Chorus, soprano Miah Persson and mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn

Naxos of America and the CSO present a sweepstakes to celebrate the

launch of distribution of CSO Resound by NOA

- click sweepstakes link above or see details below

Mahler’s towering Symphony No. 2 in C Minor (Resurrection) is the ninth and newest release on CSO Resound, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s award-winning record label. Having previously recorded Mahler’s First, Third and Sixth symphonies, Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink and the CSO continue to showcase their unique collaboration with Mahler’s Second Symphony. Mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn sings the touching “Urlicht” solo, and soprano Miah Persson and the Chicago Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Duain Wolfe, are featured as well.

The two-disc album will be released in the U.S. Tuesday, November 17, and worldwide on November 30. It can be downloaded exclusively through iTunes for one month starting November 17 and through other major digital music services beginning December 17, including Amazon, Rhapsody, eMusic and HDtracks. Listeners can purchase the album in CD, hybrid SACD or digital download formats.

Beginning with this release, CSO Resound initiates a new distribution agreement with Naxos of America. The agreement encompasses the distribution of physical CDs and hybrid SACDs in the United States and Canada, as well as digital distribution worldwide.

Amsterdam-born Bernard Haitink is one of today’s most celebrated conductors, with an international conducting career that has spanned more than five decades. Appointed principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2006, he has established a remarkable rapport with the Orchestra, demonstrated by unsurpassed music making in Chicago, New York, Europe and Asia. His distinguished 25-year tenure as music director of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, with which he has been associated since 1956, brought worldwide praise for his development of the ensemble and his interpretations of the music of Mahler and Bruckner. He now serves as conductor laureate of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and is conductor emeritus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, having been principal conductor there for nine years. He has received many international awards in recognition of his services to music, including both an honorary knighthood and the Companion of Honour in the United Kingdom and the House Order of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands. Haitink was named Musical America’s 2007 Musician of the Year.

Swedish soprano Miah Persson is in great demand with the major opera houses and orchestras of the world. She has appeared at the Salzburg Festival, Royal Opera, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Barcelona Liceu, Netherlands Opera, San Francisco Opera, Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Frankfurt Opera, Wiener Staatsoper and Paris Opera. In concert, she has appeared at the BBC Proms and with the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Musiciens du Louvre, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She has given recitals at Wigmore Hall and Frankfurt Opera. Conductors with whom she has performed include Sir Charles Mackerras, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Iván Fischer, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Semyon Bychkov, René Jacobs, and Marc Minkowski.

Christianne Stotijn earned her solo diploma for violin in 2000 at the Amsterdam Conservatoire. She has worked extensively with Bernard Haitink, who is one of the most influential figures in her career, having appeared with him and the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Boston, BBC Proms, Concertgebouw and Radio France. She also has collaborated with conductors René Jacobs, Gustavo Dudamel, Marc Minkowski and Iván Fischer, and she has performed with the Czech Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra and La Scala Philharmonic. An impassioned performer of song recitals, she has appeared at Wigmore Hall, Vienna Musikverein and Carnegie Hall. Christianne Stotijn is the recipient of the ECHO Rising Stars Award, Borletti Buitoni Award and Dutch Music Prize and was a BBC New Generation Artist.

A musical force in Chicago and around the world, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has been consistently hailed as one of the finest international orchestras since its founding in 1891. At its helm are three of the greatest conductors of our time: Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink, Conductor Emeritus Pierre Boulez and Music Director Designate Riccardo Muti, who becomes the Orchestra’s 10th music director in September 2010.

The Orchestra’s expansive catalog of more than 900 recordings has earned 60 Grammy Awards—more than any other orchestra in the world. In 2007, in order to significantly broaden the reach of the world-class music making of the Orchestra, the CSO launched its own record label, CSO Resound. All CSO Resound releases are selected from live recordings of CSO concerts in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, documenting and extending a unique concert experience.

Previous CSO Resound releases include Mahler’s Third Symphony, with Michelle DeYoung and the Chicago Symphony Chorus; Mahler’s First and Sixth symphonies; Poulenc’s Gloria with Jessica Rivera and Ravel’s complete Daphnis et Chloé; and Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, all conducted by Bernard Haitink; Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago, with Yo-Yo Ma, Wu Man, the Silk Road Ensemble and conductors Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Alan Gilbert (2008 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical); and a download-only recording of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony under Myung-Whun Chung. A two-disc CD/DVD set of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4 conducted by Bernard Haitink (2008 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance), with video of the CSO’s Beyond the Score exploration of the work, was released in August 2008. CSO Resound is underwritten by a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Smykal.

Founded in 1957, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, currently under the leadership of Director and Conductor Duain Wolfe, has earned admiration and acclaim as one of the world’s superior symphonic choruses. The Chicago Symphony Chorus has performed and recorded virtually all the major works in the choral symphonic repertoire, including important world premieres, and has been a key part of the CSO’s history. Chicago Symphony Orchestra recordings featuring the Chorus have won nine Grammy Awards for best choral performance, including Verdi’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, Bach’s B minor Mass and two recordings of Brahms’ A German Requiem.

]]> http://blog.naxos.com/2009/11/21/cso/feed/ 0 http://blog.naxos.com/2009/11/19/in-c-remixed/ http://blog.naxos.com/2009/11/19/in-c-remixed/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:52:45 +0000 Kelly http://blog.naxos.com/?p=4097 Founded in 1982 as a way to document the McKnight Fellowship winners of the Minnesota Composers Forum, Innova Recordings initially featured mainly the works of Minnesota composers such as Eric Stokes, Libby Larsen, Paul Schoenfield and Steven Paulus. In 1994 the label opened its doors to any artists with a finished master tape that wanted access to an established distribution network, and now, produces and releases up to 25 CDs per year. On November 17, Naxos of America proudly began distribution of the releases of Innova Recordings.

Innova is dedicated to forward-“hearing” work that pushes and challenges the boundaries of contemporary music. The label’s releases are less dictated by record-bin-constraints or typical notions of marketability, but by the integrity of the work, its originality, conceptual richness and technical quality, and the artist’s willingness to support and promote the release. The label attempts to redefine the typical relationship between artist and label. Artist and label work together, taking advantage of each other’s strengths, to provide both the tools of an established record label and the freedom usually associated with self-publishing.

Innova is geared towards work that is unlikely to find a home in the mainstream record industry. The label focuses on world class music—regardless of its genre (or lack of one, even though for convenience we use words like New Classical, Jazz, Experimental, Electronic and World)—that commercial labels overlook. Several projects have brought national attention to the label: Philip Blackburn’s field recordings from Vietnam (Stilling Time) and his archival series of the works of Harry Partch and Henry Brant. Prominent titles also include GVSU’s recording of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, Douglas J Cuomo’s Arjuna’s Dilemma and Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Apti. Other Innova releases have earned awards and nominations for Grammy, Emmy, and Pulitzer prizes, while numerous titles have received wide acclaim and charted significantly.

“The awesome young musicians from the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble have teamed up with some of the most imaginative DJ’s, remixers and composers to realize not only one of the best In C performances ever, but also some ‘alternate universe’ In C’s that got me smiling, beaming and sometimes amazed. A new revelational viewpoint on a piece that has been turned every way but loose over the past 45 years.” – Terry Riley

This new version comes not from loft-based hipsters in New York or California, but via a mostly undergraduate crew from Allendale, Mich. Beyond the geographical surprise, it actually makes sense that a young ensemble has shown a flair for this music. The kids, as itwere, have always been alright with t he minimalists. Pete Townshend was so influenced by Riley’s early synthesizer pieces that he named “Baba O’Riley” in part after the composer. “Black Mozart,” from Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon’s latest record, might just as easily have been dedicated to a minimalist, given its catchy, brief figure that repeats through verse and chorus alike. The members of Grand Valley State’s ensemble play with a confident swing that suggests they understand these links implicitly. It’s also why this new release offers not just their own astute performance but also 18 remixes by a collection of big names, such as DJ Spooky and Pulitzer winner David Lang. – Seth Coulter Walls, Newsweek, October 1, 2009

The Story

Hailed as “the story of the year in classical music” by WNYC’s John Shaefer in 2007, Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble’s recording of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians vaulted to number one on the iTunes and Amazon charts and spent eleven weeks on the Billboard charts. As an answer to that recording which garnered 30 positive reviews and a feature article in the New York Times, the GVSU New Music Ensemble decided to tackle the work of another Minimalist icon; Terry Riley’s In C.

With more than twelve mostly outstanding recordings of In C already on the market, the ensemble simply did not want record another interpretation of the piece. Bill Ryan, director of the GVSU New Music Ensemble, had an idea. The open instrumentation, interchangeable parts and overriding philosophy of freedom of In C would be the ideal foundation for remixing. A 2-CD release that would include a full performance of Riley’s In C as it was intended and short remixes of the work using the GVSU recording tracks as its inspiration. On November 17, Innova Recordings will release the product of this inspiration; In C Remixed.

The Remixers

Representing a true cross-section of musical genres, the remixers on In C Remixed bring together the worlds of classical, pop, electronica, jazz, trip-hop, dance, techno, industrial, disco, ambient, and more. With collective accolades including Grammy nominations (Jack Dangers), a Pulitzer Prize (David Lang), an Emmy nomination (Daniel Bernard Roumain-DBR), a Guggenheim Fellowship (Mason Bates), an ASCAP Foundation/Morton Gould Young Composer Award (Dennis DeSantis), a Fulbright Scholarship (Michael Lowenstern) and an Oscar-winning soundtrack (Nico Muhly), their music has been heard in numerous major motion films, on television and radio, and performed at the most notable venues with the top orchestras throughout the world.

Many of the remixers commented about the first time they each encountered Terry Riley’s In C, remarked on the creative processes that they used when they were crafting their remixes, and also gave explanation of the resulting works:

Bints Mix and Foster Grant Mix, Michael Lowenstern

“For me, the flexibility of In C is singularly unique in its ability to alternately live in the background and/or draw in the listener’s focus. I tried to stay true to that sensibility as I organized my thoughts around the two remixes I made for this compilation, and hopefully succeeded in making them a similar type of ‘flexible listening.’”

Counting in C, Jab Abumrad

“First time I heard In C I was a freshman in college, majoring in music composition and completely lost in a wilderness of scary music. Serial, post-war atonality. Our teacher was asking us to compose music that literally hurt (I was told someone in a class a few years ahead of me had actually sawed an old piano in half for a piece). So anyhow, at one of my more despairing moments, I went to the music library, and on recommendation from a friend, checked out In C on vinyl. And when I dropped the needle on the record, I almost wanted to cry. Here was “serious music” that was actually…fun.”

In Sea of C, DJ Spooky

“When you hear the opening lines of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” – you know they heard Riley’s work. When you think of Philip Glass, John Adams, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, Harry Partch, Morton Feldman, Lou Harrison and others, you can also connect the dots. In C was the original DNA of many of these composers relationship to repetition. I hope that the listener can hear a mirror reflection in a hip hop take on the same composition. The Futurists always thought the future would be noise. Who would have guessed that their ideas would be usurped by repetition! I hope you enjoy the work.”

Zachary’s Dream, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)

“The poet in me, if asked what Zachary’s Dream means, might reply that I wanted this remix to be a soundtrack to the moment when you’re very young, and very tired, and are falling asleep in the backseat of a car or on a train, as you fight to stay awake, if only to listen to the ambient sounds on the radio or the music on your loose fitting headphones, and your siblings conversation, and the anecdotes of your parents mind-numbing, endless quarreling—all of this, a soothing, comforting lullaby for the over-stimulated children we all might be.”

In C (Todd Reynolds Remix), Todd Reynolds

“As I sat down to work on this, it became clear to me just how much of it all was still close to the surface. As the mix developed, I was reminded of the time I spent on that motorbike as the temples, rice terraces, wild dogs, people selling their art, water, forest, all whirred by, natural and man-made beauty unfolding by the second, and I, simply a humble observer. Not surprisingly, it’s much like the first time I played my way through In C, where I discovered that the listening and the watching was as profound a part of the process as the playing. Terry Riley has given us a timeless work which elevates “presence in the moment” to the art form it truly is, and this mix is my humble response to it.”

simple remix, David Lang

“I have always loved In C and over the years have participated in many many performances – as a trombonist, as a percussionist, as a guitarist, and even once (erratically, I am afraid) playing the pulse. I remember my college new music ensemble drinking a bit too much after a concert and singing the whole thing, backstage in an art center in Mendocino California. It is an easy piece to do badly – I also remember one performance in which everyone agreed too much, and the whole performance took on a march-like quality, as we all unwittingly moved in lock-step with each other. In memory of that performance I remixed a section as a kind of slow march, with the studio help of Todd Reynolds and a spectacularly funereal bass drum sample from Paul Coleman.”

—László Somfai, author of The Keyboard Sonatas of Joseph Haydn,

University of Chicago Press, 1995.

On October 27, 2009, Naxos of America released a groundbreaking project—and its first Blu-ray production— from McGill University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, entitled The Virtual Haydn: Complete Works for Solo Keyboard. The brainchild of performer and musicologist Tom Beghin, Tonmeister and producer Martha de Francisco, and recording engineer Wieslaw Woszczyk, The Virtual Haydn employs virtual acoustics for the first time in a recording of this magnitude.

The set features four double-layer Blu-ray discs containing 15 hours of music, offered in both 5.0 surround (DTS-HD) and high-resolution stereo (PCM), as well as three hours of HD video, including a “making of” documentary Playing the Room, with subtitles in Dutch, French, German, and Japanese. Additionally, the user may navigate from one “virtual room” to the next—or from one instrument to another—mixing, matching, and comparing the performance of a short piece for musical clock, for a total of 7 x 9 possible combinations. A beautifully designed 64-page booklet contains richly illustrated program information as well as three informative and imaginative essays by the producers. Smart Blu-ray pop-up menus allow for efficient navigation through a wealth of material.

The music of Haydn has been a longtime passion and area of study for keyboardist Tom Beghin, whose innovative scholarship, especially in the domain of musical rhetoric, has been widely recognized, most recently in his editorship of Haydn and the Performance of Rhetoric (University of Chicago Press, 2007). The Virtual Haydn, as Beghin explains, “is still very much about Haydn, but has become about so much more. These discs challenge all conventions of performing, recording, and listening, and introduce new paradigms.”

Listeners experience the complete works for solo keyboard in nine virtual rooms—that is, replications of actual rooms where Haydn, or a typical player of his keyboard music, would have performed. They have been acoustically sampled, electronically mapped, and precisely recreated in the recording studio. Featured rooms range from the most private to the most public, from Haydn’s own study in his Eisenstadt home to the famous Holywell Music Room in Oxford, England.

Further enhancing this unique experience of the Haydn repertoire are the seven historical keyboards on which the music is performed. All seven instruments, from a 1760s clavichord to a 1798 English grand piano, were built for this project by today’s leading artisans. This release captures the first performances on three of the instruments: a 1755 harpsichord with an idiomatic “Viennese short octave,” a 1788 Tafelklavier, and a 1780 fortepiano with an early-Viennese “stoss”-action. Modern audiences are able to experience these instruments in the acoustical environments for which they were originally designed.

Surrounded by a semi-sphere of 24 speakers, Tom Beghin plays as if in the historical room. The sounds of his performance are captured, mixed with reverberation responses identical to those of the actual room, and retransmitted almost instantaneously through the sphere, allowing him to engage “the room”—that is, to “play” with it, then and there. It is as if it is 1774 and the listener is seated next to Prince Nicolaus Esterházy in the grand Ceremonial Room of his Eszterháza Palace while the artist—possibly Haydn himself—is playing on the Prince’s newly-acquired double-manual harpsichord. By contrast, we experience Haydn’s sonatas for Princess Marie Esterházy, played on a Kober square piano, in the intimate setting of a Prunkraum of Vienna’s Albertina. Or we embrace the more public eighteenth-century concert experience of the acoustically accurate yet virtual English concert hall for a performance on a Longman, Clementi & Co. piano of the two concert sonatas that Haydn wrote for the celebrated Therese Jansen.

Musicking happens through instruments, in rooms, by people. No repertoire celebrates this experience more than Haydn’s keyboard works. This revolutionary recording project stands as a tribute to the timeless appeal of a composer whose life and career revolved around similarly experimental interactions with technologies and audiences.

