster Choir College Archives (Julia Perry Collection), Rider University. Digital image, copyright 2021.

About the Featured Artists:

James Blachly: www.jamesblachly.com
Curtis Stewart: www.curtisjstewart.com
Ling Ling Huang: www.linglinghuang.com

About Experiential Orchestra:

The GRAMMY®️-winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO) brings audiences close to the music by engaging listeners through imaginative, immersive, and interactive concert experiences. Founded by Music Director James Blachly in 2009, EXO’s performances and recordings have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and have been praised for having “luscious tone and poise” by Classics Today.

EXO was founded on collaboration and co-creation, and each curated performance is imbued with a generous spirit of celebration, facilitating the exploration of what Blachly calls, “a new experience of sound” by audiences. The orchestra’s performances take place in and outside the concert hall with audiences invited to participate in unorthodox ways. EXO has performed the music of Arvo Pärt in the Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited audiences to dance during Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at National Sawdust, enveloped the audience in concerts at Lincoln Center with audience and orchestra members sitting together, and presented  Symphonie fantastique and Petrushka with circus choreography at The Muse in Brooklyn.  

Recent highlights have included a subscription concert at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, an immersive performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs with cellist Andrew Yee and soprano Sarah Brailey, and the New York premiere of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with soloist Curtis Stewart. In January 2024, EXO performed Pärt’s masterwork Passio at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, offering audiences the opportunity to experience the concert while reclining on yoga mats. In March 2024, the orchestra co-presented a four-day Julia Perry Centenary Celebration and Festival in New York, coinciding with Perry’s 100th birthday that month.

EXO is known for imaginative and groundbreaking programming that frequently advocates for under-celebrated masterpieces and composers. The orchestra’s world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison (1930) was released on Chandos Records in 2020 to international critical acclaim in The New York Times, Gramophone, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many other publications. The album won the Grammy®️ for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2021 – the first Grammy ever awarded for Smyth’s music. EXO’s world premiere recording of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Curtis Stewart, was released on the Bright Shiny Things label in March 2024.

EXO is led by Music Director James Blachly, General Manager Raphaele de Boisblanc, and Director of Artistic Planning Pauline Kim Harris. EXO:Chamber, a series of chamber concerts, was inaugurated in 2023, curated by EXO’s Creative Team directed by Pauline Kim Harris. The Creative Team includes Henry Wang, concertmaster; Michelle Ross, co-concertmaster; Alexander Fortes, co-concertmaster; Lady Jess, principal; and Sami Merdinian, principal. EXO’s Artistic Advisors are Patrick Castillo, Brad Balliett, and Doug Balliett.

Christopher Jesina 11/15/24 Christopher Jesina 11/15/24

Sony Classical in 2024: Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Sony Classical 2024 Albums for Year-End Roundup Consideration

Anastasia Kobekina: Venice
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Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma:
Beethoven for Three – Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
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Luka Faulisi: Vivaldi
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Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album
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Bryce Dessner: Solos
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Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Jeremy Denk: Mendelssohn Piano Trios
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Paul Robeson: Voice of Freedom
- The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings
GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Historical Album

Igor Levit: Brahms Piano Concertos & Solo Piano Opp. 116-119
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Khatia Buniatishvilli: Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 23
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Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott: Merci
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Hayato Sumino: Human Universe
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Michael Tilson Thomas: The Complete CBS, RCA, and Sony Classical Recordings

Anastasia Kobekina – Venice | February 24, 2024
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“[Anastasia Kobekina’s] playing can be feverishly swift but also lithe.” “[I]t comes across as supple and sensitive on the recording.” – Olivia Hampton, NPR Morning Edition

“Interesting textures abound” “This is altogether a striking disc.” – Janet Banks, The Strad

“The programme is singular and intimate, less about virtuosic solo cello than ensemble musicianship, and all the better for it.” – Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

Venice, which showcases many sides of Anastasia Kobekina’s artistry, draws listeners away from the lugubrious gondoliers and carnival masks that have provided our standard musical image of Venice. Instead, the album asks how much of what we’ve internalized about the iconic city is actually real. “Venice feels not just a city but an idea, a character in itself,” says the cellist; “or maybe it presents a different character to each of us. It asks questions of you, fires your imagination.” Her album, on which Kobekina is joined by a team of handpicked soloists and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, presents an embracing, personal conversation between past and present, including music from the Renaissance of Claudio Monteverdi and John Dowland to the twenty-first-century of Brian Eno and Caroline Shaw.

In reflecting on a city that exists both physically and in the imagination, Venice creates and links musical worlds. Some of the most familiar music on the album is invigorated for being both taken out of one context and placed in another. More unfamiliar music sounds strangely close-to-home. The effect is dream-like, enchanting and thought provoking – as mysterious, timeless and surprising as Venice itself.

Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma – Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97 "Archduke" | March 15, 2024
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

“This album breathes new life into the all-star format, and it made classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2024.” – James Manheim, AllMusic

“[T]his reading transmits in spades the sheer pleasure of three virtuosos with nothing left to prove simply playing together: surely the holy grail of chamber music making.”– David Threasher, The Strad

Like the artists' two previous Beethoven for Three releases, this new recording featuring Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma challenges the traditional distinction between chamber and orchestral repertoire, pairing the unforgettable "Archduke" trio with one of the composer's most internally varied symphonies, thoughtfully re-arranged for piano, violin, and cello by Shai Wosner. Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97, “Archduke" is the latest chapter in three friends’ ongoing exploration of what Beethoven’s invention means for musicians and audiences today.

The Beethoven for Three series features three artists in pursuit of the essential elements of Beethoven's musical language, presenting Beethoven's most iconic symphonies in intimate arrangements that maintain the power and immediacy of his orchestral works. By performing the symphonies on three instruments alongside the composer’s canonical piano trios, the artists present a wealth of insight into both Beethoven and his earliest audiences.

“We all feel that being able to participate in a symphony is such a wonderful thing to do,” says Ma. “One of the things that has separated people since recording began is the categories that we put people in, in which chamber musicians, orchestra players, people who play concertos, people who do transcriptions, people who compose, people who conduct, are all viewed as separate categories with no overlap. That siloed thinking discourages actual creativity and collaboration between people. And so we feel that one of the things that is really important to do today is to actually go back to the first principles of music, the simple interaction between friends who want to do something together."

Luka Faulisi – Vivaldi | April 26, 2024
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“[Luka Faulisi’s] gift for bringing a lyrical quality to these oft-recorded works is evident throughout.” – Greg Cahill, Strings

“[Luka] Faulisi is a player of great control and attention to detail.” – Samuel Wigutow, Concerto.net

Vivaldi is the exceptional new recording of the much loved Vivaldi “Four Seasons” by rising Italian-Serbian-French violinist Luka Faulisi, taking on the piece with his bright, youthful energy. For this album, Faulisi collaborated with the excellent Polish baroque ensemble (oh!) Orkiestra Historyczna, directed by concertmaster and ensemble leader Martyna Pastuzka. The combination of Luka’s romantic sound, formed in French impressionistic repertoire, and the ensemble’s energetic and forceful take let the well-known masterpiece shine in a new light.