Tom Beghin is at the forefront of a new generation of interpreters of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century music. His discography includes 10 CDs on the Bridge, Claves, Eufoda, and Et’cetera labels. As a scholar he has published in major musicological journals and volumes, and has co-edited Haydn and the Performance of Rhetoric (University of Chicago Press, 2007). His mentors include Malcolm Bilson, James Webster, Rudolf Buchbinder, Jean Goverts, and Alan Weiss. He is currently Associate Professor at McGill University.

Martha de Francisco is an internationally acknowledged leader in the field of sound recording and record production, and has credits on over 300 recordings, most of them for worldwide release on the main record labels. She has worked in the best concert halls and has collaborated with some of the greatest classical musicians of our time. Her research topics include the latest surround-sound techniques, music recording with virtual acoustics, and the aesthetics of recorded music. At present she is Associate Professor at McGill University.

Wieslaw Woszczyk holds the James McGill Professorship in Sound Recording at McGill University. Internationally recognized as a researcher and 
educator in audio technology, he is the founding director of CIRMMT and McGill’s Graduate Program in Sound Recording. He was President of the Audio Engineering Society, Chair of the AES Technical Council, and is currently AES Governor. His current research addresses virtual acoustics, high-resolution audio, and remote real-time communication of multisensory content using broadband networks.

]]> http://blog.naxos.com/2009/11/14/virtual-haydn/feed/ 0 http://blog.naxos.com/2009/11/13/new-amsterdam-records/ http://blog.naxos.com/2009/11/13/new-amsterdam-records/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:30:02 +0000 Kelly http://blog.naxos.com/?p=4028 On October 27, Naxos of America began distribution of cutting-edge New York-based label New Amsterdam Records. Founded as a haven for young New York composers and performers whose music traditionally has slipped through the cracks between genres, New Amsterdam was the brainchild of composers William Brittelle, Judd Greenstein, and Sarah Kirkland Snider.

New Amsterdam Records is a non-profit model service organization run by independent musicians whose goal is to support talented colleagues by functioning as truly “pro-artist”—without the conflict of interests present in conventional record labels. To that end, the vast majority of proceeds from all music sales go directly to New Amsterdam artists in order to help them develop sustainable careers.

In its first year of existence, New Amsterdam’s recordings have been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and in New York magazine, MUSO magazine, and Time Out New York. The Sunday New York Times cited their first group of releases in two separate year-end “best-of” articles. The label’s first 12 albums have garnered radio airplay and glowing reviews from major media outlets around the country (including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.). New Amsterdam also has become a major concert presenter in New York, putting on sold-out shows at venues such as Joe’s Pub, Le Poisson Rouge, and Issue Project Room, as well as a new monthly chamber music show, Archipelego, at the Galapagos Artspace in Brooklyn.

“A smart young chamber group that straddles a line between contemporary classical music and indie rock.”

—WNYC’s Soundcheck

“Striking a balance between the old and the new has rarely sounded this good.”

—Newsweek

Hailed as “a deft young group gaining attention” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), NOW Ensemble is a dynamic band of performers and composers dedicated to chamber music for the 21st century. With their unique instrumentation of flute (Alex Sopp), clarinet (Sara Budde), electric guitar (Mark Dancigers), double bass (Peter Rosenfeld), and piano (Michael Mizrahi), NOW Ensemble brings a fresh sound and new perspective to the classical tradition. The music performed by the ensemble reflects the diverse backgrounds and listening experiences of its members. They play in concert halls, art museums, rock clubs, and jazz venues—for large audiences and intimate gatherings—acoustic and “plugged in.” Over the course of their five years in existence, NOW Ensemble has developed a reputation for performances that are as lively and engaging as they are rigorous and technically sophisticated.

For their debut album, entitled NOW, the group chose seven works by four composers, three of whom are members of the ensemble—Patrick Burke and Judd Greenstein, along with guitarist Dancigers. In addition, the group chose to present a piece by their good friend, the ascendant Nico Muhly. The resulting disc is both a compilation of the band’s core repertoire from its early years and also a highly listenable, smoothly-flowing album that “combine(s) the formal elegance of chamber music with a pop-honed concision and rhythmic vitality” (Time Out New York). NOW Ensemble has performed works by many of today’s most prominent young composers, commissioning over 40 pieces, and has played on some of the country’s most vital new music series, including the Bang on a Can Marathon, Wordless Music, Undiscovered Islands, Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge, Sarasota’s New Music New College, and the Carlsbad Music Festival, as well as the 2008 Festival International de Chihuahua in Chihuahua, Mexico.

“Rustic folk melodies, gangly dances and pulse-oriented workouts on woodblocks and marimbas—as well as flowerpots, rocks and a wheelbarrow—interspersed with quirky narratives.”

—Time Out New York

“Draw[s] on a tremendous variety of sounds and musical traditions.”

—Sequenza 21

The highly esteemed, New York-based percussion quartet So Percussion has teamed up with fiddle/guitar duo Trollstilt for an album that combines the innovative and edgy sounds of contemporary music with ancient Norwegian fiddling. The artists employ multi-media percussion, guitar, Hardanger fiddle, spoken word, and electronics in a unique and compelling collection of music. The album also features the vocals and spoken word of writer, composer, performer, director, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Rinde Eckert. Five (and-a-half) Gardens contains a DVD portion featuring motion paintings (a series of paintings strung together with computer animation) set to the music from the album.

Five (and-a-half) Gardens is the brainchild of composer Dan Trueman (of Trollstilt), whom PopMatters calls “the most fascinating musician on the face of the Earth.” In a similar style to So Percussion’s most recent album, Amid the Noise (Cantaloupe Music, 2006), Five (and-a-half) Gardens features instruments made from materials such as flower pots, plumbing tubes, and cell phone microphones, as well as traditional percussion instruments, fiddles, and guitars. These instruments are combined with electronic samples, processed sound, and spoken word to create a multi-layered sonic effect. The juxtaposition of traditional folk and percussion music with electronic and computer-synthesized sounds results in a unique listening experience.

Dan Trueman, professor of music at Princeton, is also a co-founder and director of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), an ensemble of laptop musicians with six-channel spherical speakers and various control devices. Trueman was awarded a major grant from the MacArthur Foundation for his work with the orchestra. He also is a member of interface, an electronic improvisation ensemble. Their first CD, /swank, was released in early 2001; their DVD, RECORDING FIELD, H, with guest Pauline Oliveros, was released by the Deep Listening label in 2003.

“Invigorating, innovative but immediately approachable… [with] an unguarded quirkiness and a sense of accidental poetry.”

—Philadelphia Inquirer

“Dargel sings in a modest, sweet-toned, conversational way, and writes songs whose lyrics and melodies are at once wistful and wry, tender and irreverent… giving voice to the lives and relationships of his subjects.”

—New York Times

Corey Dargel is a “baroquely unclassifiable” (New Yorker) composer, lyricist, and singer of “elegantly skewed” (Time Out New York) electronic art-pop songs that stir the heart and delight the mind. His gentle assault on the pop idiom creates a tension that pervades his music: deadpan and detached vocals reveal heartbreaking intimacies, awkward and obtrusive drum patterns struggle against fragile harmonies, vocals and music uneasily opposing each other as songs stumble to their ends.

Dargel’s Other People’s Love Songs is based on an earnest, sentimental concept: All 13 songs were commissioned by individuals as gifts to their significant others. Dargel—acting as reporter along with his regular duties as composer, lyricist, and singer—interviewed the couples and learned all about their histories, personalities, quirks, private jokes, and emotional lives. He spun this tender data into music and lyrics that encompass a universe of feeling: not only gratitude, as one would expect from songs written as gifts, but generous measures of wistfulness, longing, frustration, and pride … and, in some cases, regret, sadness, and resignation. The real-life subjects of these songs range from celebrities to the “couple next door.” Newlyweds, long marrieds, gay couples, siblings, daughters, mothers, and others stepped forward to commission these songs. The album is hardly a mere compilation, however; it is a unique and deeply emotional exploration of the many angles of love and relationships. At times, the songs are almost voyeuristic in their intimacy.

Corey Dargel has performed on bills with Joanna Newsom, Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett), Grizzly Bear, Anti-Social Music, Eve Beglarian, Phil Kline, Nico Muhly, William Brittelle, Margaret Lancaster, and the American Composers Orchestra. His music-theater piece about love and voluntary amputation, Removable Parts, premiered in September 2007 at HERE Arts Center in NYC and was hailed by The New York Times as “almost perversely pleasurable … pleases on almost every level … with an intelligent grace that is as moving as it is impressive.” Dargel’s latest composition, Thirteen Near-Death Experiences, is a 50-minute art-pop song cycle about hypochondria, commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and performed by Dargel and ICE.

Infernal Machines is the debut studio recording by New York’s acclaimed 18-piece steampunk big band, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, a group The New York Times’ Nate Chinen describes as “calibrated for maximum intrigue, with a sound that suggests Steve Reich minimalism as well as orchestral jazz in the lineage of Bob Brookmeyer (one of Mr. Argue’s mentors).”

This release, which takes its name from a John Philip Sousa quote about the dangers of music technology, features new, definitive studio recordings of material Argue and the band have been developing since their first gig in 2005. “No swing-era revivalist,” writes Time Out New York’s Hank Shteamer, “Argue draws on the full spectrum of modern rock, jazz and classical music with his band, Secret Society. Yet his complex, emotionally-charged pieces handily transcend pastiche … the album ought to not only raise Argue’s profile, but also serve as a reminder that big-band jazz needn’t be a fossil.”

“A nearly perfect creative synthesis between tradition and innovation.”

- BBC

“Big band music for folks who like Jimi Hendrix and Parliament Funkadelic. This is unlike any jazz I’ve heard before.”

- Paste Magazine

“This is a seriously great band, with a tremendous rhythm section, a beautiful blend of brass and winds, chops and enormous reserves of power. The soloists are outstanding, particularly Ryan Keberle’s tasty, funky trombone on ‘Zeno’ and Ingrid Jensen’s searching trumpet on ‘Transit.’ The album comes to an intense and unresolved end, not unlike Mingus’ ‘Black Saint and the Sinner Lady,’ which just leaves one reaching for the replay button. Because, to repeat something else, this is a seriously great record, one of the finest examples of new jazz I’ve heard in the past decade, one of the finest big band records ever made, one of the finest jazz records I’ve truly ever heard.”

- The Big City

Despite the inherent obstacles facing a big band leader in 2009, composer Darcy James Argue is one of the most visible and respected musicians in New York. Part of that success comes from the broad-spectrum popularity of his blog, also called Secret Society, which covers relevant political issues as well as musical ones. Musically, as allaboutjazz.com’s R.J. DeLuke recently observed, “he’s garnered critical praise from just about everyone who has heard the band.” Critics have called him “a young jazz master” (The New Yorker) and noted his penchant for “mixing jazz harmony, rock edge and postmodern angst into a new music creole” (Tom Greenland, AllAboutJazz-New York). “The morning after,” declared Montreal Gazette reviewer Juan Rodriguez, “I was still stunned at what I’d heard—clearly some of the most ambitious and compelling sounds I’ve ever encountered in the past 40 years.”

Argue’s extensive resume also includes arranging work with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, featuring jazz/soul vocalist Lizz Wright, alt-country artist Shelby Lynne, and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. The recipient of a variety of commissions and composition awards, Argue accepted the SOCAN/CAJE Phil Nimmons Emerging Composer Award, in May 2009 at Canada’s National Jazz Awards in Toronto. Learn more at http://secretsociety.typepad.com.

Musicians

Erica vonKleist (flute, alto flute, soprano and alto saxophones), Rob Wilkerson (flute, clarinet, soprano and alto saxophones), Sam Sadigursky (clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones), Mark Small (clarinet, bass clarinet and tenor saxophone), Josh Sinton (clarinet, bass clarinet and baritone saxophone), Seneca Black (lead trumpet), Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), Laurie Frink (trumpet), Nadje Noordhuis (trumpet), Tom Goehring (trumpet), Ryan Keberle (trombone), Mike Fahie (trombone), James Hirschfeld (trombone), Jennifer Wharton (bass trombone), Sebastian Noelle (acoustic and electric guitars), Mike Holober (piano and electric piano), Matt Clohesy (contrabass and electric bass), Jon Wikan (drum set, cajon, pandeiro and percussion).

A website has been designed to accompany this entertaining and educational DVD (http://www.myfirstballetcollection.com) in association with the US branch of the Royal Academy of Dance. Founded over 80 years ago, the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) is the largest, most influential dance teacher training and examining body for classical ballet in the world. On the website, parents are able to search RAD certified dance schools to find the right school for their child and find helpful tips on locating the right dance teacher if there is no certified instructor in their area. The My First Ballet Collection website also includes a list of websites for major American dance companies, a list of all of the complete ballets from which the excerpts have been pulled, trailers from many of those ballets, and links to the RAD website.

My First Ballet Collection Includes:

Tchaikovsky The Sleeping Beauty Valse

Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Entrance of the Swans

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Battle of the Toys and Mice

Hérold La Fille mal gardée The Fanny Elssler pas de deux

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Madame du Cirque and the Dancing Bear

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Chinese Dance

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Oberon’s Kingdom

Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Hérold La Fille mal gardée Picnic

Adam Giselle Retour des vendangeurs et valse

Hérold La Fille mal gardée Dance of the cock and hens

Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker Russian Dance

Delibes Sylvia Pas des esclaves

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Dance of the Mirlitons

Prokofiev Cinderella Cinderella

Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Waltz of the Snowflakes

Prokofiev Cinderella Duet of the Prince and Cinderella

Delibes Coppélia Bringing Coppélia to life

Hérold La Fille mal gardée Clog dance

Delibes Sylvia Pizzicati

Tchaikovsky The Sleeping Beauty Act 1 Finale

Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Cygnets’ Dance

Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker Waltz of the Flowers

Delibes Sylvia Les Chasseresses

Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Epilogue

Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Pas de trois – Odette, Siegfried, Von Rothbart

Conducted by Marin Alsop, Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the recording features Robert Orth (Richard Nixon), Maria Kanyova (Pat Nixon), Marc Heller (Mao Tse-tung), Tracy Dahl (Madame Mao), Chen-Ye Yuan (Chou En-lai), Melissa Malde, Julie Simson and Jennifer DeDominici (the three Secretaries) as well as the Opera Colorado Chorus and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.

“Few operas written in the last quarter of the twentieth century have withstood the test of time to remain as musically and dramatically vibrant today as they were at their premieres,” noted Opera Colorado General Director Greg Carpenter. “Nixon in China is one of a handful of American operas to achieve celebrity status. Opera Colorado is proud to have been part of this exciting recording project, the first such recording in Opera Colorado’s history.”

The new recording was inspired by Marin Alsop’s dedication to performing and promoting contemporary classical music and was produced in cooperation with Opera Colorado and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Association. Composer John Adams attended performances of the work as it was recorded live in Denver.

John Adams

One of America’s most admired and respected composers, John Adams is a musician of enormous range and technical command. His many operatic works, including Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Doctor Atomic, and the recent A Flowering Tree, stand out among contemporary compositions for their depth of expression and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. His work, On the Transmigration of Souls, written to mark the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music. In 2003, a film version of The Death of Klinghoffer was released in theaters, on television and on DVD. Adams has been awarded honorary degrees and proclamations by Cambridge University, Harvard University, Yale School of Music, Phi Beta Kappa, the governor of California, the French Legion of Honor, and Northwestern University, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate and the first Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition. John Adams is active as a conductor, appearing with the world’s great orchestras.

Marin Alsop

Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2007, a relationship now extended to 2015, Marin Alsop is the first woman to head a major American orchestra. Currently Conductor Emeritus of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, she continues as Music Director of California’s Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, a post she has held since 1992. The first artist to win both The Gramophone’s Artist of the Year award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor’s Award in the same season, Alsop was named to a MacArthur Fellowship and won the Classical Brit Award for Best Female Artist that year—the first conductor to receive this prestigious American honor. Marin Alsop is a regular guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. She can be heard regularly as a commentator on NPR’s Weekend Edition segment “Marin on Music” and on BBC’s Radio 3. Marin Alsop is a native of New York City; she attended Yale University and received her master’s degree from the Juilliard School.