With “a million-dollar sound” (Pinchas Zukerman), twenty-one-year-old Luka Faulisi is one of the most promising violinists of his generation. Having started to play the violin at the age of three, Luka was a student of Boris Belkin at the Conservatorium Maastricht in the Netherlands. Over the years, through personal mentoring, several distinguished artists have influenced Luka’s musical formation. Pavel Berman describes him as an ‘an incredibly gifted virtuoso violinist’. Flautist Emmanuel Pahud praises Luka as ‘an extremely talented young man with great instrumental abilities and a strong musical expression’ and according to Jean-Jacques Kantorow Luka possesses “incredible facilities.”

Ryuichi Sakamoto – Opus | August 9, 2024 (Sony Music Masterworks)
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album

“One might say it was a performance for nobody — Sakamoto filmed alone in a studio, with only the crew there as audience. But it’s more correct to say it’s for us, a gift from a master.” – Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times

“[Ryuichi Sakamoto’s] playing throughout is emotionally resonant and carefully considered, but he eschews showy displays of technical prowess in favor of an intimate depiction of the man behind the piano.” – Colin Joyce, Pitchfork

“The stillness and poise, a sonic slow-motion playing out on some subtle fractal sonic wave that never breaks makes this set startling and arresting, as quiet as it is. Meditative, too. Good for the early hours.” – Tim Cumming, The Arts Desk

In late 2022, the Japanese composer, producer, and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto sat down at the piano for a final performance. Too ill to complete an entire set at once, Opus is garnered from multiple sessions shot and recorded in Tokyo’s legendary NHK 509 Studio. The concert was filmed and recorded without an audience, directed by Sakamoto’s son Neo Sora and turned into a film Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, now available on The Criterion Channel. Opus was carefully curated by Sakamoto, with selections including his iconic film scores, Yellow Magic Orchestra classics, alongside pieces reflective of his eclectic career. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, perhaps one of his most famous melodies, and beloved works Andata, Aqua, and Trioon are represented as well as entirely new or never-before-recorded compositions. There is for Jóhann, dedicated to the late composer and Sakamoto’s friend Jóhann Jóhannsson, BB, a tribute to filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, and 2010219 (w/prepared piano), a previously unreleased solo prepared-piano track, are all new to Sakamoto’s vast repertoire.

Sakamoto provided a statement on the project after it was recorded, saying:

“The project was conceived as a way to record my performances – while I was still able to perform – in a way that is worth preserving for the future. In some sense, while thinking of this as my last opportunity to perform, I also felt that I was able to break new ground. Simply playing a few songs a day with a lot of concentration was all I could muster at this point in my life. Perhaps due to the exertion, I felt utterly hollow afterwards, and my condition worsened for about a month. Even so, I feel relieved that I was able to record before my death – a performance that I was satisfied with.”

Bryce Dessner – Solos | August 23, 2024
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“All the musicians on this record are exceptional soloists who have spent their lives perfecting their instrument." – Bryce Desser on NPR Morning Edition

“[On Solos, Bryce Dessner is] giving these musicians the most exposed and personal form of music” – Martin Cullingford, Gramophone

“Dessner writes idiomatically for all the instruments [on Solos]. . . and that is quite an accomplishment.” “Bryce Dessner, founder and guitarist of the indie rock band The National, has arguably had the greatest success of any of the figures who have attempted the jump from rock to classical concert music, reaching greater heights with each new release.” – James Manheim, AllMusic

Bryce Dessner’s new album Solos is a collection of unaccompanied instrumental works written by Dessner over the past few years from both his classical and scoring catalog. Solos showcases not only Dessner’s compositional flair but also the immense talent of his frequent collaborators and friends. Featured soloists include cellist Anastasia Kobekina; violinist Pekka Kuusisto; pianist Katia Labèque; harpist Lavinia Meijer; violist Nadia Sirota; percussionist Colin Currie and Dessner himself on acoustic guitar. Today’s album release also signifies the launch of an extensive partnership that will see Dessner’s classical compositions released on Sony Classical while sister label Milan Records will continue to be a home for some of his celebrated soundtracks.

Of his Sony Classical debut, Bryce Dessner says, “Writing a solo piece for me is always a great challenge and joy, as you have all the personality and talent of the player plus the physicality and resonance of the solo instrument. These pieces of mine are often written like poems, where the musical language itself dictates the form and evolution of the piece and were often opportunities for me to explore more deeply my relationship to the instruments they were composed for. They also represent in each case close collaborative relationships and friendships I have been very lucky to develop with the incredible musicians who play them. Katia, Pekka, Anastasia, Nadia, Lavinia and Colin are all exceptional artists who brought so much of their amazing talent to these recordings.”

Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis, Jeremy Denk – Mendelssohn Piano Trios | August 30, 2024
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“[A]s a whirling blend of lyricism and drive, conversation and argument, polish and spontaneity, the performances are genuinely exciting, with such ‘oomph’ that it’s hard to tear oneself away.” – Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine

Violinist Joshua Bell reunites with two of his favorite collaborating artists and friends – cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk – for Sony Classical’s new recording of the piano trios of Felix Mendelssohn. The new recording follows a unique all-Brahms collection For the Love of Brahms – released by Sony Classical in 2018 – that was also a collaboration of Bell, Isserlis and Denk. The two Mendelssohn trios – No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49 (1839) and No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 66 (1845) – are regarded as being among the composer’s masterpieces.

Of the new Mendelssohn Piano Trio recording, Joshua Bell notes:

“Steven Isserlis and Jeremy Denk have been my most cherished chamber music partners for decades. They bring seemingly limitless imaginations and uncanny musical intelligence to every work I have had the privilege of exploring with them. It is my hope that our mutual joy for playing chamber music and, in particular, our shared deep love for the genius of Felix Mendelssohn comes through in this recording of these Piano Trios. I am forever grateful for having the opportunity to make this album.”

Paul Robeson – Voice of Freedom: The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings | August 30, 2024
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GRAMMY® Nominated for Best Historical Album

“[T]his comprehensive survey of his recording career stands as a testament not just to Robeson’s incomparable talents and achievements, but also to the substantial hurdles faced by black Americans generally during his lifetime.” – David Mermelstein, Wall Street Journal

“[Voice of Freedom] aims to reinstate [Paul Robeson,] this one-time cultural icon, to his rightful place.” – Michel Martin, Olivia Hampton, NPR Morning Edition

“How do you pay tribute to the towering figure of Paul Robeson, the bass-baritone who also had a major stage and film career and was a prominent labor and civil rights activist? Sony Classical’s answer is Paul Robeson: Voice of Freedom.” – Jennifer Melick, Classical Voice North America

Today, his remarkable voice and unrivaled stage presence live on in sound recordings and films. This 14-CD edition, released on Sony Classical, is the first ever release of his complete Columbia, HMV and Victor recordings from 1925 to 1947. All of Robeson’s American recordings have been meticulously restored from the original master discs and tapes, and 25 studio recordings—as well as his complete historic New York and London recitals from 1958—are presented here for the first time on CD. The richly illustrated 160-page book, with essays by Shana L. Redmond and Susan Robeson, pays tribute to a cultural icon of the 20th century.