Opera Colorado

Based in Denver, Opera Colorado has been committed to presenting the highest quality live performances of operas in their original languages since 1983. The company is dedicated to enriching the quality of life in Colorado through the presentation of opera performances that inspire audiences and serve the community through education and cultural programs. In 2005, Opera Colorado moved into the state-of-the art Ellie Caulkins Opera House inside the historic Quigg Newton Municipal Auditorium at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Under the leadership of Gregory Carpenter, the company served as one of the hosts for the National Performing Arts Convention during the spring of 2008. To celebrate this momentous event, Opera Colorado produced director James Robinson’s acclaimed new staging of Nixon in China at the opera house.

Three decades ago, visionary Venezuelan musician and politician José Antonio Abreu founded El Sistema, a national system of music education designed as a model for social improvement. Today, some 265,000 Venezuelan children and young people are involved in choirs and orchestras around the country, and El Sistema is exporting some of the world’s finest musicians.

El Sistema takes us from the barrios of Caracas and Maracay to the concert hall of the Lucerne Festival, following the lives of children who have found the way to a better future through the model of the symphony orchestra.

This lyrical and moving documentary shows us young children and their families in their home environments. They speak of their everyday hopes and fears: of gang warfare and gunfire, drugs and violence, and the dream of a better life through education and music. “To my mind, our social problems all stem from a sense of exclusion”, says Abreu. “If you look at the world, you see that exclusion in some form or other is to blame for the explosion of social problems everywhere. So we have to fight to bring as many people as we can, everyone, if possible, into our wonderful world: the world of music, the world of the orchestra, of singing, of art.”

El Sistema shows how children as young as two are taken from the dangers of life on the street and taught the rudiments of music. In one of hundreds of “núcleos” created within the communities themselves they are provided with instruments, music lessons, social support and the chance to work as part of an ensemble. Six days a week, four hours a day, children come together and make music in a safe and supportive environment.

Given acceptance, encouragement and inspiration, they quickly develop into capable musicians. For some, that means better tools for future study in other fields. Others go on to play in the world’s top orchestras. Gustavo Dudamel, now in demand on the world’s best stages, conducts the flagship Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in Caracas and talks of his own experience as a child growing up with El Sistema. His is just one of many stories of transformation and hope.

Quirky, exuberant, honest and heart-warming, El Sistema is both an unlikely journey and an exceptional success story. Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier have created a joyful portrait of the power of music as a positive tool for social change.

The film earned several awards like the “Grand Prix” of the Golden Prague Festival, the “Special Jury Prize” in the category “Feature Length Film Awards” and the “Feature Film Competition Award” in the category “The Ecofilms Team Awards” of the Rodos Ecofilms Festival.

This month the Nashville Symphony releases its latest recording on Naxos American Classics, featuring two works by American composer Michael Daugherty. Scheduled for release on September 29, the recording is the Symphony’s first with new Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero.

According to the League of American Orchestras, Daugherty is one of this country’s 10 most performed living composers. His Metropolis Symphony pays tribute to the American comic book hero Superman, with movements devoted to characters such as Lex Luthor and Lois Lane. The London Times has called the work a “Symphonie Fantastique for our times.” Featured performers include Nashville Symphony musicians Mary Kathryn Van Osdale (violin), Erik Gratton (flute) and Ann Richards (flute/piccolo).

The recording also includes the piano concerto Deus ex Machina, which was co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony and four other American orchestras. Inspired by trains of the past and the future, the piece features award-winning soloist Terrence Wilson.

“I’m a big fan of Michael Daugherty’s music,” Guerrero said. “It’s amazingly rich with color, rhythm and vivid orchestral effects, and I think this recording will appeal to a wide range of listeners.”

“In these pieces, I seek to express the energies, ambiguities, paradoxes and wit of American popular culture,” Daugherty added. “The Nashville Symphony has done a truly remarkable job of bringing this music to life.”

Over the past decade, the Nashville Symphony has become one of the most active recording orchestras in the country. Recorded at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, this latest release is the orchestra’s 17th for Naxos. Past releases include Joan Tower’s Made in America, which received 3 GRAMMY® Awards in 2008.

In 2005, composers John Matthias and Nick Ryan received a request for a string orchestral work from the Voices II Festival of Contemporary Music in Plymouth; at the same time, NonClassical Recordings asked if they had material for an album. Cortical Songs began as two songs, on which the composers then elaborated by incorporating results from their experiments on “rhythms and timbres triggered from spiking neuronal models of the human brain.” They noticed that the rhythms created by firing neurons were quite musical and “tend[ed] to repeat themselves over time periods of a few seconds, in what have become known, in scientific literature, as ‘cortical songs.’”

This recording features the String Ensemble of Trinity College of Music, led by Nic Pendlebury. John Matthias performs the violin solo, with interactive programming by Nick Ryan. In addition, the CD features remixes by 12 of the composers’ favorite musicians, including Thom Yorke, Neil Grant and John Fisher, Gabriel Prokofiev, Jem Finer, Marcas Lancaster, David Prior, John Maclean, Simon Tony, Dominic Murcott, Andrew Prior, and Marcus Coates.

The composers’ work with neural patterns was exciting, they explain, because these rhythms are unpredictable but not random. “Neurons,” they note, “are highly connected and trigger each other in a complex and fascinating way.” Matthias and Ryan sought to combine these rhythms with “song-based structures and string arrangements.” Cortical Songs consists of four movements composed for a solo violin and 24-piece string ensemble in which the orchestra is “partially controlled by a tiny computer brain.” Each player follows a written score and flashing LED light, connected to a small computer “brain” consisting of a software network of 24 simulated neurons-one for each member of the orchestra.

“When a neuron in the computer brain fires,” the composers explain, “the LED light to which it is connected flashes once, and the instrumentalist, following that particular light, responds according to a written instruction.” Additionally, they note, the notes played by the orchestra “are fixed in the score, but the times at which they are played are controlled by the flashing of the lights, which in turn are controlled by the firing times of the neurons. These firing times are indeterminate; the piece will never be the same twice.”

“Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra was born out of a passion for two seemingly different strands of music: hip-hop and classical. Throughout the rich history of Western classical music, however, there has always been a cross-pollination of sound between art music and folk/dance idioms, be it in the Partitas and Suites of J.S. Bach or Bartok’s in-depth study of folk song. In fact there was not a distinction between art and popular music up until the 19th century. Therefore drawing on the rhythms, colors and energy of hip hop, the 21st century’s most prolific sound, and more specifically its instrument of choice, the turntable, acknowledges and build on this tradition, addition an urban timbre to a structure that has evolved over the last 300 years.”

-Will Dutta, Executive Producer, Chimera Productions

In his Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra, composer Gabriel Prokofiev questions whether the turntable can work as a classical instrument. He observes that the right DJ can weave musical magic with a turntable: “[It] can be used VERY expressively-the DJ’s hand is [in] indirect contact with the vinyl and every movement shapes the sound.” (Unlike other instruments, however, he admits that turntables don’t have any of their own sounds.) Featuring DJ Yoda and the Heritage Orchestra, Prokofiev characterizes this five-movement work as “polystylistic,” incorporating elements from hip-hop and other DJ-oriented styles like “house and grime” into a classical framework. The recording also features 11 remixes.

Prokofiev began composing the piece knowing that certain “phases and grooves … would work well for the DJ.”  In traditional classical concertos, composers showcase virtuosic solo performance; in this work, Prokofiev does the same for a DJ by utilizing the full potential of the turntable. He explores many techniques used by DJs, from the basic- “just playing back a bit of music, then stopping it, interrupting it, reversing it, slow it down, and cutting it up”-to the more advanced, including “scribbling, planning, hydroplaning, the transformer, echoes and the crab.” He also uses two-turntable techniques such as “beat juggling, mixing, and phasing; pitching and melodic playing.” As in a classical concerto, the soloist performs cadenzas in each movement, displaying refined musical skills.

On September 29th, Opus Arte presents Twin Spirits, the story of the passionate romance and subsequent marriage between composer Robert Schumann and piano prodigy Clara Wieck, available on DVD and Blu-Ray disc. This production from the Royal Opera House brings together nine diverse performers of the highest caliber: Sting, an artist who defies simple classification, joins his wife, actress and producer Trudie Styler to read from the letters between Robert and Clara. Their story, narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi, is illustrated and interwoven with music composed by Robert – whose spirit is embodied by pianist Iain Burnside, baritone Simon Keenlyside and violinist Sergej Krylov – and by Clara, who is evoked by pianist Natasha Paremski, soprano Rebecca Evans, and cellist Natalie Clein.

This subtle and moving piece, a fusion of recital and drama, was devised by the stage director and writer John Caird. His credits include Hamlet and Candide at the National Theatre, Les Misérables and Nicholas Nickleby with Trevor Nunn, and Don Carlos for Welsh National Opera.

“A performance like this is a personal journey,” Sting explains. “You’re forced to share very private thoughts and make them public, and that creates a tension. This love story – the relationship and the tragedy – provides a great introduction for people who don’t normally listen to classical music. Hearing the Schumanns’ music at the same time as telling their story is a very intimate, engaging and emotional experience.”

“When we started on this adventure with Twin Spirits,” adds Trudie Styler, “I was profoundly moved by the richness and power of the narrative. The passion of Robert and Clara’s love transcends the ages. It is a wonderful and moving story which I believe remains fascinating and relevant to today’s world.”
Love began to blossom between Robert Schumann (1810-56) and Clara Wieck (1819-90) when she was a teenager and he was the student of her father, Friedrich Wieck, who made every effort to impede the relationship. She was one of the 19th century’s greatest pianists and herself a composer of note. After a legal battle with her father the couple finally married in 1840. In the 1850s their happiness became compromised by Robert’s increasing mental instability, which resulted in a suicide attempt in 1854; he died in an asylum in 1856. Clara, who lived for another 40 years, devoted her considerable energies to propagating her husband’s music, which is at its greatest in his intimate works for piano, voice and chamber ensemble.

“Twin Spirits tells a great human drama, irrespective of the fact that it’s about two great musicians,” says director John Caird. “It makes us think about love, marriage, relationships, pain, illness and how they influence art and life. Robert and Clara’s chamber music was almost like a diary and listening to it you feel you are looking into the pages of something deeply personal.”

Twin Spirits was recorded before a small audience in a studio space at London’s Royal Opera House shortly before Christmas 2007. All the artists involved donated their talent and time so that everyone buying a copy will be supporting the important work of the Royal Opera House Education Program which provides opportunities for some 90,000 people annually to engage with opera, music and dance. These projects reach people of all ages and backgrounds, including the isolated and elderly, the socially deprived, disabled adults and children, young offenders and for these people they have a very significant and positive impact. The Royal Opera House’s work helps them to become enthusiastic and motivated, learn self-respect, discover the potential within themselves and develop a team spirit. For every performance on the world-famous stage, at least twice as many educational activities are taking place and this work is a vital part of the Royal Opera House’s mission.

The original performance of Twin Sprits took place in June 2005, also at the Royal Opera House. Other charity performances took place at Salisbury Cathedral (to benefit the Salisbury Cathedral Girl Choristers), the New Victory Theatre in New York (to benefit Broadway Cares – Equity Fights Aids) and, at the Prince of Wales’ invitation, Windsor Castle (to benefit the Royal Opera House Foundation, and Soil Association). Among other performers who have participated alongside Sting and Trudie are actors Sir Ian McKellen, Charles Dance, and Jonathan Pryce and violinists Vasko Vassilev and Joshua Bell.

Twin Spirits will be released by Opus Arte on DVD (OA 0994 D) and Blu-Ray (OA BD7043 D) in the US on September 29th, 2009. Preview the DVD and access further information about the Twin Spirits project, Robert and Clara Schumann and the Royal Opera House Education Program at www.twin-spirits.com.

This year, artists from Naxos of America’s family of distributed labels were nominated for three awards, including BestClassical Album nominations for pianist Sonia Rubinsky for her Naxos recording Villa-Lobos: Piano Music; Guia Pratico, Albums 10 and 11; Suite Infantil Nos. 1 and 2 (Naxos8570504); and renowned cellist Andrés Díaz, for his Azica recording of Bach Cello Suites (ACD-71252).

Composer Clarice Assad also was nominated for the Best Classical Contemporary Composition award for Danças Nativas, from the Chandos recording Spirit of Brazil (Aquarelle Guitar Quartet; CHAN 10512).

Collin: Do you compose music? If so can you describe your style?

Ralph: In fact I never had a big urge to compose music, as there are so many great composers out there, who have more to tell than I do in that respect. I have often thought what I would write if I would be a composer, but I had to conclude that it would be mostly a kind of mixture of all my favorite composers and pieces – some Messiaen, some Ives, some Debussy…However, as an instrumentalist, it is quite likely that one has some more pronounced ideas for a composition than for any other instrument; there are in fact quite a few pianists who do have composed for their own instrument, now and in the past, such as Glenn Gould, Arthur Rubinstein and Horowitz. However, also in these cases, in my opinion, the music sounds, in the first place, remarkably similar to the works by the composers they play as part of their concert repertoire.

That said – I have composed myself a few things, and during my conservatory studies, one work was actually performed at a concert of the composition department, after which I was encouraged to study composition. It strikes me that of the works I did compose (all were for piano solo), that without exception, they were in minor keys, and heavily influenced by the early and middle Scriabin especially, with some hints of Debussy and Chopin. Also I wrote a piece in memory of the great Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, but thinking back of it, and although the pieces themselves are not bad I think, they are too much of an imitation.

I do realize that all great composers have started by imitating their great examples, and I think that as an instrumentalist, it is very useful to try composing – just to understand the process and the problems of composing to a greater extent (and ultimately, to perform other composer’s works better). However, I think that in order to seriously compose, one needs hard and serious work, and especially a lot of creativity and urge to add something really original of oneself to the enormous existing canon of great compositions.

Collin: What parts of the US would you like to visit? Do you have any venues that you dream about playing in?

Ralph: As a part of my studies in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, I studied with Ursula Oppens at Northwestern (Chicago) for almost a year. It was a wonderful period to which I think back very often. I was invited to be a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center during two consecutive years at that time as well, and I would love to visit those places again, sniff the atmosphere (perhaps this is a Dutch expression) and see all my friends. During several holidays, I have been to California, Nevada, Arizona and New York, and also thsoe places grabbed me especially because of their natural beauty – the vastness of everything is unknown to us Dutchmen, and it would be something I would like to see and especially feel again. It seems to me that the works by someone as John Adams could only have been created in such environments; in a small, measured, rainy place such as The Netherlands, the mind simply seems not to have enough space to think of such a music style. But I have never been to Florida or Texas, for example, so there are still many places to discover.

Concerning my dream of a concert venue: of course there are many big halls in the US that any musician dreams of. I have attended a lot of concerts at Chicago’s Symphony Center during my studies, so this has a special place in my heart. But often, my mind has wandered to other thoughts. For example, wouldn’t it be great to perform Charles Ives’ legendary Concord Sonata at Walden Pond, in Henry David Thoreau’s cottage? The atmosphere, perhaps even the ‘vibes’ in such a place would certainly beat even the best concert hall in the world, even though the acoustics would probably not be the best ever. And when I let my thoughts go further, I could dream of playing Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux Étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars), for piano and chamber orchestra, in the place where the composer found his inspiration: right inbetween the canyons of Bryce Canyon, at sunrise for example….A concert inbetween the half-constructed airplanes at Boeing Hall in Everett, Washington, is an even weirder phantasy, to which I would not say ‘no’…

Collin: What music do you buy? Do you have any current favorite recording right now?