Igor Levit – Brahms: Piano Concertos & Solo Piano Opp. 116 - 119 | October 4, 2024
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“It’s all excellent. [Igor] Levit can be ruminative and poetic, then calmly commanding and even stormy without ever sounding harsh. As always, his most remarkable quality is avoiding seeming indulgent as he conveys personality and spontaneity. Under Christian Thielemann, the Vienna Philharmonic makes wonderful sounds,” Zachary Woolfe, The New York Times

“I stand in abject admiration of [Igor] Levit’s interpretative imagination as well as (almost needless to say) his fine technique. And the orchestral performances here, from a storied venue, bring the listener back in time to the creation of timeless music that feels as vital and emotionally stirring today in our anxious digital world as it did in the 19th century.” – Jon Sobel, Blogcritics

Johannes Brahms’ two piano concertos and Levit’s recording of Brahms’s well-known solo works opp. 116–119 make up the first joint recording by Igor Levit and Christian Thielemann – a triple album – released on Sony Classical. Levit’s and Thielemann’s first meeting was quite unplanned, although both had been curious about each other for a long time. In 2015, Levit spontaneously stepped in for a colleague who had fallen ill and performed Mozart’s C major Concerto K 467 with Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden in Munich. Despite an extremely short rehearsal period, the two hit it off straight away: “We have such a similar way of thinking that it is not necessary to discuss many things,” says Thielemann. And Levit adds: “When the piece begins, I simply have complete confidence in you. I know I can’t take a wrong turn. Having such unconditional trust is extraordinary.”

The two do not have to discuss individual passages – a common understanding is attained without the need for words, simply through listening and responding. Instead, they prefer to talk about performers and composers. And they are always amazed to discover how similarly they perceive so many things. Sometime after their initial meeting, it was during a walk together near Berlin that the conversation turned to Brahms – and thus they conceived the plan to record the two piano concertos as part of an upcoming Brahms cycle with Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic. For Levit the addition of Brahms’ beloved solo works opp. 116–119 on the album just felt right. Levit says: “Brahms’ music cannot leave you untouched. It’s just physically and emotionally not possible. Take op. 118 no. 2, for example, it’s like an arrow shot straight into your heart. It’s simply the most beautiful, touching, and tender music imaginable.”

Khatia Buniatishvilli – Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 23 | October 25, 2024
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“[I]t’s [Khatia Buniatishvilli’s] command of the stage, combined with her expressive performance energy and glamourous exterior that has made her a household name in classical music.” – Gary Gerard Hamilton, Associated Press

“Buniatishvili’s ability to infuse color into the sound is fully evident.” – Tal Agam, The Classic Review

For her tenth album on Sony Classical, pianist Khatia Buniatishvili joins an iconic orchestra in performances of two cherished piano concertos by Mozart, her first ever album dedicated to the composer. After a string of releases on Sony Classical that have redefined the parameters of the classical recital album, Khatia Buniatishvili is returning to tradition with a recording of two of Mozart’s most sublime late piano concertos.

In his Piano Concertos Nos 20 and 23, Mozart takes the genre of the concerto to new heights of sophistication and communicative power. The works come from the cherished crop of late piano concertos that are among the jewels of Mozart’s output and have long formed touchstone works for great pianists and recording artists. Mozart’s music, says Buniatishvili, carries “a simplicity that makes you lost before finding yourself.” She is joined on her recording by an orchestra with a near-unrivaled pedigree in Mozart recording, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott – Merci | October 25, 2024
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“A splendid introduction to a talented pianist” – Peter J. Rabinowitz, Gramophone

“[The programme] showcases some truly beautiful piano playing.” – Patrick Rucker, International Piano

“The album is a real gem.” – Giorgio Koukl, EarRelevant

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and longtime collaborator and pianist Kathryn Stott collaborate on new album Merci, released on Sony Classical. Merci is a deeply personal expression of gratitude, a celebration of the powerful relationships that keep music alive. This effervescent recording is rooted in the compositions of Gabriel Fauré, whom Stott calls her “musical soulmate,” and follows the arcs of his inspiration and influence, from the creations of his teacher Camille Saint-Saëns and his friend and supporter Pauline Viardot to works by his student Nadia Boulanger and her sister, Lili. Merci is testament to the gift of friendship, to the connections among performers, between students and teachers, and across generations that make music magic.

Ma and Stott—both of whom have connections to Fauré through their respective teachers Luise Vosgerchian and Nadia Boulanger—reveal the extent of Fauré’s influence and inspiration through a recording that juxtaposes Fauré’s works for strings and piano with compositions by members of his musical family. Yo-Yo Ma says, “we musicians stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and that we can only hope that ours will sustain those who come after.”

“The inspiration for this project stretches back to my very early years as a child at the Menuhin School, where teachers often visited from Paris,” Stott writes in the recording’s liner notes. “One of those was Nadia Boulanger. Nadia had been a student of Gabriel Fauré, and when I was 10, I had the great privilege to play Fauré’s fourth Barcarolle for her; from that moment, Fauré’s music never left my side. At the age of 10, I had found my musical soulmate.”

Hayato Sumino – Human Universe | November 1, 2024
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Human Universe is the title of the new Sony Classical recording by the Japanese musical sensation Hayato Sumino – known to his million-plus YouTube followers simply as “Cateen.” The title also describes the environment where Sumino works, where he learns, where he creates, and where he dreams. For Human Universe, Hayato Sumino mixes classical pieces with his own compositions, which draw freely on improvisation and the music he came to love while growing up – jazz, rock, electronic, the music of anime – as well as the classical canon. Separately, and as a whole, they build the atmosphere he describes.

The familiar classical pieces by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Fauré and Ravel – and even the late Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Solari and the track Day One from Hans Zimmer’s score for the film Interstellar – offer a grounding, both in what the listener expects and what drives Sumino’s imagination as a pianist and composer. Sumino’s recording of “Twinkle Twinkle” is a witty homage – in Sumino’s own terms – to Mozart’s famous set of variations on the nursery song Ah vous dirae-je, Maman (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). In his original pieces, Sumino gives voice to his sophisticated keyboard technique, in creating a rich sound-world that draws on the musical experiences that influence him and his expressive imagination. His three Nocturnes – I. Pre-Rain, II. After Dawn and III. Once in a Blue Moon – form a short cycle of daily human experience in sensual, almost tactile terms.

“As a musician, as a human, I listen to all kinds of music, as one small person in this entire universe,” Sumino says. “So, I hope the audience for Human Universe will feel the same way. As if they are sitting alone in the vast space of the universe, just talking with themselves in an introspective, intimate atmosphere… I hope it will bring them something they never experienced before.”

Michael Tilson Thomas – The Complete CBS, RCA, and Sony Classical Recordings | December 6, 2024
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Michael Tilson Thomas – or MTT as he is affectionately known almost everywhere by now – has become one of the world’s best-loved musical figures and most successful recording artists, with a dozen GRAMMYs to his credit. In celebration of his 80th birthday, Sony Classical will release, for the first time, an 80-CD box set, which collects the entire discography MTT amassed for RCA, CBS and Sony Classical between 1973 and 2005.

Michael Tilson Thomas was born into an artistic family in Los Angeles in 1944. His paternal grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky were founding members of the Yiddish Theatre in America. By the age of 19, he was already conducting premières of works by Boulez, Copland, Stockhausen and Stravinsky. He assisted Boulez at the Ojai Festival in California, and in 1969 was appointed assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony under William Steinberg. He was music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979, and principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985. He co-founded and directed the Miami-based New World Symphony, giving its first concert in 1988. That year, he became principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1995, he assumed the career-defining post of music director of the San Francisco Symphony, turning an already top-class ensemble into America’s most boldly adventurous orchestra. Michael Tilson Thomas has been an eloquent champion of Mahler, Gershwin, Ives and Copland. He is also equally at home in the standard European repertoire, Broadway musicals and jazz; and he is a passionate, eloquent teacher.