Ralph: Sometimes I doubt whether I have a normal musical mind, as there are just so many types of music that I like. I have never understood why there is such a big ‘gap’ between what they call classical, contemporary, pop, world and jazz music. At the moment there is a CD of Coldplay in my car stereo – I must admit that I do not know pop music so well, but many contemporary composers mentioned it to me, and indeed it is good music. At the same time, I am again in a ‘minimal’ period. With me, my music interests go in recurring waves – few months ago I had one of those Scriabin periods, in which I listened to his music any time I was not practising myself. Now, there is Steve Reich in my CD-player in the living room. For some reason I always feel drawn to his music whenever I go travelling. My holidays are nearing quickly, and perhaps the pulse of his music sets my mind to the pulse of the many hours on the highway to come. Other music which is always close by is from Debussy and Keith Jarrett, to name a few. I have not so long ago discovered music by the German composer Hans Otte (1926-2007), who was a piano student of Walter Gieseking and a composition student of Paul Hindemith. He was absorbed by new music, but in his own music you always hear the sensuality of Gieseking’s hallmark: Debussy. In an original and haunting combination, you hear an almost perfect world of impressionism, minimalism, Eastern influences and even some hints of Romantic music.

….to be continued????

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and premiered in 1996, LA Variations highlights the virtuosity and power of this celebrated American ensemble. In an interview with Allan Kozinn for a 2006 New York Times article, Salonen commented on his breakthrough work: “For me, this was the moment when it all came together; when I finally had the harmonic language that produced the sound I want to hear. I felt free.”

Mr. Salonen provided these notes for LA Variations:
“LA Variations is essentially variations on two chords, each consisting of six notes. Together they cover all twelve notes of a chromatic scale. Therefore the basic material of LA Variations has an ambiguous character: sometimes (most of the time, actually) it is modal (hexatonic), sometimes chromatic, when the two hexachords are used together as a twelve-tone structure.

 
“This ambiguity, combining serial and non-serial thinking, is characteristic of all my work since the mid-’80s, but LA Variations tilts the balance drastically towards the non-serial.

 
“This piece, some 19 minutes of music scored for a large orchestra, including a contrabass clarinet and a synthesizer, is very clear in its form and direct in its expression. The two hexachords are introduced in the opening measures of the piece together in the chromatic phenotype. Alto flute, English horn, bass clarinet, and two bassoons, shadowed by three solo violas, play a melody which sounds like a kind of synthetic folk music, but in fact is a horizontal representation of the two hexachords transposed to the same pitch. Some of the variations that follow are based on this melody, others are the deeper, invisible (or inaudible) aspects of the material. There are also elements that never change, like the dactyl rhythm first heard in the timpani and percussion halfway through the piece.”

On July 28, Naxos presents a new compilation of music by a composer whose career spans eras of history and music: Anonymous. The two-CD recording offers a considerable sampling of her still-growing repertoire. In a mere 48 tracks, Anonymous evokes the many cultures, political turmoil, romantic gestures, and religions he has experienced.

Anonymous was born to the world during the Early Middle Ages. Her compositions were simple, monophonic, and occasionally accompanied by minimal rhythmic accompaniment. Music of this time, and most other periods in history, sheds light on cultural and political happenings of the day. Therefore, in the infancy of his vocation, Anonymous was creating pieces of sacred peacefulness and spiritual love to combat the often unsympathetic world in which he lived.

It was during the High Middle Ages (or around 1150) that Anonymous bore witness to, and became part of, the expansion of music into a polyphonic and much more rhythmically complex art form. It is only natural that sacred music was at the heart of this migration of sound. She was actively involved in the composition of innovative 13th-century liturgical music such as the Mass of Tournai, which some scholars believe was the first mass to be documented as a unified work of polyphonic parts.

The Renaissance era proved to be much less productive for this faceless composer. Instead of passing along their compositions by rote, composers were now able to have their music printed for posterity, including their names, making ascription of authorship a much easier task. Anonymous and her composing brethren of the Renaissance era (Dufay, des Pres, Gabrieli, Palestrina, Byrd) were more focused on secular and complex instrumental music such as madrigals, chansons, and rondeau (set to poetry) than they were in the Middle Ages. It was during this time that Anonymous penned one of his most timeless melodies, Greensleeves. Although once credited to Henry VIII, this haunting tune was rightfully returned to our era-spanning composer’s vast catalog.

On July 28, Medici Arts releases Piotr Anderszewski: Unquiet Traveller (Voyageur intranquille), a film portrait of the iconic Polish pianist by acclaimed French filmmaker and violinist Bruno Monsaingeon (Glenn Gould Hereafter; Nadia Boulanger: Mademoiselle; and David Oistrakh, Artist of the People?). Anderszewski, who will appear on New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival at the end of July and beginning of August, will be present with Mr. Monsaingeon for a special showing of this film at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater on Saturday, August 1, 2009 at 4:30 PM.

In 1990, Piotr Anderszewski turned heads at the Leeds Competition with his performance of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations-a work he later recorded and Bruno Monsaingeon filmed. In 2002, this unusual musical thinker won the coveted Gilmore Award. For nearly two decades Piotr Anderszewski has been known for his insightful and skillful performances and recordings of music by J.S. Bach, Szymanowski (he was the winner of the Szymanowski Prize in 1999), Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin, among others.

In this film, Monsaingeon sought to avoid the typical interview format common to so many documentary portraits. Instead, he found a less conventional method of portraying this complex artist, much as he had done with Glenn Gould in Glenn Gould Hereafter. “This would be a ‘frontier’ film, on the borderline between documentary and fiction,” he remarks. “It would be set against a backdrop of a winter journey across Poland, then to Hungary (the artist’s two home countries), before travelling to Germany, London, Paris and finally to Lisbon, where he has recently settled … Like a modern-day troubadour, Piotr would not travel by airplane or car but in a private railway carriage hired for the purpose, which would be attached to various trains according to an itinerary dictated by places he wished to visit and his concert schedule … Everything that Piotr Anderszewski chose to reveal about himself would be narrated in voice-overs that would punctuate the various scenes we had planned to shoot.”

Of course, it was very important to keep the music center stage, Monsaingeon explained: “We were making a film about a fascinating musician, an enigmatic and multifaceted man; it was inconceivable to consider sacrificing the music for the sake of aesthetic visuals. It was essential that music remained the central theme of this adventure. A skillful combination of all these ingredients would provide the film’s emotional tenor. The musical repertoire selected for the rehearsals and concerts held during this journey consists of essential and often unusual pages by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, and Szymanowski.”

Peter Ibbetson’s triumphant Metropolitan Opera premiere in 1931 featured an all-star cast that included American baritone (and movie actor) Lawrence Tibbett as Colonel Ibbetson; Canadian tenor-and later the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager-Edward Johnson in the title role; and Spanish soprano Lucrezia Bori as Duchess of Towers. Peter Ibbetson received 22 performances over four seasons from 1931 to 1936, a record for an American opera it held until Porgy and Bess entered the Metropolitan Opera’s repertory in 1985. Peter Ibbetson was such a commercial success in its day that Johnson, after becoming the Metropolitan Opera’s General Manager in May of 1935, commented that the money it generated during the Great Depression helped keep the company afloat.

The story, based on the novel by George Du Maurier, is of two star-crossed lovers who escape together to a mystical “dream world.” Immensely popular in the 1930s, the story inspired several a Broadway play starring John Barrymore and a Hollywood film starring Gary Cooper, in addition to Taylor’s successful opera.

Composer Deems Taylor was one of America’s most prominent musical figures in the 1920s-30s, and served as the president of ASCAP for six years; in 1967, ASCAP established the Deems Taylor award, which honors books, articles, broadcasts, and websites on the subject of music, in his memory. Taylor still is known to millions as the host of the original Disney Fantasia movie.

This is the first-ever commercial release for Peter Ibbetson, recorded in Benaroya Hall in 1999. Additional cast members on this disc include bass Charles Robert Austin, sopranos Terri Richter and Erin Clark, mezzo-sopranos Lori Summers, Emily Lunde, and Carolyn Gronlund, tenor Paul Gudas, baritone Barry Johnson, and bass Eugene Buchholz.

“I felt from this voice-sunshine,” said soprano Grace Bumbry of the great contralto Marian Anderson; she was “the most unpolitical person I know of,” commented the late mezzo-soprano Betty Allen. But it was Marian Anderson who paved the way for Leontyne Price to sing at the 1982 Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR) convention, a performance which she dedicated to Ms. Anderson. Yet despite the progress made in acceptance of opera singers of color since Anderson, Shirley Verrett presciently noted in 1999 “We’re going backward.”

Aida’s Brothers & Sisters: Black Voices in Concert and Opera tells the story of classic black singing against the background of black emancipation in politics and society. This story stretches from the first successes of singers such as contralto Marian Anderson and bass Paul Robeson- who all his life regarded his voice as an instrument of liberation- to the young singing pupils of the Harlem School of Arts, an institution which was founded by black soprano Dorothy Maynor in 1963.

Beginning with Marian Anderson singing “My Country T’is of Thee” on Easter Sunday, April 9, 1939 at the famous Lincoln Memorial performance after Ms. Anderson was denied access to Constitution Hall by the DAR, Aida’s Brothers & Sisters: Black Voices in Concert and Opera traces the struggle of African Americans to gain acceptance on the concert and opera stages of the United States and of the world. Featuring archival footage of legends such as Ms. Anderson, bass Paul Robeson, and soprano Camilla Williams, who in 1946 became the first black singer to appear in a non-black role, the film also includes interviews and musical footage of many great African American singers including Grace Bumbry, Leontyne Price, Betty Allen, Martina Arroyo, Jessye Norman, Reri Grist, George Shirley, Simon Estes, Barbara Hendricks and others; as well commentary by author and historian Roslyn Story, whose book And So I Sang, recounted the rise of black singers.

The film examines many aspects of the black experience in singing from the role of the spiritual, which Leontyne Price called “the black heartbeat” to operas-old and new-which portray the African American experience such as Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which Ms. Bumbry deemed an “insult” but pianist-conductor Bobby McFerrin, son of baritone Robert McFerrin, the first African American male to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, thought “should be applauded in trying to understand the black experience”; and Anthony Davis’ 1986 opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, the first opera really about the African American experience and tradition. The film also explores the different struggles faced by black male singers in gaining acceptance on the opera stages and the role of “race” in casting.

On June 30, Opus Arte releases Marco Polo, Tan Dun’s first full-length opera, for which the composer won the coveted Grawemeyer Award in 1998.

Marco Polo premiered at the Munich Biennale in 1996, with subsequent performances at the Holland Festival, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, New York City Opera, and Settembre Musica in Turin. When questioned about his choice of subject, Tan Dun replied: “It’s a ripe subject for the times and global culture … My personal experience as a traveler from East to West is similar to Polo’s from West to East. I thought the best thing was to draw on my own experience, on my feelings about culture and about the idea of journey. Marco Polo is a symbol of journey, of travel from past to the future, from external space to internal space, from one medium to another. All crossover journeys excite me, and Polo is a great excuse to explore them.”

Tan Dun and librettist Paul Griffiths designed their opera in many layers and have divided the figure of the Traveler into two parts, Marco and Polo; Marco represents the external figure of the Venetian explorer, whereas Polo is his inner being, his memory. They are united only at the end of their journey, when they fuse together into one person. The opera comprises three parallel journeys: one physical, one spiritual, one musical.

The first new release, Moods, features five piano works by four diverse American women composers performed by Max Lifchitz. The recording takes its title from Marilyn J. Ziffrin’s piano suite of the same name, composed in 2005, and also includes her Sonata for Piano (2006). Also featured is Arecibo Sonata by Elizabeth Bell, deemed “one of our country’s leading composers” by American Record Guide. Ms. Bell composed the sonata in 1968 and revised it in 2005; Mr. Lifchitz premiered it in 2006 and performs it here in honor of Ms. Bell on the occasion of her 80^th birthday. Next, Mr. Lifchitz performs Rami Levin’s short work, Passages (2002), on which the composer remarks: “The music describes the joy of bringing a new life into being, and the mixed emotions of a parent watching an offspring gain independence and go off into the world.” The release concludes with four short melodic works by Rain Worthington: Hourglass, Tangents, Dark Dreams, and Always Almost (1991-2001).

Regarding the highly varied repertoire on this disc, Mr. Lifchitz comments, “The featured works approach the keyboard in diverse ways. Ziffrin combines stylish rhythms and harmonies with easy-to-understand formal structures. Bell’s striking harmonic choices and undulating melodic lines create arresting tension and drama. Levin’s work is an impressive tour-de-force for both performer and listener. Worthington’s musical language—simple and direct—rewards the listener with a seemingly endless chain of surprising melodic discoveries.”

The second release from North/South Recordings features a collection of orchestral works by composer Harold Schiffman (b 1928). In addition to performances in the United States, ensembles have presented Mr. Schiffman’s music in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Mr. Schiffman studied composition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of California at Berkeley, and Florida State University. His principal composition teacher was Roger Sessions, and he later found an influential mentor in Ernst von Dohnányi. Appointed to the faculty of Florida State University College of Music in 1959, Mr. Schiffman served in this capacity until 1983 and was designated Professor Emeritus two years later. He also was founding director of Florida State University’s Festival of New Music in 1981.

This release features two of Mr. Schiffman’s most recent compositions: Symphony No. 2: “Music for Győr” (2008), inspired by the composer’s decade-long love affair with the Hungarian city and its orchestra, and Blood Mountain Suite (2008), the transcription of an earlier song cycle for soprano and piano or orchestra. The disc also includes three earlier orchestral works: Ninerella Variata (Varied Lullaby) (1956); Variations on Branchwater for Guitar and Orchestra (1987), whose namesake is a Schiffman tune inspired by the Southern custom of drinking Bourbon whiskey with water; and Overture to a Comedy (1983), from a planned comic opera project that the composer never completed. Variations on Branchwater features Hungarian guitarist Katalin Koltai. The recording includes comprehensive program notes by the composer himself.

Pianist, composer, conductor, and North/South founder Max Lifchitz was awarded first prize in the 1976 International Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of Twentieth Century Music, held in Holland. The San Francisco Chronicle described him as “a young composer of brilliant imagination and a stunning, ultra-sensitive pianist.” A graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University, Mr. Lifchitz has appeared in concerts and recitals throughout the U.S., Latin America, and Europe. In 1994, New York Women Composers, Inc. bestowed upon him its Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his activities on behalf of concert music written by women.

Nino Rota completed four symphonies in his lifetime. Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 are found on a recording to be released by Chandos on June 30. Performed by Marzio Conti and Orchestra Filarmonica ‘900 del Teatro Regio di Torino, Rota composed his first two symphonies simultaneously in the latter part of the 1930s. At this point in his career, Rota’s style had officially evolved into one that was unmistakably melodic. Rota purposely avoided any sort of musical extremism or experimentation in these two symphonies only hinting vaguely toward well-balanced modernism. The composer’s musical language remains neoclassical throughout while also staying true to his own ability to create a landscape in sound.

Also in June, Concerto presents three rarely-recorded Rota masterpieces performed by director Enrico Bronzi and I Musici di Parmi. The recording includes Rota’s Concerto per violoncello with Enrico Bronzi as soloist and conductor and Concerto per Archi (presented here in the revised version from 1977). The Trio con clarinetto of 1973, features Alessandro Carbonare (clarinet) Alberto Miodini (piano) and Enrico Bronzi (who form the Trio di Parma). 

Founded in 2002, the Chamber Orchestra, I Musici di Parmi, brings together musicians who collaborate with the most important orchestral institutions both in Italy and abroad. Created with the intent of exploring a musical world directed at rediscovering unpublished musical scores and popularizing the work of important musicians, I Musici di Parmi has a wide-ranging repertory that runs from Baroque to Classicism, right up to the best of 19th century chamber music. Working with the I Musici di Parmi both as a soloist and as director, Maestro Enrico Bronzi’s collaboration has become stable over the years. Thanks to the originality of their programs and the musical and artistic quality of their performances, the orchestra has established itself in the Italian musical world, receiving the unanimous praise from critics and public alike.

On June 30, 2009, Naxos releases a new performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s 1945 Violin Concerto performed by Grammy®-nominated violinist Philippe Quint.

Nominated for two Grammy® Awards for his 2001 recording of the William Schuman Violin Concerto (Naxos 8559083), violinist Philippe Quint is widely recognized as a passionate advocate of contemporary American violin repertoire. Significant performances and recordings have included the 2004 world premiere of Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 1, written for and dedicated to him – performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. In 2007 and 2008, Naxos released recordings by Mr. Quint and pianist William Wolfram, including the complete works of Miklós Rózsa for violin and piano (Naxos 8570190, 2007); and a world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s Red Violin Caprices (Naxos 8559364, 2008), the latter earning Gramophone’s 2008 “Editor’s Choice” distinction.