Of what the collection means to him, Michael Tilson Thomas says, “Before and after this collection I made other recordings, but this edition represents a special period where the daring and exuberance of the musicians, the expertise of the technical team, and the support of recording companies enabled me to present a wide range of repertoire.”

Christopher Jesina 11/15/24 Christopher Jesina 11/15/24

ECM New Series in 2024: A Year-End Review

ECM New Series in 2024 – A Year-End Review

Gidon Kremer – Songs of Fate | January 19, 2024 (ECM New Series)
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“What a treat this album is to explore Baltic composers who don’t often find their works recorded. In fact, many of these compositions are having their first-ever recording.” – Craig Byrd, Cultural Attache

“This is one of Kremer’s most personal undertakings. His playing — especially in Serksnyte’s ‘This Too Shall Pass’ and Weinberg’s simple, sad “Nocturne” — has the breath and rhythm of halting speech. Soprano Vida Mikneviciute imparts a similar tone to Kuprevicius’s ‘Kaddish’ and to excerpts from Weinberg’s ‘Jewish Songs.’ Jancevskis’s ‘Lignum’ for string orchestra and chimes, played with deep sensitivity by the chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica, progresses from dissonance to resounding affirmation to an open-ended conclusion. It sounds like Kremer’s description of the album’s purpose: ‘reminding us of tragic fates along the way and that we each have a ‘voice’ that deserves to be heard.’” – David Weininger, The New York Times

On Songs of Fate Gidon Kremer approaches scores by Baltic composers Giedrius Kuprevičius, Raminta Šerkšnytė, Jēkabs Jančevskis and the Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg, together with his Kremerata Baltica chamber ensemble and soprano Vida Miknevičiūtė – many of the works captured here appear in premiere recordings. In his performer’s note, Kremer traces the roots of this programme back to both his Jewish heritage and his extensive history of living in the Baltic states, which has and continues to lead to collaborations with countless musicians and composers from the region. The personal connotations are palpable in the music, as Wolfgang Sandner observes in his liner note, confirming: “Gidon Kremer has perhaps never before revealed himself as intimately and as existentially focused as on this recording”.

Anna Gourari – Schnittke & Hindemith | June 14, 2024 (ECM New Series)
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“[Anna Gourari] extracts a dizzying range of colours from Hindemith’s ingeniously constructed score. At one moment she’s playful and meditative, and then suddenly she breaks out into full-frontal percussive aggression.” – Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine

“The two composers whom the pianist Anna Gourari brings together in her latest offering seem to create a diametrically opposed pair: Schnittke, the collagist of wild eclecticism, and Hindemith, his era’s master of orderly, workaday counterpoint. If Gourari hadn’t used the phrase ‘Elusive Affinity’ as the title of her previous ECM recording, it would work just as well here.” – David Weninger, The New York Times

After three acclaimed solo piano programmes for the label, here Anna Gourari widens the instrumental spectrum with the Lugano-based Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana under Markus Poschner’s direction in striking performances of Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra and Paul Hindemith’s The Four Temperaments.

Gourari’s pianistic command is one of “virtuoso polish and with flawless action,” to quote the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, and her holistic, wide-reaching grasp of the instrument is on full display in Schnittke’s shape-bending polystylistic concerto. The orchestra furthermore shines in a powerful interpretation of Hindemith’s Symphony Mathis der Maler.

Contrasts emerge not only through the juxtaposition of the three works but from within the pieces, which have fiery temperaments and technically demanding scores in common.

Delian Quartett: Im wachen Traume | June 21, 2024 (ECM New Series)
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“The idea of playing viol music on a string quartet is not new, but the [album] as a whole very much is. As usual, ECM's sound from the Abtei Marienmünster is first-rate and succeeds in creating the mystic atmosphere the performers were looking for.” – James Manheim, All Music

Named after a lyric from the first piece in Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben song cycle, the Delian Quartett’s programme of Im wachen Traume combines said cycle – in a new arrangement for soprano and string quartet by the late Aribert Reimann – with music by Renaissance composer William Byrd and Baroque composer Henry Purcell. Most of the works appear in world premiere recordings here. The earlier English repertory bookends the album, framing Frauenliebe und Leben in a thematic embrace and, as the quartet’s violinist Andreas Moscho puts it, “in dazzling harmonies, that color the musical span from the bliss of the moment to the end of things.”

Danish String Quartet – Keel Road | August 30, 2024
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“[The Danish String Quartet] bring[s] to this music the same virtues as their more canonical pursuits: unified and natural phrasing, and crack ensemble playing. The arrangements are coolly resourceful, and their own tunes are so idiomatic you could easily mistake them for being “authentic” folk music.” – David Weininger, The New York Times

“The sequence presented on this album is a multi-faceted diamond“ – David Nice, BBC Music Magazine

“It’s a disc of quiet revelations and arrangements that are as exquisitely crafted as they are captivating; performed with abundant spirit and conviction, and captured in warm, close sound.” – David Kettle, The Strad

Keel Road is the latest chapter in the Danish String Quartet’s reckoning with music from – or inspired by – northern folk and traditional sources, rounding off a decade of sustained engagement with the genre. Wood Works, issued in 2014 on the Danish Dacapo label, gave notice of the extent of the DSQ’s commitment to folk, explored in parallel with their classical activities, and Last Leaf, released in 2017 on ECM New Series took the story further. A resounding success with press and public, Last Leaf ranked high amongst albums of the year at NPR, The New York Times and Gramophone, the latter magazine suggesting this might be “the best album of folk ditties from a string quartet you’ll ever hear,” an assertion now challenged by Keel Road.

Once again, the group casts its associative net wide: “We set out on a musical journey that traverses the North Sea. For centuries, the main communication channel of Northern Europe, the highway and the internet of bygone eras. And even though known for its swift upsurges and strong gales, brave sailors would again and again travel the keel road, enabling a continuous exchange of goods, culture and music. The musical keel road of this album will take us from Denmark and Norway to shores far away: to the Faroe Islands, to Ireland and England.” The journey illuminates musical affinities as well as distinctions. “While folk music represents local traditions and local stories, it is also the music of everywhere and everyone. At the end of the day, our stories and our music remain closely connected.”

Amid the traditional pieces, Keel Road subtly interweaves compositions by Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin, which eloquently convey a “folk” spirit. A brief excerpt from a field recording of the Danish traditional “En Skomager Har Jeg Været” (A cobbler I was) precedes Sørensen’s reflective tune “Once A Shoemaker.”

Arvo Pärt – Tabula Rasa | September 6, 2024 (ECM New Series)
Listen on Apple Music or Spotify

“For anyone who fancies listening to Tabula Rasa as music rather than part of a continuum, this handsome reissue fits the bill.” – Kieron Tyler, The Arts Desk

In 1984, ECM brought a new sound into the musical world with the release of Arvo Pärt’s Tabula rasa, the first album on the label’s New Series imprint. As Paul Griffiths wrote in his liner notes for a 2010 special-edition produced in collaboration with the composer’s publisher Universal Edition: “This was the beginning, also, of an extraordinary association between composer and record producer, an example of loyalty and collegiality unique in our time. Pärt’s mature career is documented on ECM albums produced by Eicher (…) If Pärt gave ECM one of its enduring foci, ECM gave Pärt a forum he could not otherwise have found.”

Now, on the occasion of the 40th New Series anniversary, this gatefold vinyl reissue with enclosed booklet presents the record in its original guise. The record also marked the intersection of some of the most long standing, significant musical collaborators in the label’s history: Arvo Pärt, Gidon Kremer and Keith Jarrett.

Brahms & Schumann – Yuuko Shiokawa, violin & András Schiff, piano | October 11, 2024 (ECM New Series)
Listen on Apple Music or Spotify

New Music Friday: The best albums out Oct. 11 – NPR Music

After tackling the sonatas for violin and piano of Bach, Busoni and Beethoven in 2017, a “thoughtfully determined and subtly interconnected programme” according to Strad magazine, the duo of Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff returns with striking renditions of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 1 and Schumann’s Violin Sonata No. 2. When the violinist and pianist made their first joint appearance on the label with the 2000 recording of Schubert’s C major fantasy for violin and piano, Gramophone magazine was in awe with their performance, raving how “from the start, there's an air of magic,” and calling the renditions “interpretations of rare penetration and individuality: a must for the Schubert section in your collection.” Now turning their gaze to the Schubert-admirer Schumann and his contemporary Brahms, the duo offers a deeper look into the core repertory of Romantic chamber music.

Anja Lechner – Bach, Abel, Hume | October 18, 2024 (ECM New Series)
Listen on Apple Music or Spotify

“The cellist Anja Lechner has been such a bright star on the ECM firmament, that it’s hard to believe this is her first solo album for the label. Having engaged with musical traditions including tango, Armenian folk songs and Byzantine hymns, she now mines the deeply personal repertoire of viola da gamba music to reframe some of the most treasured works written for cello.” – Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times

“Playing on a cello that predates Bach – a Rugieri from 1680 – Lechner creates a provocative dialogue between two of the suites and selected pieces by Hume and Abel that were originally composed for the viola da gamba.” – Thomas May, The Strad

For her first solo-violoncello album on ECM’s New Series, Anja Lechner devotes herself to a particularly unique convergence of three composers from vastly different contexts: J.S. Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel and Tobias Hume. In the past, her extensive discography has captured the cellist as part of the renowned Rosamunde Quartett, as well as alongside seminal artists from both trans-idiomatic sound worlds and the realm of classical music, gracing her with rare musical farsightedness. With her distinct perspective on works composed for both violoncello and viola da gamba, Lechner – “one of the most gifted cellists in the world” (Strings) – sheds a fresh light on music written within a span of two centuries.

Framing the first two solo suites from the famous group of six Bach wrote for the violoncello are Abel and Hume compositions, originally conceived for viola da gamba, which are given new color and breadth through Lechner’s interpretation on cello – in parts newly arranged by herself. Connecting all three composers is a certain improvisatory notion within the fabric of their work, second-nature for composers and musicians between the 16th–18th centuries, when these three lived.

Alexander Lonquich, Münchener Kammerorchester – Ludwig van Beethoven: The Piano Concertos | November 8, 2024 (ECM New Series)
Listen on Apple Music | Spotify

After a first appearance on ECM’s New Series with premiere recordings of Israeli composer Gideon Lewensohn’s works on Odradek (2002), two subsequent solo recitals plus a duo programme with violinist Caroline Widmann (2012), here pianist Alexander Lonquich, alongside the Münchener Kammerorchester, rises to a more extensive challenge, in performing the entirety of Beethoven’s piano concertos, programmed in chronological order. Beethoven’s five completed piano concertos – the C major op. 15, the B flat op. 19, the C minor op. 37, the G major Op. 58 and the “Emperor”, in E flat major, op 73 – were composed between about 1793 to 1809, documenting the composer’s development over two decades.

In his detailed liner note, the German pianist calls these recordings a, “very special experience, for performers and listeners alike. The usually common placement of the individual works in the context of a symphony concert all too often runs the risk of confirming and reinforcing what is already traditional, while this chronological order draws attention to stylistic leaps in the compositions and allows the listener to experience Beethoven's development as the author of these outward-looking creations that illustrate his pianistic virtuosity between 1790 and 1809.”

Christina Jensen 11/14/24 Christina Jensen 11/14/24

Dec. 11: GRAMMY®-nominated Sandbox Percussion Gives the World Premiere Performance of BLOOM by GRAMMY®-nominated Composer Michael Torke

GRAMMY®-nominated Sandbox Percussion Gives the World Premiere Performance of BLOOM by GRAMMY®-nominated Composer Michael Torke

The New School's College of Performing Arts – Mannes, Jazz, Drama
Presents

GRAMMY®-nominated Ensemble-in-Residence Sandbox Percussion

In the World Premiere Performance of BLOOM
by GRAMMY®-nominated Composer Michael Torke

Wednesday, December 11, 2024, 7:30 p.m.
John L. Tishman Auditorium | 63 Fifth Ave., N.Y.C.
Free with Registration

Information: www.newschool.edu/performing-arts

For press tickets, contact Christina Jensen: christina@jensenartists.com

New York, NY – On Wednesday, December 11, 2024, 7:30 p.m., The New School's College of Performing Arts – Mannes, Jazz, Drama, presents GRAMMY®-nominated Ensemble-in Residence Sandbox Percussion, in the world premiere performance of BLOOM by GRAMMY®-nominated composer Michael Torke. The concert is free and open to the public with registration. Space is limited. This is the live premiere of BLOOM. Sandbox Percussion’s recording of the work was released on Ecstatic Records on August 30, 2024.

Sandbox Percussion, a Brooklyn-based percussion ensemble of established leaders in contemporary art music, has teamed up with the acclaimed composer Michael Torke for BLOOM, a new piece composed for the ensemble. "I have been a big fan of Michael Torke's music since his wonderful 1997 album Overnight Mail. We are thrilled to present the world premiere performance of Torke's BLOOM, written for and performed by our Ensemble-in-Residence, Sandbox Percussion. The combination of Torke's brilliant music and the gifted abilities of Sandbox Percussion are wildly compelling. We hope many people see and hear this groundbreaking and beautiful music," says Richard Kessler, Executive Dean of the College of Performing Arts and Dean of Mannes School of Music.

“Michael uses rhythm in his music in an intrinsic way,” says Ian Rosenbaum, who previously recorded percussion parts for Torke’s albums PSALMS AND CANTICLES, TIME, and UNSEEN, which led to the collaboration with the full group. “Almost as soon as I started playing his music, I had the feeling that Michael and Sandbox would be a good match,” Rosenbaum adds. “Rhythms are the building blocks of the structure of many of his pieces, driving forward the emotion and the energy. It’s inspiring to find a composer who uses rhythm in a new and innovative way; we learned a lot from Michael and from this piece about how to ‘melodicize’ a rhythm. He also challenged us technically: In some of the more complicated parts, Michael asks us each to create a composite melody that is split between our keyboard percussion instruments and drums — that’s a particular challenge we had never encountered before.”