Philippe Quint’s commitment to perform and record contemporary American works is demonstrated again with this latest Naxos release of Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35. He believes, “In two decades, this will be as important as the Mendelssohn or the Tchaikovsky violin concertos.” However, he is not the first violinist to possess such a high opinion of the work. Despite its initial panning by critics for lack of originality and superficial romanticism, the concerto was premiered and championed by none other than Jascha Heifetz, who gave the work its first performance in 1947 with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and frequently performed it thereafter throughout his later career.

Today, the rising success of the violin concerto has undeservedly overshadowed much of Korngold’s other music for films and the concert hall. On the new release, Maestro Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Orquestra Sinfónica de Mineria revisit the expressive, humorous, and spirited qualities of the composer’s style in two additional works: the Schauspiel Overture, Op. 4, composed in 1911 at the age of fourteen, and his 1918 concert piece, the Much Ado About Nothing Suite, Op. 11.

Carlos Miguel Prieto is rising as one of the most dynamic young conductors of his generation, and holds appointments as music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Mineria, the Louisiana Philharmonic, and Huntsville Symphony, in addition to enjoying annual recording opportunities and guest conducting engagements with various orchestras around the world.

Alberto Ginastera’s compositional output included four operas and eleven film scores, as well as numerous orchestral works, concerti, choral and solo vocal pieces, chamber and instrumental works, and incidental music for around a half-dozen dramas. The three string quartets, which date from 1948 to 1973, illustrate three distinct compositional phases in Ginastera’s life.

Premiered in 1949 by the Mozart Quartet in Buenos Aires, String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20 (1948) represents a style to which the composer referred as “subjective nationalism,” and is found in his works dating from 1947-1957. With “subjective nationalism” the composer shed his previous concept of “objective nationalism,” which relied on more traditional ethnic elements, and replaced it, as he noted, with “the creation of an imagined folklore.” In this first quartet, Ginastera incorporates rhythmic and thematic elements from Argentina’s traditional folk-music but uses a varied and dissonant vocabulary.

Completed in 1958 (rev. 1968), String Quartet No. 2, Op. 26 was a commission by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation and received its premiere in Washington, D.C. in 1958 by the Juilliard String Quartet. Neo-expressionist in style and breaking with the traditional four-movement structure, the five-movement String Quartet No. 2 features microtones, indeterminacy, and polytonality. The opening of the first movement is based on a twelve-tone row, which Ginastera approaches freely.

Like its predecessor, String Quartet No. 3, Op. 40 (1973) received its premiere by the Juilliard String Quartet in 1974 with soprano Benita Valente as soloist. In this quartet, Ginastera builds upon an idea from Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10, which features a soprano voice in two of the movements (in Schoenberg’s work, movements 3 and 4). Here Ginastera has set four poems for voice, leaving only the second movement for the instruments alone. The first movement, Contemplativo, is a setting of Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poem La Música, which celebrates love and the music written about it. The second movement, Fantastico, allows the strings their nocturnal moment. The third movement, Amoroso, is based on Canción de Belisa, a song from Federico Garcia Lorca’s play The Love of Don Perlimplíin for Belisa in Their Garden. The fourth movement, set to Rafael Alberti’s Morir al sol (Death in the Sun), is marked Drammatico, and opens with the lyrics “The soldier has fallen / The woods weep each morning for him.” In this movement, the mood intensifies to the point that the singer is almost shouting with grief. Rounding out the quartet is the fifth movement, marked Di nuovo comtemplativo, for which Ginastera selected another poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez, Oscaso (Twilight; sunset).

Internationally acclaimed American soprano Lucy Shelton is the only artist ever to have won two Walter W. Naumburg Awards. She has worked closely with some of today’s most important composers, including Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, György Kurtág, Kaija Saariaho and Oliver Knussen, many of whom have written expressly for her. She has given premieres of more than 100 works, and her discography includes over 50 recordings. Though contemporary music is her specialty, Ms. Shelton is a distinguished performer of music spanning four centuries. A quintessential collaborative artist, she has appeared with nearly all of the major orchestras in the United States and Europe and is a frequent guest-with her vast repertoire of vocal chamber music-at festivals such as Tanglewood, Ojai, Santa Fe, Aspen, Salzburg, Kuhmo, Aldeburgh, and the BBC Proms. Lucy Shelton’s primary mentor was the legendary American mezzo-soprano Jan de Gaetani.

Since its inception in 1999, the United States-based Ensō String Quartet has won acclaim for their vibrant and passionate performances in major concert halls throughout North America, as well as in Europe, Central America, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition to audience appreciation and critical acclaim, the quartet has earned its place in the chamber music world with top prizes in the Banff International String Quartet and Concert Artists Guild International competitions. The members of the Ensō String Quartet also are sought after as teachers and chamber music coaches; the quartet has served as faculty for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute and as Lecturers in Music at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. The instruments used in this recording are a matched set made in 2006 by London-based luthier Nigel Harris, generously on loan to the quartet by Christopher Marshall. This is the Ensō String Quartet’s second recording for Naxos, following its release of the string quartets of Ignaz Pleyel (8.557496 & 8.557497). To learn more, please visit www.ensoquartet.com.

In 1983, Ge began work on his String Quartet No. 1 - Fu (Prose-Poem), but before he could complete it, he relocated to New York City, recruited by Chou Wen-chung at Columbia University. While supporting himself as a restaurant deliveryman, Ge managed to complete the piece, and the Kronos Quartet-celebrated for its commitment to new music-soon made it part of their repertoire. Fu and Yi Feng are both milestones in Ge’s canon, as they represent the development of his individual style: “They are the first of their kind in China, exploring individualism and the essence of Chinese music characteristics while avoiding sentimental melodies then prevalent in China … Fu in Chinese refers to descriptive prose interspersed with verse. In this piece, I tried to express some of the most basic aesthetic feelings typical of Chinese classical poetry and calligraphy, such as subtlety, free form, and masterly strokes.”

The interval of the minor second figures prominently in Fu and generates much of its musical content. Unorthodox means of tone production dominate this work (though instruments are conventionally tuned), including snap pizzicato, harmonics, glissandi, tremolos, and various combinations of these techniques. Moreover, throughout the work, unmeasured, rhythmic passages alternate with more regularly-patterned music.

Some of the same sounds from Fu are prominent in the introductory measures of Angel Suite – String Quartet No. 4 (1998). And, interestingly, the minor second also figures significantly in its second, third and fourth movements. The composer writes: “Of all my works, this piece is the closest to the Western classical music tradition, and it offers a contrast to my other music … The title comes from my interest in Christianity … In this work, I try to express my curiosity in, and observation of, various aspects of Christianity. The titles of the movements (Cherub, Gnomes, Prayer, and Angel’s March) refer to the subjects that I wanted to represent musically. For instance, in the first movement, the harmonic glissando represents a cherub; the second movement focuses on dance rhythm … In the prayer movement, I use contrasting consonant and dissonant chords to draw out feelings of purity and sincerity in praying. In the middle section, I also use the beginning few notes from Schubert’s Ave Maria. For the last movement I chose to write a march, as I always imagine an angel as young and vibrant.”

Fall of Baghdad – String Quartet No. 5 is at once a tribute to George Crumb’s Black Angels for electric string quartet (1970) and an expression of the composer’s own feelings about the war in Iraq. Like Crumb’s work before it, the music comprises three long sections divided into thirteen shorter ones. “Hair-raising squeals” produced by “applying pressure to the strings behind the bridge to create a scraping sound of indefinite pitch” open the work. In this quartet, Ge uses extended techniques neither as cultural relics, as in Fu, nor as suggestions of ethereal spirits, as in Angel Suite, Instead, he uses his unique musical language to symbolize the devastation and despair associated with war. (For contrast and relief, the middle section, “Music from Heaven,” incorporates light percussion; the “Heaven” to which this movement refers, incidentally, is a different paradise than the one Ge depicts in Angel Suite.) Ge employs microtonal inflections to suggest Middle Eastern music (which shares some of its idioms with the music of his native country) and also makes use of (as he explains): “glissandi and distorted sound to create the ‘hellish’ effects; playing col legno (striking the strings with the [wooden part of the] bow) both in front of and behind the bridge for the Caliph’s drum and using extreme high notes on low strings for ‘moaning’ sounds.”

ModernWorks
Called “a dynamic new music ensemble” (The New York Times), ModernWorks was formed in 1997 by cellist and concert producer Madeleine Shapiro. Though its core is a string quartet, the ensemble also performs repertoire in numerous other combinations: string duos and trios, as well as works with accordion, percussion, voice, and multiple cellos. ModernWorks gives an annual New York concert series and has presented over 30 New York or United States premieres by both young, emerging composers and an international roster of established composers. Active in the commissioning of new works, ModernWorks is proud to have been the recipient of two commissioning grants from Meet the Composer USA to commission new works by American composers. The ensemble has appeared in such diverse New York venues as The Knitting Factory and the Museum of Arts & Design, has held a residency at New York University, and has been a regular on the prestigious Sonic Boom Festival. In addition to its NY series, ModernWorks tours both nationally and internationally. (www.ModernWorks.com).

Ondine remains an independent unit within the Naxos group organization and its release policy will remain unaffected. The label will continue to pursue its mission to represent the very best of Finnish performing artists and composers combined with working with top level international artists and orchestras.

“I’m extremely excited that Naxos was keen to become our owner,” said Reijo Kiilunen, Managing Director of Ondine. “Naxos shares our solid commitment to classical music. Ondine will benefit from its extensive and professional international organization and distribution network as well as its highly advanced digital business models. In addition, joining forces makes us the strongest classical player in the domestic Finnish market. All this made me realize, that from a number of interesting alternatives, Naxos was the best choice of owner in facing all the challenges within our business world.”

Commented Klaus Heymann, founder and owner of Naxos: “For a long time, Ondine has been one of my favorite labels and I am delighted that it is now part of our group. There is very little duplication in terms of repertoire and the label has a very clear identity which makes it a perfect fit. I think Ondine will benefit from being distributed physically and digitally worldwide by our subsidiaries and qualified third-party distributors. I look forward to working with Reijo on strengthening the label’s presence in the international market.”

Commented Håkan Lagerqvist, CEO of Naxos Sweden and new chairman of Ondine: “This is a very welcome addition to our bouquet of Nordic labels owned by Naxos, already including Proprius, Swedish Society and others. With Ondine, we’ve worked with distribution in Sweden, Denmark and Norway for some years now and we look forward to taking this cooperation to a new level both in the Nordic territory and internationally. I have known Reijo for many years and I have the highest respect for his competence and the way he has made Ondine such a strong brand. This is also a statement that we strongly believe in the future of high quality recorded classical music.”

Cedille Records’ titles are produced through its parent organization, the non-profit Chicago Classical Recording Foundation, founded in 1989 by James Ginsburg (son of US Supreme court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Mr. Ginsburg’s vision was to produce and promote recordings by Chicago musicians, performing important repertoire, overlooked by the major labels. With several prestigious awards and numerous award nominations to its credit, Cedille’s roster of artists includes violinists Rachel Barton Pine and Jennifer Koh; cellist Wendy Warner; mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore; conductor Carlos Kalmar; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the Chicago Baroque Ensemble; the Vermeer Quartet; contemporary music ensemble, eighth blackbird; and the choral group, the William Ferris Chorale, among many others. Celebrating its partnership with Naxos, Cedille proudly announces the release of three diverse new discs in May 2009.

Under the direction of conductor and music director Paul French, the William Ferris Chorale leads the May releases with an album of World Premiere recordings of nine sacred works by diverse contemporary American composers. The disc, entitled American Choral Premieres, introduces the first recordings of settings of Biblical, liturgical, and poetic texts by Alan Hovhaness, Egon Cohen, Paul Nicholson, Paul French, Easley Blackwood, Robert Kreutz, William Ferris, William C. White, and Robert Rochberg. 

The William Ferris Chorale was founded in 1971 by its namesake, late composer William Ferris (1937-2000) and tenor John Vorrasi. Under the direction of Maestro Ferris, the Chorale was frequently invited to international festivals and presented over 160 world, American, and Chicago premieres of new repertoire. Since 2005, the chorale has been directed by composer and conductor Paul French, whom had a close collegial relationship with the founder as his mentor, and whose continued excellence with the ensemble underscores continuity of purpose and style. As an important voice in contemporary American music, Mr. French has written more than 200 instrumental and choral works, psalm settings, and acclamations in a variety of media including works for choir, voice, organ, brass, and orchestra.

The second new recording from Cedille’s trio of May releases is a significant treatise on music from the early and mid-20th century Jewish diaspora, Jewish Cabaret in Exile by the New Budapest Orpheum. Under the direction of artistic director Phillip V. Bohlman, the ensemble has recorded a collection of songs composed from exile poetry by collaborators Hanns Eisler and Kurt Tucholsky, solo compositions by Eisler, and Viktor Ullmann’s 1944 set of Three Yiddish Songs (Březulinka), op. 53. The group also includes cabaret songs set to texts that reflect a wide spectrum on the human condition of exile and the meaning of survival, written by Edmund Nick and Erich Kästner, and Georg Kreisler. Finally, the disc captures the essence of some of the finest songs lifted from the scores of Yiddish and postwar stage and screen of the period, by Moses Milner, Mordechai Gebirtig, Abraham Ellstein, and Friedrich Holländer.

The New Budapest Orpheum Society is an Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Chicago and draws upon a wide range of repertories, all poignantly revealing the stories, beliefs, and feelings behind the music from the great tradition of Jewish cabaret.

 Dating from 1978 and 1985, Romantic Music for Piano Four Hands is a May 2009 compilation reissue of two well-received recordings by the Buccheri/Boldrey Piano Duet. The duo made their debut at North Park University in Chicago during the early 1970s, when both members, Elizabeth Buccheri and Richard Boldrey were faculty members. Their residency resulted in continuous sold-out concerts at North Park and launched the team into wider performance, as they appeared regularly on “Live from WFMT” broadcasts and Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in downtown Chicago. From 1978, the duo recorded over half of the works reissued on this disc (the first Onslow Sonata, and works by Balakirev, Liszt, and Wagner). A second set of masters were captured in 1985 (Onslow Sonata No. 2, and works by Reger and Grieg). About the first original LP of Romantic Music for Two Pianos, Fan fare magazine wrote, “This record is a winner…. Boldrey and Buccheri don’t just play the notes. They enjoy the music, and convey that enjoyment tangibly….”

Missa Latin ‘Pro Pace’ is suffused with Mr. Sierra’s experience of growing up a Catholic in Puerto Rico. He notes: “I still recall vividly hearing the Mass in Latin in my hometown when I was a child. These memories created a strong impression-one that has only deepened through the years: a sense of mystery combined with power and compassion in hearing Gregorian chant intoned by the priest in a ritual involving this ‘dead’ language.” He explains that the work’s title “has dual meaning. On the one hand it refers to the traditional Latin text, while on the other hand the work is infused with a ‘Latino’ character: full of Caribbean gestures that allude to my own Hispanic heritage, and which are present in so many of my works. These sounds can be heard particularly in the Laudamus te of the Gloria and the Pleni sunt caeli of the Sanctus.”

Serebrier, who met Khachaturian when he was working with Leopold Stokowski, explains:

“I had the pleasure and privilege of having lunch with Khachaturian in New York, with Leopold Stokowski, when Stokowski invited him to conduct a concert of his music with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and obvious charm and modesty. He stayed on after one of his rehearsals to watch me rehearse the orchestra for one of my own concerts, and sat in the hall next to Stokowski.”

Of this particular repertoire, the conductor remarks: “While the Violin Concerto is a staple of the repertoire, the Concerto-Rhapsody is very rarely performed, and has enormous difficulties for the soloist. In some ways, it’s more interesting and imaginative than the concerto, certainly more original.”

This “audacious plan” (New York Times) has brought Bertolozzi sustained international attention. As part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Hendryk Hudson’s voyage up the river that now bears his name, Bridge Music is available free to the public, beginning in June 2009, through Listening Stations on the towers of the Mid-Hudson Bridge and FM transmitters in waterfront parks along the Hudson River.