Although Torke usually includes a colorful array of percussion instruments in his orchestral and chamber works — tambourine, claves, cymbals, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, and vibraphone, among many others — and in 2001 composed a percussion concerto, Rapture, BLOOM is his first piece for percussion quartet alone. Sandbox Percussion first saw the work in progress in November 2023, and by May 2024 had learned and recorded the completed piece.

BLOOM uses a series of interlocking rhythms that create a groove when played together, using each player’s drums (non-pitched instruments), and vibraphone and marimbas (pitched). “Just as shoots of plants push through dirt erupting in blooms, the vibes and marimbas burst forth from the drums,” writes Torke in his program notes. “In other words, this music has an organic profile, unlike other recent pieces of mine.” BLOOM is structured in three sets — Bloom 1, Bloom 2, and Bloom 3 — each divided into three movements: “morning,” “noon,” and “night.” Two slower movements, Stem 1 and Stem 2, are interspersed between the Bloom sets. The drums represent the earth out of which the shoots grow, which in turn are represented by the mallet instruments. Much of Torke’s music has a rhythmic profile, a physical pulse through which he takes classic minimalism to new expressive spheres, also influenced by neoclassicism and a strong sense of color.

“No group I’ve worked with is as committed, both to their artistry in general and to the specific project at hand, as Sandbox Percussion,” says Torke. “It turns out that the kind of music I write is the kind of music they do very well, so it is an optimal match.” “My endeavor is to carve out a place in the musical real estate — to find an expression that is unique enough to take up space in the repertory,” Torke adds. “Whether I succeed, time will be the judge.”

Watch the music video for “Bloom 2, morning”

Performances by students and faculty at the College of Performing Arts break new ground, pushing the boundaries of convention and reinventing traditional forms. Additional highlights for the College this season include (Un)Silent Film series presenting Tod Browning’s classic film Dracula with Philip Glass’s score performed by Orange Road Quartet, the Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet-in-Residence, with pianist and guest conductor Michael Riesman on October 25; the Namekawa-Davies Duo (Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies) in Pianographique featuring music by Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Steve Reich, with real-time visualizations by Cori O’Lan, on October 26; Mannes Opera’s double bill featuring one-act operas by David T. Little and Kamala Sankaram on November 8 and 9; performances by celebrated Mannes/School of Jazz Ensembles-in-Residence The Westerlies, Sandbox Percussion, and JACK Quartet throughout the season; the New School Studio Orchestra performing Duke Ellington’s The Nutcracker Suite on December 5; and multiple performances of the Mannes Orchestra at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, including Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light to the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc with The New York Choral Society on November 1, the U.S. premiere of Augustus Hailstork’s Ndemera on December 9, and Sandbox Percussion in Viet Cuong’s percussion concerto Re(new)al paired with John Zorn’s violin concerto Contes de Fées performed by Stefan Jackiw on April 11. The New School Studio Orchestra presents the U.S. premiere of jazz great Carla Bley’s rarely heard landmark album Escalator Over the Hill on May 2.

For a complete overview of performances at The College of Performing Arts at The New School, read the 2024-2025 season press release here.

Presenting approximately 900 performances each year by students, faculty and guest artists, nearly all of which are free and open to the public, the Mannes, Jazz, Drama season provides an incredible performing arts resource for the greater New York community and beyond. Performances at The New School’s College of Performing Arts are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Some events require advance registration. View the full calendar of performances at the College of Performing Arts – including Mannes School of Music, School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, and School of Drama – for details on how to attend.

Additional Upcoming Events featuring Sandbox Percussion

April 11 at 7:30pm: Mannes Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall with Sandbox Percussion & Violinist Stefan Jackiw
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center | 1941 Broadway, N.Y.C.
Event Information

The Mannes Orchestra, led by conductor David Hayes, brings a program featuring Mannes Ensemble-in-Residence Sandbox Percussion performing Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al, to Alice Tully Hall. The piece, which is dedicated to Sandbox Percussion, is inspired by renewable energy initiatives. Cuong writes, “Re(new)al is a percussion quartet concerto that is similarly devoted to finding unexpected ways to breathe new life into traditional ideas, and the solo quartet therefore performs on several ‘found’ instruments, including crystal glasses and compressed air cans. And while the piece also features more traditional instruments, such as snare drum and vibraphone, I looked for ways to either alter their sounds or find new ways to play them. For instance, a single snare drum is played by all four members of the quartet, and certain notes of the vibraphone are prepared with aluminum foil to recreate sounds found in electronic music. The entire piece was conceived in this way.” The concert also features John Zorn’s violin concerto, Contes de Fées, performed by Stefan Jackiw. Composed in 1999 at the turn of the millennium, Contes de Fées is one of Zorn’s classical masterworks. Building on this season’s theme of exploring the radical orchestra – unusual orchestrations and non-standard symphonic structures – the program includes Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, which includes eight amplified singers embedded within the orchestra.

About Sandbox Percussion

Described as “exhilarating” by The New York Times and “utterly mesmerizing” by The Guardian, the GRAMMY® -nominated ensemble Sandbox Percussion champions living composers through its unwavering dedication to contemporary chamber music. In 2011, Jonathan Allen, Victor Caccese, Ian Rosenbaum, and Terry Sweeney were brought together by their love of chamber music and the simple joy of playing together; they have since captivated audiences with performances that are both visually and aurally stunning. In 2024, Sandbox Percussion became the first percussion ensemble to be awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant.

The 2021 album Seven Pillars, featuring Andy Akiho’s title piece, was nominated for two GRAMMY® awards. Following performances throughout the United States and Europe, Sandbox Percussion performs Seven Pillars in October at the Beijing Music Festival. They will also perform the piece at select dates throughout the 2024-25 season.

This season, Sandbox Percussion and the Tyshawn Sorey Trio collaborate on a special Max Roach tribute with live performances that include the 92nd Street Y and the Library of Congress. Together, the two groups explore the extraordinary legacy of jazz pioneer Max Roach, who was born 100 years ago.

Sandbox Percussion recently teamed up with composer Michael Torke, who created the hourlong piece BLOOM for the group. The world premiere of BLOOM will take place in December at Tishman Auditorium, at The New School, New York City, following the album release in August, via Ecstatic Records.

In October, Sandbox Percussion performs at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, collaborating with the London-based Gandini Juggling. Over the season, Sandbox Percussion will also perform music by Viet Cuong, Julius Eastman, Gabriel Kahane, Gabriella Smith, Paola Prestini, and Doug Cuomo.

Sandbox Percussion recently recorded percussion music for its first feature film: The Wild Robot (DreamWorks, 2024), an animated science fiction survival film with music by Kris Bowers. The first recording of Lifeline, a vibrant percussion quartet composed by Ellis Ludwig-Leone for Sandbox Percussion, will be released on the album Past Life / Lifeline in December, on Better Company Records. A new album celebrating the group’s long-standing collaboration with Christopher Cerrone will be released in February on PENTATONE Records, including the piece Ode To Joy, co-commissioned by the group in 2023.

Sandbox Percussion holds the positions of ensemble-in-residence and percussion faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and The New School’s College of Performing Arts. Starting in 2024-25, Sandbox Percussion will also be on faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.

About Michael Torke

Composer Michael Torke’s work has been described as “some of the most optimistic, joyful and thoroughly uplifting music to appear in recent years” (Gramophone). He has been hailed as a “vitally inventive composer” (Financial Times), and “a master orchestrator whose shimmering timbral palette makes him the Ravel of his generation” (New York Times). He has created a substantial body of works in virtually every genre; his recent piece SKY, for violinist Tessa Lark, was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize and was nominated for a GRAMMY® award for “best classical instrument solo.” Torke has been commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey, National Ballet of Canada, Metropolitan Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, English National Opera, the London Sinfonietta, Lontano, De Volharding, and the Smith, Ying, and Amstel quartets, among other prestigious orchestras, ballet companies, and ensembles. He has worked with conductors Simon Rattle, Kurt Mazur, Edo de Waart, and David Zinman; choreographers Christopher Wheeldon, James Kudelka, and Juri Kilian; librettists A. R. Gurney, Michael Korie, and Mark Campbell; and directors Des McAnuff, Bart Sher, and Michael Greif, among others.

Torke has been commissioned by entities as diverse as the Walt Disney Company and Absolute Vodka; worked with soloists such as Tessa Lark, Christopher O'Reilly, and Joyce Castle; and written incidental music for The Public Theater, The Old Globe Theater, and Classic Stage Company, among others. He has also been composer-in-residence with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Beginning his career with exclusive contracts with Boosey and Hawkes, and Decca Records, Torke now controls his own copyrights and masters through his publishing company, Adjustable Music, and record company, Ecstatic Records. Find out more at michaeltorke.com

About The College of Performing Arts at The New School

Founded in 1916 by America’s first great violin recitalist and noted educator, David Mannes, and pianist and educator Clara Damrosch Mannes, the Mannes School of Music is a standard-bearer for foundational excellence and radically progressive music education, dedicated to supporting the development of creative and socially engaged artists. Through its undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies programs, Mannes offers a curriculum as imaginative as it is rigorous, taught by a world-class faculty and visiting artists. As part of The New School’s College of Performing Arts, together with the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and the School of Drama, Mannes makes its home on The New School’s Greenwich Village campus in a state-of-the-art facility at the newly renovated Arnhold Hall.

Christina Jensen 11/14/24 Christina Jensen 11/14/24

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Announces Voices of Today - A Five-Season Commissioning, Recording, and Storytelling Initiative

L-R: Composer Derrick Skye and RPO Music Director Andreas Delfs. Photo by Joyce Tseng. Available in high resolution here.

Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra

Led by Music Director Andreas Delfs
Announces Voices of Today

A Five-Season Commissioning, Recording, and Storytelling Initiative

Preserving the Voices of Today for Future Generations

Online Hub Featuring Voices of Today Podcasts, Live Performance Video and More, Launches Today:

www.rpo.org/voices-of-today

Rochester, NY – The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), led by Music Director Andreas Delfs, announces the launch of Voices of Today, a five-season commissioning, recording, and storytelling initiative which will document the rich legacy of RPO commissions and performances to preserve the voices of today for future generations. This initiative was made possible by a gift from patron of the arts Stephen Ashley, given in loving memory and honor of his late wife Janice Ashley. Voices of Today will celebrate and promote diverse creative voices in the American concert music landscape, by commissioning, performing, recording, filming, and disseminating new orchestral works.

With Voices of Today, Delfs responded to Ashley’s challenge to create “something transformative” for the RPO and establish Rochester as an incubator for new concert music that pushes traditional boundaries by embracing non-traditional instruments, technology, theater, movement, and the visual arts. The new initiative also recalls the RPO’s early days as a recording powerhouse in the 1930-50s, when the orchestra released a number of notable albums including a 1939 recording of William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony, which the RPO premiered in 1931.

“Voices of Today is about the RPO connecting with its storied legacy, and about returning to its roots by presenting, commissioning, and recording new music,” says Music Director Andreas Delfs. “I want to commission music from the most exciting living composers, collaborate with artists from all backgrounds. I want to initiate new works that are really needed in the repertory, and I want this new music to have a life after Rochester and to share our musical stories far and wide. I am privileged to lead our great American orchestra into the future with this new unparalleled initiative.”

Voices of Today supports the performance of works by living composers on almost every RPO mainstage Philharmonics series concert. During the 2024-2025 season, these composers include Kevin Puts (Contact, triple concerto featuring Time for Three; September 21 and 22), Missy Mazzoli (Sinfonia for Orbiting Spheres; October 10 and 12), Behzad Ranjbaran (Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with Nikki Chooi; October 24 and 26), James Lee III (Sensational Dynamism: Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra performed by The Naughtons; November 9 and 10), Lowell Liebermann (Frankenstein Waltzes; November 23 and 24), Anna Clyne (This Midnight Hour; January 23 and 25), Clarice Assad (Nhanderú; February 6 and 8), Carlos Simon (Fate Now Conquers; March 1 and 2), Roberto Sierra (Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Bassoon, Violin, Cello, and Orchestra; March 20 and 22), John Adams (Short Ride in a Fast Machine; May 3 and 4), and John Mackey (Redline Tango; May 31 and June 1).

In addition, through Voices of Today, the RPO will commission new orchestral works each season. In recent and upcoming seasons, Voices of Today supports commissions by Derrick Skye (To Seek is Jubilance; May 30 and June 1, 2024), James Lee III (Sensational Dynamism: Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra performed by The Naughtons; November 9 and 10, 2024), Roberto Sierra (Sinfonia Concertante for Oboe, Bassoon, Violin, Cello, and Orchestra; March 20 and 22, 2025), Avner Dorman (double violin concerto for Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony; 2025-2026 season), Aaron Jay Kernis (piano concerto for Jean-Yves Thibaudet; 2025-2026 season), and Jennifer Higdon (cello concerto for Julian Schwarz; 2025-2026 season).

“Through Voices of Today,” says James Barry, VP of Artistic Planning and Operations, “we are building relationships with a diverse group of living composers and creative partners in a meaningful way, by disseminating their work through recordings, video, and telling their stories in podcast interviews. This gift has opened the door for us to partner and collaborate with cultural organizations that make up the vibrant artistic community in Rochester in telling unique musical stories.”

The RPO is also partnering with Azica Records and producer Alan Bise to record five full-length albums as part of Voices of Today. The first album, planned for release in fall 2026, will be titled Four and will feature the RPO-commissioned works by Derrick Skye, James Lee III, and Roberto Sierra. (The album title Four reflects that Skye’s work features four singers, Lee’s piano concerto is for four hands, and Sierra’s concertante is written for four RPO soloists.)

Azica producer Alan Bise says, “I am thrilled to partner with the RPO and maestro Andreas Delfs on the recording and release of these important new commissions. Each work, written by a vitally important composer, deserves to be added to the recorded catalog and to be available in perpetuity for listeners worldwide. Azica is proud to be a part of that legacy."

The Voices of Today online hub, launched today, will house dedicated podcasts and filmed performances of selected new works supported by the initiative. It will be a destination to engage with the RPO’s creative partners, see the live video performance of their work, and listen to their stories via the Voices of Today podcast – the final product of several interviews conducted by Julia Figueras, former WXXI Classical music director and midday host for more than 26 years. Currently, the online hub houses new podcast interviews with Andy Akiho and Derrick Skye, and about the Garth Fagan Dance and RPO Rite of Spring collaboration, as well as performance video of three recent projects – the January 2024 performance of new choreography by Norwood “PJ” Pennewell, artistic director of Garth Fagan Dance for Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring; Andy Akiho’s Ricochet (“Ping Pong Concerto”) with professionals from the Rochester Genesee Valley Table Tennis Club performed in January 2024; and the May 2024 performance of Derrick Skye’s To Seek is Jubilance.