International interest has brought this project far beyond the borders of the Hudson Valley. In addition to feature stories in the Associated Press (AP) and NY Times, the project has been reported around the world in places like China, Sweden, Italy, Argentina, England, the Mid-East, Africa and Australia.

The bridge’s 1920s designer, Ralph Modjeski, was a highly skilled pianist and a classmate of Paderewski. He ultimately chose engineering as his profession, and became one of the 20th century’s greatest bridge designers. “Both as a pioneering engineer and as a musician who loved the music of his own time, I think he would be intrigued to experience this boundary-shattering synthesis involving his beloved bridge and the music of our own time” Bertolozzi writes in the liner notes to this album.

On May 26, Naxos releases a recording by pianist Xiayin Wang-her first for the label-featuring works by Alexander Scriabin. For this recording, the artist has selected a program of compositions spanning the composer’s early, middle, and late periods, including two of his earliest surviving compositions: two waltzes he wrote at age 14-Valse in D flat major, op. posth.; and Valse in F minor, Op. 1. From the later period, Ms. Wang has selected Deux Danses, Op. 73, one of the composer’s final piano works (the only other piano work from this period was Five Preludes, Op. 74) and the celebrated Vers la Flamme, Op. 72.

Ms. Wang, who has graced the stages of Carnegie, Weill and Zankel halls, performs a recital at New York’s Alice Tully Hall on Monday, May 18 at 8 PM. Her program, which includes works by Haydn, Chopin, Ravel, Liszt, and Scriabin, also features world premieres of music by American composers Richard Danielpour (The Enchanted Garden, Preludes, Book II), and Sean Hickey (Cursive).

Ms. Wang began piano studies at the age of five in her native China. She came to New York in 1997 and was awarded the 2000 “Certificate of Achievement” by the Associated Music Teacher League of New York, winning an opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall. She also pursued studies at the Manhattan School of Music and won the school’s Eisenberg Concerto Competition in 2002, as well as the Roy M. Rubinstein Award. Xiayin Wang holds Bachelor’s, Master’s and Professional Studies degrees from the Manhattan School of Music.

For more information, please visit Xiayin Wang’s website: www.xiayinwangpiano.com.

In May, Naxos of America begins distribution of 2L, a Norwegian label known for releasing the world’s first audio-only Blu-Ray recording, Divertimenti, which subsequently received three Grammy® nominations. Founded in 2001 by Morten Lindberg, 2L’s mission is to achieve state-of-the-art sound and packaging within all future formats of classical music. “What we are seeing is a completely new conception of the music experience,” said Lindberg. “Recorded music is no longer a matter of a fixed two-dimensional setting, but rather a three-dimensional enveloping situation. Stereo can be described as a flat-canvas, while surround sound is a sculpture that you can literally move around and relate to spatially.”

Of 2L’s many high quality and unique releases, one in particular jumped out at my colleague Collin Rae. He shared it with some of us and I was immediately taken by not only the recording and the music, but with the concept behind it and how it directly correlates to Morten’s statement above. The SACD hybrid/Blu-ray recording that I am speaking of is SONaR, a collaboration of Norwegian composer Magnar Åm and harpist Ellen Sejersted Bødtker. The sound on this recording is immaculate, the compositions and performances are beyond words (for lack of a better description).

We decided that in order to really undertand all aspects of this recording, we needed to go to the source, SO we interviewed Magnar and Ellen! You will find my chat with Magnar below. His thoughts on music and sound are intriguing, scratch that, they are downright fascinating. Let’s just say that he composes pieces that no concert hall in the world can yet accomodate. Why don’t I allow him to explain…

You’ve said “Music matters, as it brings to matter what is of no matter”. How did you become so fascinated by sound and how to make it a physical experience?

My fascination for sound is a gift of birth and heritage. My mother was always singing, even up to the moment when she started to press me out. The inspiration to work with music as something appealing to more than feelings and moods also dates back to childhood. I discovered the sense of orientation and that this sense could be cheated willingly by my own perception. Sitting by the window gazing at the snowflakes falling densely outside, I would after a while have a strong perception that the snowflakes were the reference point hovering motionless in the air and that I instead was in the middle of an upward movement, as if I were lifted weightlessly. This was a blissfull experience which I would seek consciously over and over again during our lovely winters. It was not the beauty or the quiet of the falling snow that attracted me, but the mere physical experience of weightlessness being planted in my body when I let myself be receptable and non-judging of what my eyes were seeing.

Because of that discovery I have been working with music as something that can transfer a physical and mental experience regardless of what likes and dislikes the listener would have. To me, music is not about whether I like it or not, but only about what it does to me when I open up. What I discovered in that early childhood – though not yet consciously – was that our senses can be turned upside down dependent on our thinking about what is reality.

Music has taught me a lot through the years; it has been my friend, helping me to dive into the unknown depths of being and come up with a form to it. In this way it has shown me that my deepest reality is not what I see. Through its physical appearance as sound-waves it has portrayed something non-physical. And it has given me some new traces to follow to make it even more physical and thus more directly effective in transfering the non-physical truth to my senses. It can be used like the visual snowflakes to leave my senses with a dual choice of how to perceive reality.

Can you explain your concept of “three-dimensional sound” and how it applies to SONaR and the techniques used to record it?

Three-dimensional sound is achieved when the sound sources are placed globally around you, that is: on your sides, in front, behind, over and under you. Many of my later acoustic pieces are written for such placement, but there is so far no suitable concert halls or commercial sound format for it. Therefore, an adjustment to the two-dimensional performance is necessary, that is: with the sound sources placed around you on a horizontal level, in front, behind and on your sides. This includes the present surround formats and the possible use of some concert halls. In this connection a stereo format and a traditional performance with the musicians placed in front of the audience will be the one-dimensional version, where everything comes from different points on a single line between left and right in front of you.

On SONaR only dette blanke no (this our virgin now) is written originally for a three-dimensional performance. It is then adjusted to a two-dimensional surround format recording by Morten Lindberg. He let the spatial lines of the score be transfered to a spreading out horizontally in the room so that everything had different distance to the different directional microphones and did the recording in a church of rather long reverberation so that the feeling of a large three-dimensoinal space could be perceived.

The first track on SONaR is vere meininga (be the purpose) for which you also wrote the poetry. Explain the creative process behind this piece and its meaningful text. Had you written the poetry before you decided to set it to music? Or did the music inspire the poetry?

The poetry was born gradually together with the music, as it often is. At some points of the composition process the musical idea appearing would be a spoken word or phrase. When that arises as a musical need I know there is a poem coming, although it is yet as unknown to me as the total music, and I know it will reveal itself and its meaning parallel with the music if I just keep on letting the piece unfold.

vere meininga was originally written for Chinese harp and string sextet. Were there any drastic changes that had to be made when developing this version for Ellen and her European harp?

The most conspicuous change is that of the cadenza. Since Ellen operates both the acoustic and the electric harp the possibilities of the electric harp and the contrast to the acoustic harp had to be made very clear here.

I am incredibly moved by det var mjukt written for soprano and harp. The translation of the text is heart-wrenching, yet uplifting. What prompted the composition of this piece? What mind-set must you be in to accurately musically portray text like this?

The original text is the English one, written by Clark E. Moustakas in his book HEURISTIC RESEARCH, Design, Methodology and Application. I teach a small subject called Intuitive Composition/Improvisation and Music Philosophy at Volda University College. And there we have his book on the syllabus list. When Ellen commissioned a short piece for herself and her son to be placed in between the two harp concertos of the CD I knew I would use Moustaka’s beautiful text, as I was just then citing from his book to my students. So I wrote the song to the English text and then made a translation fitting the music. When time came for the recording, her young son was already facing his break of voice and we decided to let the same soprano as in the last piece sing it.

To musically portray a text like this – or any text – you have to be able to recognize in yourself all the feelings hidden in the words, actually see yourself in the role of the author, and let music arise from there.

When Ellen commissioned dette blanke no, concerto for harp and angels, how did you settle on the concept of timelessness and weightlessness? At one point in the creative process did it become clear that two harps would be required to achieve this goal?

I have experienced that when I try to listen consciously to two or more different pulses simultanuously – and really try to keep track of all pulses, at some point my brain gives up. And as it gives up, there is a loss of sense of time, and to me that is a blissful experience, it’s like coming home. So in dette blanke no (this our virgin now), as the choir enters, to portray this side of “home-coming” there is in the harp part a set of repetitive lines with individually different pulses. For the ear consciously or unconsciously to be able to follow the different lines it was necessary to use different coloring of the harp tone in the different slow pulses and even bring in an additional harp, the electric one.

To remind or give the listener a trace of weightlessness – the other side of “home-coming” – I took the memory of me and the snowflakes and gave it a spatial musical setting, letting sound move three-dimensionally the same way.

Iholba’, for flute, orchestra, and chorus, was originally commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Symphony Orchestra. Here, flutist Thomas Robertello and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus join the San Francisco Symphony to perform this full-scale symphonic and choral work. Iholba’ sets the text of a poem written by the composer in the native Chickasaw language and is based on a traditional Chickasaw “Garfish Dance Song.” Its two movements are Halbina’ (The Gift) and Iholba’ (The Vision).

Teatro Real’s production of Handel’s vivid tragedy Tamerlano stars a Lear-like Plácido Domingo as the Turkish sultan Bajazet, defeated and taken prisoner by Tamerlano, the Tartar emperor. Displaying the uniquely heroic quality of his voice, Domingo heads a superb cast, including Sara Mingardo, Monica Bacelli, and Ingela Bohlin-all magnificently responsive to Paul McCreesh’s authentic and luminous interpretation. The theatrical staging by Graham Vick provides a splendid setting for the characters and for designer Richard Hudson’s extravagant Baroque-Islamic costumes, emphasizing the brilliance of one of Handel’s finest dramatic achievements.

Baroque opera is a departure from Domingo’s usual repertoire. In a 2008 interview for NPR, he described the role of Bajazet as “ideal for my voice.” And, like many of Domingo’s signature roles, including Verdi’s Otello, the opera “has a great death scene.” He added: “In real life, I like to enjoy. But on stage … I am a masochist! The more I suffer, the better I can deliver on my music, and feelings.”

After the premiere of Part One, West German Radio commissioned Penderecki to compose Part Two, Resurrection, which premiered on May 28, 1971 in Munster, paired with a performance of Entombment. Since then, ensembles have generally (though not exclusively) performed the two parts together. The first Polish performance of the complete Utrenja duly took place in Kraków on September 16, 1971.

Enthusiastically received by audiences, Utrenja stands beside the composer’s Polish Requiem (8557386-87) and St Luke Passion (8557149) among the masterpieces of modern Polish music.

Breiner notes that the project is the first time that selected material from Janáček’s operas appears in purely instrumental form. Regarding the first set of suites featuring music from Jenůfa and The Excursions of Mr. Brouček, previously released by Naxos in February 2009, Breiner remarked: “These are not your regular suites, which would only include the orchestral music from the operas (overture, interludes, preludes, postludes, and intermezzos) … These suites have plenty of material that was originally vocal (solos, duets, choruses) and was ‘converted’ into instrumental music.” Breiner’s challenge was to choose the highest quality excerpts and themes that were most representative from each opera, cautiously editing and revising them to ultimately create fresh orchestral suites that would appropriately reflect the composer’s distinctive style and colorful aesthetic.

Badiou goes on to observe, “the organization of Frauenliebe und-leben is noticeably different, in that the work’s cyclic character was already imposed on it by the poetic text [by Chamisso]…the verse reflects the aesthetic of the Biedermeier period in evoking the successive stages in a woman’s life: burgeoning first love, amorous ecstasy, engagement, marriage, motherhood, and conjugal fidelity that continues after the husband’s death.”

In 2000, at the age of 24, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux became the first Canadian to win First Prize as well as the Special Prize for Lieder at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium. Winning this prestigious award opened the door to an immediate international career, allowing her to perform in recital and in concert with many great orchestras around the world. She has appeared on many naïve recordings including, most recently, Vivaldi’s La fida ninfa, the latest opera release in the label’s landmark Vivaldi Edition. L’Heure Exquise, her recital of French songs by Hahn, Chausson and Debussy, received the highest rating from ClassicsToday – 10/10 for Artistic Quality/Sound Quality:

“Times are great for fans of mezzos and contraltos, especially ones who perform song recitals as well as opera and oratorio roles. And among today’s several young stars, Quebec-born Marie-Nicole Lemieux has the versatility, technique, artistic instincts, and of course, the voice to ensure a long and illustrious career… This is a first-rate recital by a truly extraordinary singer. Accompanist Daniel Blumenthal is a perfect partner, as you never notice a note or dynamic or aspect of phrasing out of sync with Lemieux. Solo singing rarely if ever gets better than this, and the quality of the recording matches the high standard of the performances.”

Lemieux also sang sacred vocal music by Vivaldi in a release last season with Ensemble Matheus under the direction of Jean-Christophe Spinosi. The New York Times observed, “In the more austere Stabat Mater, Marie-Nicole Lemieux sings with a gripping sense of drama, her darkly rich, agile contralto illuminating the text with anguish and passion.”

On April 7, Naxos released Seven Last Words from the Cross by renowned Scottish composer James MacMillan. The recording, which features The Dmitri Ensemble and director Graham Ross, also includes two world-premiere recordings of other works by Mr. MacMillan, Nemo te condemnavit (2005) and …here in hiding… (1993), a work originally performed by the Hilliard Ensemble for four solo voices, performed here by The Dmitri Ensemble in a new arrangement for unaccompanied ATTB chorus. Rounding out the recording is the 1994 Christus Vincit, a double-choir anthem written for St Paul’s Cathedral, London, based on text from the 12th century Worcester Acclamations.

Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993), for SSAATTBB chorus and string orchestra, was commissioned by BBC Television and first screened in seven nightly episodes during Holy Week in 1994. The text is based on a compilation from the four canonical gospels of the last seven sentences uttered by Christ.

The composer has written: “The work begins with a cadential figure from the end of my clarinet quintet Tuireadh (Lament), repeated over and over, upon which the rest of the music gradually builds. Again a repeated cadential figure forms the basis of the second movement, this time evoking memories of Bach’s Passion chorales. Christ’s words are kept until the very end of the third movement, when they are sung by two high sopranos, accompanied by high violins. The rest of the piece is a setting of the Good Friday Versicle Ecce Lignum Crucis.”

MacMillan continues: “In the fourth movement, the music rises from low to high before the choir delivers an impassioned lament, above which the strings float and glide. The movement eventually subsides through a downward canonic motion to end as it began. The two words ‘I thirst’ (fifth movement) are set to a static and slow-moving harmonic procedure, which is deliberately bare and desolate. The interpolated text from the Good Friday Reproaches is heard whispered and distantly chanted. The sixth movement begins with hammer-blows, which subside and out of which grows quiet choral material, which is largely unaccompanied throughout. In the final movement, the first word is exclaimed in anguish three times before the music descends in resignation. The choir has finished; the work is subsequently completed by strings alone. In this final movement, with its long instrumental postlude, the liturgical detachment breaks down and gives way to a more personal reflection-hence the resonance here of Scottish traditional lament music.”
Hailed by The Guardian as “a composer so confident of his own musical language that he makes it instantly communicative to his listeners,” James MacMillan is one of today’s most successful living composers and conductors. His music is notable for its extraordinary directness, energy, and emotional power. References to Scottish folk music imbue his work with a strong sense of the vernacular, while his strongly-held religious and political beliefs, coupled with his concerns for the community, inform both the spirit and subject matter of his music. MacMillan first came to the attention of the classical music world when the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra premiered his The Confession of Isobel Gowdie at the Proms in 1990. His most recent successes have included his second opera, The Sacrifice, a 2007 commission by the Welsh National Opera and winner of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, and the St John’s Passion, commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Sir Colin Davis at its 2008 world premiere. MacMillan received the British Composer Award for Liturgical Music for his Strathclyde Motets in December 2008.

Being released just in time for the 84^th anniversary of its first performance, Ravel received the script for L’enfant et les sortilèges from French novelist Colette in 1917 but did not complete the work until 1924. The opera tells the story of an ill-behaved child who meets a rude awakening when the inanimate objects in his nursery and garden come to life and turn on him. The libretto offers many opportunities for the soloists to provide witty depictions of the various objects that seek their revenge on the young child, such as the damaged grandfather clock, the belligerent teapot, the Ragtime singing teacups, the personification of arithmetic (a crazed professor), and the duet by the amusing cats.

Ravel told his friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange that L’enfant contained many musical styles: Massenet, Puccini, Monteverdi and American musical comedy. In creatively weaving these many moods, Ravel surely found a lighthearted way to convey that message that actions have consequences and that a civilized society would not exist without care for the world around us.

Shéhérazade is actually the title of two works by Ravel. The first is Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie, written in 1898 for orchestra. The second (Shéhérazade), which is heard on this recording, was written in 1903 as a song cycle for orchestra after three poems by Tristan Klingsor: Asie, La flûte enchantée, and L’indifférent.

On February 8, 2009, The Recording Academy® honored artists from labels Naxos, EuroArts and Chandos Records with six Grammy® Awards.

Israeli-born soprano Hila Plitmann won the Grammy® Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for the world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan. The Naxos recording features Hila Plitmann with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Pulitzer, Oscar, multi-Grammy®, and Grawemeyer award-winning composer John Corigliano won the Best Classical Contemporary Composition Grammy® Award for the work.

Recently named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, The Pacifica Quartet won the Best Chamber Music Performance Grammy® Award for their acclaimed Naxos recording of Elliott Carter’s String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5. The Pacifica Quartet has recorded the complete cycle of Elliott Carter’s string quartets in two volumes, the second of which will be released by Naxos on February 24.

The Los Angeles Opera production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny, released on DVD by EuroArts, earned Grammy® Awards for Best Classical Album and Best Opera Recording. The performance featured conductor James Conlon, soloists Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald; the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus; and was produced by Fred Vogler. This marks the first time ever that DVD recordings have been eligible for Grammy® Award consideration in these categories. Only the audio portion of the DVD is considered.

Charles Bruffy and The Phoenix Chorale took home the Grammy® Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance for their recording Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary, from Chandos Records.

CORIGLIANO: Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems Of Bob Dylan
(JoAnn Falletta; Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)

Best Classical Contemporary Composition
John Corigliano

Best Classical Vocal Performance
Hila Plitmann

CARTER: String Quartets Nos. 1 And 5
(Pacifica Quartet)

Best Chamber Music Performance

WEILL: Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny
James Conlon, conductor; Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone & Audra McDonald; Fred Vogler, producer (Donnie Ray Albert, John Easterlin, Steven Humes, Mel Ulrich & Robert Wörle; Los Angeles Opera Chorus; Los Angeles Opera Orchestra)
Best Classical Album

Best Opera Recording

Spotless Rose: Hymns To The Virgin Mary
(Charles Bruffy, conductor; Phoenix Chorale)

Best Small Ensemble Performance

On January 27, Naxos releases the final recording in a series of orchestral transcriptions (and syntheses) by Leopold Stokowski led by Stokowski’s protégé, the GRAMMY-winning conductor and composer José Serebrier, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Serebrier also comments:

“The Bournemouth musicians and I had so much fun recording these four volumes of Stokowski orchestrations, that we are sorry that the series is now finished, but I look forward to recording other repertoire with this wonderful orchestra. The 4th CD includes some works that were all time best sellers in the early part of the Twentieth Century. The Toccata and Fugue was included after we received numerous letters from listeners and critics asking for it. That is a very challenging work, and I had avoided it before because it is so closely identified with Stokowski and his wonderful numerous versions, but now I am delighted to have included it, and given my own personal view of this masterful, brilliant orchestration. I recently gave a concert in Israel in which I included several original Bach works on Baroque instruments, followed by orchestrations by Mitropoulos, Stokowski and others. The orchestrations and the originals are not exclusive of each other. Thanks to these colorful orchestrations Bach became known to entire generations.”

Bach-Stokowski Transcriptions 1 (Naxos 8557883), was released in June of 2006. It followed the 2005 release of Stokowski’s Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky Transcriptions (Naxos 8557645), a recording universally praised by critics and receiving two Grammy® nominations. ClassicsToday.com assigned the CD its highest rating, and called it “spectacular, sensational … this is the real deal.”

In 2007, Serebrier’s recording of Wagner: Symphonic Syntheses by Leopold Stokowski (Naxos 8570293) led Gramophone to remark: “It would be hard to imagine a more sumptuous disc. Stokowski, in these ‘symphonic syntheses,’ enhances Wagner’s already opulent orchestration with shrewdly added instrumental lines and with the vocal parts usually given to the strings. José Serebrier conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in thrilling performances, passionate in a genuinely Stokowskian manner…” MusicWeb International chose this CD as a “Recording of the Year,” commenting: “José Serebrier invests a fragrant and voluptuous sensuality to match the unbridled passion of the celebrated Liebestod that follows where its mounting excitement is literally edge-of-the-seat stuff.”

The idea for the Naxos recordings of Stokowski’s transcriptions originated from the Leopold Stokowski Society itself, which approached Serebrier in 2003. After graduating from Curtis, while still in his teens, Serebrier enjoyed a close working association with Stokowski, serving for many years as the Associate Conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra, which Stokowski founded. Stokowski also premiered a number of Serebrier’s own compositions, including his First Symphony, when the composer was 17 years old.

About the film

Made for the 1939 World’s Fair (”The World of Tomorrow”), The City is a classic documentary film distinguished for its organic integration of narration (scripted by Lewis Mumford), cinematography (by Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dyke), and music (by Copland). The resulting tapestry is astonishing for its vibrance and originality. Because filming outdoors with sound was so difficult and expensive, the story is told without dialogue, relying solely on its imagery, narration, and music. It is the absence of dialogue that makes it possible to create a new soundtrack – and for the first time do justice to the symphonic detail and depth of Copland’s score.

Depicting in sequence a New England village, a milltown, a “city,” and a “new town,” The City illustrates how the frantic pace of city and milltown living destroyed the quality of life formerly found in rural America-but which could be recaptured in “planned communities of modest size.” In the opening sequence, Mumford (an early critic of “urban sprawl,” whose seminal 1961 book, The City in History, explored the development of urban civilization) has the narrator rhapsodize: “The town was us, and we were part of it.” The culminating “new town” sequence was filmed in Greenbelt, Maryland, site of the first federal experiment using Mumford’s model of a small, planned community that provided Americans with jobs they could walk to, along with social services, schools, and shops-in short, a self-sustaining community. This historic city exists today and appears in the bonus film Which Playground for Your Child: Greenbelt or Gutter?, which features its original inhabitants (including those in The City), as well its next generation of residents.

Aaron Copland as Film Composer

Aaron Copland’s desire to broaden his audience in the 1930s and ‘40s attracted him to film; The City was his first soundtrack. His works were the antitheses of the lush, Romantic scores by his Hollywood contemporaries Erich Korngold and Max Steiner, leading famed composer, conductor, and pianist André Previn to comment that “what Copland represented in Hollywood was ‘fewer notes.’ ” Copland followed the example of Virgil Thomson, who, in The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1937), created a new style of film music Copland considered “fresher, more simple, and more personal” than most Hollywood movie music-”a lesson in how to treat Americana.”

The City’s structure permitted Copland to explore a gamut of iconic American locales. Sounds such as sirens, a taped emergency call, and typewriters become part of the musical score, evoking Varèse’s Amériques and Ionisation.

The City was Copland’s ticket to Hollywood, where he later composed the soundtracks to Of Mice and Men (1939), Our Town (1940), The North Star (1943), The Red Pony (1948), and The Heiress (1949), among others. He won an Academy Award for The Heiress, but director William Wyler’s insistence on bringing in another composer to soften his score soured him on working in Hollywood.

DVD Extras:

The City with the original soundtrack (43:40)
Featuring Morris Carnovsky (narrator) and an orchestra conducted by Max Goberman.

Which Playground for Your Child: Greenbelt or Gutter? (15:09)
A film produced in 2000 by Video Art Productions for the Greenbelt Museum. These interviews with three “pioneers” who lived in Greenbelt, Maryland, beginning in 1937 and 1938, include the reminiscences of Bob Sommers, who recalls the filming of The City and is the boy with the flat tire in the film.

George Stoney in Conversation with Joseph Horowitz (29:15)
This conversation with the legendary documentary filmmaker, who is also a historian of the genre (and, at age 91, an eyewitness to the New Deal and the 1939 World’s Fair), begins with a discussion of why 1930s documentaries such as The City eschewed dialogue-and the artistic consequences.

The DVD is produced with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Fund, and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland and is distributed in the United States by Naxos of America.

The River and The Plow that Broke the Plains brilliantly illuminate the ideology of the New Deal. They are also masterpieces of the documentary film genre and a treasured part of America’s cultural patrimony. I salute Naxos for reissuing these two great films. The Post-Classical Ensemble’s new recording of Virgil Thomson’s soundtrack and the fascinating supplementary materials all enhance the historic value of this wonderful DVD.

-Paul S. Boyer, Editor-in Chief, The Oxford Companion to United States History

SCREENINGS AND OTHER EVENTS FOR THE CITY:

Saturday, January 24 at 1 PM;
Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse
5015 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
A screening, with Angel Gil-Ordóñez, Benjamin Pasternack, and Joseph McCartin.

Saturday, Jan 31 7:00 PM;
The Post Classical Ensemble: Copland And The Cold War
Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Davis Performing Arts Center Gonda Theatre
37th and O Streets
Washington, DC 20057
For further information: www.post-classicalensemble.org
Post-Classical Production features Benjamin Pasternack, pianist; Georgetown University Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, actors from Georgetown’s Theater & Performance Studies Program, and Joseph Horowitz. Program includes Aaron Copland’s Cat and Mouse; Piano Variations; Scherzo (from Piano Sonata); Piano Fantasy Copland:” Into the Streets May First” (audience sing-along). Plus a re-enactment of Copland’s testimony before Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Subcommittee on Special Investigations; and excerpts from the classic 1939 documentary film The City, with music by Aaron Copland.

Wednesday, February 11 at 6 PM;
New York Public Library, Main Branch,
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
New York, NY 10018
Room: South Court Auditorium
This screening will be followed by a conversation between Joseph Horowitz, Angel Gil-Ordóñez, and documentary filmmaker/scholar George Stoney.

Friday, February 13, 2:30 PM;
Library for the Performing Arts
Bruno Walter Auditorium
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10023-7498
The City (screening only; no program)

Tuesday, May 19, time TBA
The Greenbelt Museum
Greenbelt, MD
A screening, with Angel Gil-Ordóñez, Joseph Horowitz.

3rd Parties’ Reviews:

• At Ubiquitous Surveillance Society, Utopian urbanism by David
• At BaltimoreSun.com, “The City” shines again on DVD by Tim Smith

Recently nominated for a Grammy® Award in the category of Best Composition for Mr. Tambourine Man,
Mr. Corigliano has written:

“For the past three decades I have started the compositional process by building a shape, or architecture, before coming up with any musical material. In this case, the shape was influenced by a desire to write a piece in which the entire work is conceived spatially. But I started simply wondering what dramatic premise would justify the encirclement of the audience by musicians, so that they were in the center of an arena. This started my imagination going, and quite suddenly a title appeared in my mind: Circus Maximus.

The Circus Maximus of ancient Rome was a real place-the largest arena in the world. 300,000 spectators were entertained by chariot races, hunts, and battles … The shape of my Circus Maximus was built both to embody and to comment on this massive and glamorous barbarity. It utilizes a large concert band, and lasts approximately 35 minutes. The work is in eight sections that are played without pause.”

In January, Naxos also releases Vittorio Giannini: Piano Concerto and Symphony No. 4 (Naxos 8559352), featuring world-premiere recordings of his 1934 Piano Concerto and the Symphony No. 4. Giannini completed the latter in 1959, and it received its premiere in 1960 by the Juilliard Orchestra, led by Jean Morel. This recording features Daniel Spalding, founder and conductor of the Philadelphia Virtuosi, Romanian-born pianist Gabriela Imreh, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

The American composer and teacher Vittorio Giannini was born in Philadelphia in 1903. He studied the violin from an early age, won a scholarship to the Milan Conservatory, and, in 1925, entered The Juilliard School. In 1932, he won the first of three consecutive Prix de Rome. During the 1930s, several of his works-notably his operas Lucedia (1934) and The Scarlet Letter (1938) and his Requiem (1937)-enjoyed critical success in Europe. Giannini is, however, perhaps best-known for his popular song, “Tell me, Oh blue, blue Sky!”, a collaboration with poet Karl Flaster, who also provided the libretti for both of the aforementioned operas. When Giannini returned to the United States, he joined the teaching staff at Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music and also taught at Curtis. (Notably, Giannini was one of Corigliano’s teachers, possibly at Manhattan School of Music.) In 1963, he founded and became the first president of the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Considering many of his American contemporaries were exploring neo-classicism and twelve-tone composition, Giannini’s adherence to a late neo-Romantic style, more in line with Wagner and Puccini, was remarkable. Conductor Daniel Spalding notes that his search for his Piano Concerto required a great deal of detective work: “The first time I learned about the existence of Giannini’s Piano Concerto was about 10-11 years ago in 1997, while researching him in the vast and impressive Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music of the Philadelphia Free Library. At that time Giannini’s work wasn’t known much with the exception of his band music and his Concerto Grosso for strings, which I have conducted before … Out of one of the very few Giannini manuscripts that the library has, his obituary from The New York Times fell out and it happened to mention the existence of the Piano Concerto.”

Spalding’s search for the elusive Piano Concerto eventually took him to the libraries at Juilliard, Curtis, Manhattan School of Music, the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Library of Congress, among others, with little success. Finally, a librarian at the North Carolina School for the Arts (Gianinni’s last position) pointed him in the right direction, leading him to Wachovia Bank’s headquarters. After many months and calls, Spalding relates, “we were sitting in a large, icy cold office in Winston Salem, North Carolina, waiting anxiously to have the box brought up. And, as an added bonus, in a totally different box was a two-piano reduction, professionally copied in Rome and much more legible. I knew by then that the Piano Concerto, completed in 1934, was premiered in 1937 at Carnegie Hall in New York. Rosalyn Tureck was the pianist with the National Orchestral Association, [with] Leon Barzin conducting.”

Initial reviews for the work were positive; Francis Perkins, in the New York Herald Tribune, commented: “The opulence and expansiveness of Mr. Giannini’s score proved welcome.” Likewise, Robert Simon of The New Yorker enjoyed its “juicy melodies” and “healthy virtuoso bounce.”

This performance, featuring Spalding’s wife, pianist Gabriela Imreh, restores the original and extremely difficult octave passagework possibly edited out by Ms. Tureck due to “pencilled in tempo markings,” which, Spalding comments, “seem much faster than the composer’s own” and which might have been the choice of Maestro Barzin.

In 1978, Brian Eno composed his revolutionary ambient masterwork Music for Airports. 20 years later, in what seemed like a perfect marriage of barrier-breaking music and innovative musicians, Bang on a Can released a new interpretation of Music for Airports on Philip Glass’ POINT Music label. The piece was arranged by composer Evan Ziporyn and Bang on a Can founders and composers Michael Gordon, Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lang and Julia Wolfe. It was performed live for the first time by the Bang on a Can All-Stars during the Holland Festival accompanied by Frank Scheffer’s digitally shot images of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.

On January 27, 2009 Medici Arts releases this unique and revelatory film featuring a new arrangement of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports enhanced by Scheffer’s “out of focus” illustrations. The release also includes the landmark Frank Scheffer documentary In the Ocean in which the complicated contemporary classical music scene of the past, present and future is discussed by composers such as Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, John Cage, and the founders of Bang on a Can.