Watch Andreas Delfs & Derrick Skye Discuss Voices of Today:

About the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra: The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) has been committed to enriching and inspiring our community through the art of music since its origins in 1922. The RPO presents approximately 150 concerts and broadcasts a year, serving up to 170,000 through ticketed events, education and community engagement activities, and concerts in schools and community centers throughout the region. Andreas Delfs was named music director in 2021, following notable RPO music directors Erich Leinsdorf, David Zinman, Mark Elder, and Conductor Laureate Christopher Seaman and Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik. The RPO reaches more than 30,000 through its specific education programs.

Christopher Jesina 11/11/24 Christopher Jesina 11/11/24

Dec. 10: Telegraph Quartet in New Worlds with Soprano Lauren Snouffer Presented by DACAMERA – Performing the Music of Beethoven, Weinberg, and Schoenberg

Telegraph Quartet Presented by DACAMERA with Soprano Lauren Snouffer

Photo of the Telegraph Quartet by Lisa Marie Mazzucco available in high resolution here.

Photo of Lauren Snouffer by Anja-Schütz available in high resolution here.

Telegraph Quartet in New Worlds
with Soprano Lauren Snouffer

Presented by DACAMERA

Performing the Music of Ludwig van Beethoven,
Mieczysław Weinberg, and Arnold Schoenberg

Tuesday, December 10, 2024 at 7:30pm
Menil Collection | 1533 Sul Ross St. | Houston, TX
Tickets and More information

“soulfulness, tonal beauty and intelligent attention to detail ... an incredibly valuable addition to the cultural landscape.”
– San Francisco Chronicle

www.TelegraphQuartet.com

Houston, TX – On Tuesday, December 10, 2024 at 7:30pm, the Telegraph Quartet (Eric Chin and Joseph Maile, violins; Pei-Ling Lin, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello), described by The Strad as having “precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” will be presented by DACAMERA at The Menil Collection (1533 Sul Ross St.) performing a concert entitled New Worlds which include Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74, “Harp”; Mieczysław Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6 in E Minor, Op. 35; and Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 10 with soprano Lauren Snouffer.

New Worlds features three great works created in turbulent times: Beethoven’s “Harp” quartet, composed during a French attack on Vienna, is actually one of his most melodious works, despite it being written during the composer’s 11-year-long struggle with hearing loss, which inevitably kept him from fully experiencing this work. During World War II Mieczysław Weinberg fled his homeland of Poland and having failed to convince his family to come with him, almost all of them would be murdered in the concentration camps. His String Quartet No. 6 contains an innocent mundanity that erupts throughout the work into desperation, sorrow, and tragic indignation as he dealt with the ramifications of his exile and learned to live warily in his newfound home of the Soviet Union. The work, which was banned in Stalin’s USSR and was never performed in Weinberg’s lifetime, is now being championed by the Telegraph Quartet. Schoenberg’s second string quartet looks back on the overly ripe German romanticism of the past, while staring unflinchingly into the new sound worlds of the future. He decided to include a soprano as a vessel for the Stefan George text, introducing a vocal line in the last two movements and ushering in “the air of another planet.”

More about Telegraph Quartet: The Telegraph Quartet has performed in New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Chamber Masters Series, and at festivals including the Chautauqua Institute, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, and the Emilia Romagna Festival. They have collaborated with pianists Leon Fleisher and Simone Dinnerstein; cellists Norman Fischer and Bonnie Hampton; violinist Ian Swensen; St. Lawrence Quartet, and the Henschel Quartett. A fervent champion of 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Telegraph Quartet has premiered works by John Harbison, Osvaldo Golijov, Robert Sirota, and Richard Festinger. In 2018 the Quartet released its debut album, Into the Light, featuring works by Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, and Leon Kirchner on the Centaur label. The Telegraph Quartet released its new album, 20th Century Vantage Points: Divergent Paths––which features Ravel’s renowned quartet and Schoenberg’s first quartet––on August 25 via Azica Records.

The Telegraph Quartet begins a residency at The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance in fall 2024. From 2017-2024, the Telegraph was quartet-in-residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition to giving regular faculty performances, the ensemble gave master classes abroad at the Taipei National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, and in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Telegraph has also served as artists-in-residence at the Interlochen Adult Chamber Music Camp, SoCal Chamber Music Workshop, and Crowden Music Center Chamber Music Workshop. In November 2020, the Telegraph Quartet launched ChamberFEAST!, a chamber music workshop in Taiwan and in fall 2020, Telegraph launched an online video project called TeleLab, in which the ensemble collectively breaks down the components of a movement from various works for quartet.

For more information, visit www.telegraphquartet.com.

About Lauren Snouffer: Recognized for her unique artistic curiosity in world-class performances spanning the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Georg Frideric Handel through to Missy Mazzoli and Sir George Benjamin, American Lauren Snouffer is celebrated as one of the most versatile and respected sopranos on the international stage. Lauren Snouffer celebrates three high profile role debuts this season: the title role of Debussy’s hallowed Pelléas et Mélisande in a new production at The Dallas Opera directed by Jetske Mijnssen led by Ludovic Morlot, Bess McNeil in Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s adaptation of Lars von Trier’s acclaimed feature film Breaking the Waves at the Houston Grand Opera in a production by Tom Morris with Patrick Summers on the podium, and the title role of Handel’s Semele at The Atlanta Opera in a new production staged by General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun under the baton of Christine Brandes. No less dynamic is the soprano’s concert calendar of 2024-25, which includes debuts at the at the Salzburg Mozartwoche in a program of Haydn and Mozart conducted by Roberto González-Monjas and with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra and conductor Elena Schwarz in performances of Hans Abrahamsen’s Let me tell you paired with Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. Further concert performances include Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet with the Telegraph Quartet under the auspices of DACAMERA, Handel’s Alceste with Peter Whelan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and Messiah under Patrick Dupré Quigley leading Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and with Scott Hanoian and the Ann Arbor Symphony. Snouffer is an alumna of Houston Grand Opera’s Butler Studio and a graduate of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.

For Calendar Editors:

Concert details:
Who: Telegraph Quartet with Soprano Lauren Snouffer
Presented by DACAMERA
What: New Worlds, featuring the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Arnold Schoenberg, and Mieczysław Weinberg
When: Tuesday, December 10, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: Menil Collection, 1533 Sul Ross St., Houston, TX 77006
Tickets and information: www.dacamera.com/2024-2025-season-concerts/telegraph-quartet-new-worlds/

Description: The award-winning Telegraph Quartet, a group described by The Strad as having "precise tuning, textural variety and impassioned communication,” is presented by DACAMERA on Tuesday, December 10, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. The ensemble will perform a concert program titled New Worlds, featuring Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74, “Harp” and Mieczysław Weinberg’s String Quartet No. 6 in E Minor, Op. 35 –– two works shaped by drastic, heart-wrenching, and permanent changes to the composers’ personal lives, as well as Arnold Schoenberg’s musically innovative String No. 2 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 10 with solo by soprano Lauren Snouffer.