Pioneering composer, conceptual artist, non-musical pop star, Grammy-winning record producer, writer and philosopher Brian Eno created and recorded his “ambient music” masterpiece Music for Airports to diffuse the irritating atmosphere of airport terminals. An atheist who turned to art because it existed in God’s absence, Eno developed an almost unhealthy obsession for sound. Eno believed that music was the noblest art. “I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing’, said Eno of his first musical instrument. His fascination with capturing, experimenting with, and using sounds led him to musical collaborations with artists and composers such as U2, Talking Heads, Cluster, Devo, David Bowie, Genesis and Philip Glass, among many others. Scored for voices and instruments including acoustic piano and synthesizer, Eno’s Music for Airports was composed after he was bedridden from a car accident in 1975. The concept of ambient music was born from Eno’s inability to walk across his bedroom to change the volume on his radio. The low sound of what was coming out of the speakers weaved in and out of the beating of the rain outside of his window created calming and time-passing music. Described by Eno as music that “must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular: it must be as ignorable as it is interesting,” his work Music for Airports is the culmination of Eno’s varied and colorful journey to his goal of ambient perfection.

Frank Scheffer’s documentary In the Ocean offers the experiences and opinions of some of the world’s greatest contemporary composers and performers who have never before appeared together on film. The composers discuss the complex “establishment” that is contemporary classical music; what it means to compose this music, the inspiration of one continent on another; the influences they have on one another, and the new and ever-evolving face of the art-form. The story of Bang on a Can is used to illustrate many of these points as well as to convey this inimitable music to a wider audience.

Formed in 1987 by composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, Bang on a Can is dedicated to commissioning, performing, creating, presenting and recording contemporary music. With an ear for the new, the unknown and the unconventional, Bang on a Can strives to expose exciting and innovative music as broadly and accessibly as possible to new audiences worldwide. And through its Summer Festival, Bang on a Can hopes to bring this energy and passion for innovation to a younger generation of composers and players.

Marin Alsop, Musical America’s Conductor of the Year, has an extensive recorded legacy for Naxos, including an ongoing series of live recordings with the Baltimore Symphony of music by Antonin Dvořák (Naxos 8.570714), the complete symphonies of Brahms with the London Philharmonic, and three discs of works by Béla Bartók. Additionally, Ms. Alsop has made numerous recordings devoted to music by American composers, including her mentor Leonard Bernstein (Chichester Psalms; Serenade), as well as Samuel Barber, John Adams, Philip Glass, Michael Daugherty, and Michael Torke. Her upcoming releases will include John Adams’ Nixon in China with Opera Colorado, and Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, a work she has championed this season.

Hailed by Gramophone as “one of the finest and most energetic quartets of the younger generation, The Pacifica Quartet, named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, was just honored with a Grammy® nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance for its acclaimed Naxos recording of Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5 (Naxos 8.559362). The Quartet has won numerous accolades for its recording; Steve Smith of The New York Times deemed it “a stunning disc of Quartets No. 1 and No. 5 … on Naxos.” The Times of London also praised the album, saying “The Pacificas, who have given all five works in a prodigious single programme, play magnificently.” The second volume of Carter quartets is due for release in February 2009.

The annual Musical America Awards recognize artistic excellence and achievement and coincide with the publication of the 2009 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, which, in addition to its comprehensive industry listings, pays homage to each of its awardees in its editorial pages. Musical America will present its awards in a special ceremony at Lincoln Center on December 15.

Hailed as one of the world’s leading conductors for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September 2007, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. She also holds the title of Conductor Emeritus at the Bournemouth Symphony in the United Kingdom, where she served as the principal conductor from 2002-2008 and is music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in California.

In 2005, Ms. Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first conductor ever to receive this prestigious award. In 2007, she was honored with a European Women of Achievement Award, in 2008 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2009 Musical America named her “Conductor of the Year.” A regular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ms. Alsop appears frequently as a guest conductor with the most distinguished orchestras around the world. In addition to her performance activities, she is also an active recording artist with award-winning cycles of Brahms and Barber orchestral works. She is currently recording the Dvořák symphonies with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Marin Alsop attended Yale University and received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School. In 1989, her conducting career was launched when she won the Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition in New York.

The Pacifica Quartet, in residence at the University of Chicago, garnered international attention in 2002 when it performed all five of American composer Elliott Carter’s quartets in a single evening. Of that groundbreaking performance, The New York Times wrote: “That [the Quartet] played more than two hours of the most difficult music ever conceived with such technical assurance and keen musicianship was impressive enough. But they did more, bringing out the music’s volatile emotions, delicacy and even, in places, plucky humor.”

Garnering two nominations this year, the Naxos world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man picked up a Best Classical Contemporary Composition nomination for the Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy®, and Grawemeyer award-winning composer. The album, which features conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic, also brought in a nomination for the recording’s soloist, Israeli-born soprano Hila Plitmann, who received a nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance.

The Pacifica Quartet, recently named 2009 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, was honored with a nomination for Best Chamber Music Performance for its acclaimed Naxos recording of Elliott Carter String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5. The second volume of this series is due for release in February 2009. Renowned producer Judith Sherman picked up a nomination for Producer of the Year for her work on the Carter String Quartets on Naxos and 4 additional albums.

A Choral Performance nomination went to chorus master Henryk Wojnarowski and conductor Antoni Wit for the Naxos recording of Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. A Best Engineered Album (Classical) nomination went to engineer John Newton for his work on the Naxos recording Respighi: Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions, Rossiniana, which featured conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

NAXOS OF AMERICA DISTRIBUTED LABEL ARTISTS NOMINATED FOR GRAMMYS®

Artists from British-based label Chandos received 5 nominations in multiple categories this year. Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary featuring the Phoenix Chorale, conductor Charles Bruffy, and produced by Blanton Alspaugh, was nominated for Best Classical Album (Awards to Artists and Producer). Additionally, Mr. Bruffy and the Phoenix Chorale were nominated in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category for this recording. Another Chandos choral recording, Rheinberger: Sacred Choral Works, conductor Charles Bruffy (with the Kansas City Chorale and Phoenix Bach Choir) earned nominations for Best Surround Sound Album and Best Choral Performance. Finally, a Best Orchestral Performance nomination went to conductor Rumon Gamba and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra for their Chandos recording D’Indy Orchestral Works, Volume 1.

A EuroArts production earned two nominations in the categories of Best Classical Album (Award to Artists and Producers) and Best Opera Recording (Award to Conductor, Producer, and Principal Soloists) for their DVD recording of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny. The performance featured conductor James Conlon, soloists Anthony Dean Griffey, Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald; the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus; and was produced by Fred Vogler. This is the first Grammy® Awards in which DVD recordings of operas are eligible for nomination. Only the audio portion of the DVD is considered in the nominating process.

Also in the category of Best Opera Recording nominations went to conductors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs for their CPO recording of Jean Baptiste Lully’s Psyché with the Boston Early Music Festival (Mr. O’Dette and Mr. Stubbs also were nominated last year for their CPO recording of Jean Baptiste Lully’s Thésée with the Boston Early Music Festival).

Renowned Italian conductor and Baroque-specialist, Rinaldo Alessandrini was nominated for his Naïve classique recording of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.

Finally, violinist Elmar Oliveira earned a nomination for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra for his Artek recording of Violin Concertos by Ernst Bloch and Benjamin Lees with John McLaughlin Williams conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

The Idil Biret Archive contains all of the pianist’s professional recordings and many of her radio and television recordings

In December 2008 the Idil Biret Archive (IBA) will join the Naxos family of labels, IBA recordings will be distributed worldwide as well as digitally on major websites including Naxos Music Library, ClassicsOnline, iTunes, eMusic and Amazon.

Biret is a prolific recording artist whose repertoire includes mastery of music from the classical to modern era. Since she began her recording career in 1949 she has made over 80 recordings for nine labels, as well as countless radio and television recordings. Many of these recordings have never been available commercially and will debut on IBA.

First four recordings will be released in December 2008. Four volumes from the 19 volume Beethoven Edition will be released first. The Beethoven Edition includes the 32 Piano Sonatas, Five Piano Concertos, Choral Fantasia, and Liszt’s transcriptions of the Nine Symphonies. The Sonatas and Piano Concertos (with the Bikent Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit) are new recordings. The Liszt transcriptions were originally issued by EMI in 1986.

Starting in February 2009, remaining recordings in the Beethoven Edition will be released on a monthly basis. Biret is the only pianist to have performed all of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, Concertos and Liszt transcriptions of the Nine Symphonies in public concerts. She is now the first pianist to have recorded them all. A DVD film, “The Making of the Beethoven Recordings” will also be available shortly.

Major Concertos Newly Recorded
For future release, Biret has also recorded new versions of concertos by Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Grieg and Schumann. In addition to the newly recorded CDs, the legendary and long unavailable recordings Biret made for Atlantic/Finnadar in the 1970s will be released.

Awards and Publications
In 2006, “Idil Biret, A Turkish Pianist in France,” a book about Biret’s life and musical philosophy, was published by the French publisher Buchet-Chastel. Turkish and German language versions of the book are now available. English, Polish, Russian and Greek translations will be available shortly. In 2007, Biret was awarded the Distinguished Service Order – Cavalry Cross by the Polish President for her service to Polish culture through her Chopin recordings. Biret is now preparing a new edition of Chopin’s piano music for the New York publisher IMC.

On November 18, Opus Arte releases the world-premiere DVD of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s latest opera, The Minotaur, recorded live at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on April 25 and 30 and May 30, 2008. Also included is a bonus documentary film, Myth is Universal.

This gripping new work by Birtwistle and librettist David Harsent brings the monstrous creature from Greek mythology to the operatic stage. The Minotaur, part man, part beast, trapped in his labyrinth and constrained by his bloodthirsty existence, longs to discover his true identity and his own voice. Athens must pay a blood sacrifice to Crete, and among the innocents is Theseus, who has come to challenge the violent Minotaur. He attracts the attention of Ariadne, half-sister and keeper of the monster, and it is with her help that he succeeds.

Winner of the Grawemeyer Award for his opera The Mask of Orpheus, Birtwistle’s inspiration for The Minotaur goes back over two decades; he felt that “the mythic beast was lurking” in his orchestral work Earth Dances (1985). David Harsent, who had provided the libretto for Birtwistle’s 1990-91 opera Gawain, was charged with the task of “[finding] a language for the characters.” The Minotaur received its premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in April 2008.

Born in 1934, British composer Harrison Birtwistle studied clarinet and composition at the Royal Manchester College of Music. His 1968 opera Punch and Judy, together with his Verses for Ensembles and The Triumph of Time, firmly established him as a leading voice in British music. Among Birtwistle’s many works are Exody, premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim, Panic, and The Shadow of Night, commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra and Christoph von Dohnányi. His work The Last Supper received its first performances at the Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin and at Glyndebourne in 2000. Pulse Shadows, a meditation for soprano, string quartet, and chamber ensemble on poetry by Paul Celan, was released on disc by Teldec and won the 2002 Gramophone Award for best contemporary recording. Birtwistle has received many awards and honors, including the Grawemeyer Award (1986), the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (1986), a British knighthood (1988), the Siemens Prize (1995), and a British Companion of Honour (2001). He is currently Director of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

On November 18, just in time for the holiday season, Opus Arte presents the 2007 San Francisco Ballet production of Tchaikovsky’s beloved holiday favorite, Nutcracker. Recorded live at the War Memorial Opera House on December 19 and 20, 2007, the production features choreography by SF Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson, scenic design by Tony Award-winner Michael Yeargan, costume design by Tony Award-winner Martin Pakledinaz, lighting design by James F. Ingalls, and projections by Wendall K. Harrington. PBS stations across the country will air this production on December 17 on “Great Performances”.

This visually-stunning all-new production of Nutcracker is set in early-20th-century San Francisco and includes more than 200 colorful characters, larger-than-life scenery, and magical surprises that will mesmerize and delight adults and children alike. Each breath-taking scene from the Waltz of the Flowers to the Snowflake Waltz is a reminder that this adored ballet offers a nostalgic musical journey while transcending all generations. Bonus features include an illustrated synopsis and cast gallery, interviews with Tomasson, Yeargan and Pakledinaz and a documentary on the 1915 World’s Fair.

As America’s oldest professional ballet company, San Francisco Ballet has enjoyed a long and rich tradition of artistic “firsts” since its founding in 1933, including performing the first American productions of Swan Lake and Nutcracker, as well as the first 20th-century American Coppélia. San Francisco Ballet is one of the three largest ballet companies in the United States. Guided in its early years by American dance pioneers and brothers Lew, Willam and Harold Christensen, San Francisco Ballet currently presents more than 100 performances annually, both locally and internationally. Under the direction of Helgi Tomasson for more than two decades, the Company has achieved an international reputation as one of the preeminent ballet companies in the world. In 2005, San Francisco Ballet won the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award, its first, in the category of “Outstanding Achievement in Dance,” for its 2004 London tour. In 2006, San Francisco Ballet was the first non-European company elected “Company of the Year” in Dance Europe magazine’s annual readers’ poll. This year, San Francisco Ballet celebrates its 75th anniversary.

469 titles from Nettwerk’s catalog, featuring artists such as Sarah McLachlan,
Barenaked Ladies, and Sixpence None the Richer will be available on Naxos Music Library.

NEW YORK/LONDON/HONG KONG: On November 13, 2008, Naxos Music Library (www.naxosmusiclibrary.com), the world’s largest collection of streaming classical, jazz, wind band, choral, and world music- owned by the world’s leading classical label-welcomes Canada’s top independent record label, Nettwerk Music Group (www.nettwerk.com) , to its roster of more than 75 premiere performing arts labels, thereby expanding its offerings to include more independent popular music.

Nettwerk Music Group’s extensive catalog features artists such as Barenaked Ladies, Datarock, Delerium, Griffin House, Jars of Clay, Josh Rouse, Junkie XL, Ladytron, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Submarines, Sixpence None The Richer, The Weepies, and many others.

Nettwerk’s Founder and CEO Terry McBride has commented:”Naxos is at the forefront of a new way of thinking that allows the consumer the choice they want.” Klaus Heymann, Naxos’ founder and CEO, said “All of us at Naxos are proud to welcome Nettwerk Music Group to the Naxos Music Library roster of labels. Over the past two decades, Nettwerk Music Group has shown itself to be one of the most diverse, trendsetting, and forward-looking labels in the industry, often going against the grain to stay a few steps ahead of the rest. It is that same innovative, entrepreneurial spirit and vision (of Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride) that drives Naxos, and so we are extremely happy to be working together with such a world-renowned label.”

Founded in 1984 by Terry McBride, Nettwerk Music Group is Canada’s leading privately-owned record label and artistic management company, responsible for managing some of Canada’s biggest artists, including Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, and Barenaked Ladies. In 2000, Nettwerk Management expanded its roster to include producers, mixers, and DJs, and now boasts a roster of 40+ world-renowned professionals, including Howard Benson (POD), Cliff Magnus (Avril Lavigne), Randy Staub (Nickelback, Metallica) and Mark Trombino (Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World). Since its inception, Nettwerk Productions has been responsible for 400+ releases that have amassed worldwide sales in excess of 100 million albums. With multiple #1 albums and singles throughout the world, Nettwerk has grown from a small Vancouver record label into an international musical powerhouse, with offices in cities around the world, including New York, Los Angeles, and London, and a headquarters next to Granville Island in Vancouver, B.C.

About Naxos Music Library:
Created by pioneers of the value-priced CD industry-the independent classical music label Naxos and its Chairman Klaus Heymann-Naxos Music Library is a streaming audio music education resource that features recordings from 75+ prestigious independent performing arts labels, including Avie Records, BIS, Bridge, Chandos, Delos, Dacapo, Haenssler Classics, Hungaroton, New Albion, Opera Rara, PentaTone, Phoenix Edition, V2, Wigmore Hall Live, and others. Naxos Music Library launched in 2004 with only a handful of titles and labels, but it quickly grew under the Naxos philosophy.

With over 345,000 tracks of music, powerful tools to stimulate music education and research, the daily addition of new releases, and remote access, Naxos Music Library continues to set the industry standard in streaming classical music education.

About Naxos:
Naxos has focused on maintaining its value- and customer-focused philosophy since Klaus Heymann founded it in 1987. It is the world’s leading classical music label, garnering awards from major music publications like Gramophone, numerous Editor’s Choice awards, GRAMMY™ nominations and awards, nominations and wins from the Cannes Classical Awards, and AFIM nominations and awards. Naxos offers music lovers a veritable encyclopedia of music at an affordable price. With offices in 12 countries, the company’s properties include www.Naxos.com, www.classicsonline.com, www.NaxosMusicLibrary.com, www.NaxosRadio.com, and www.NaxosSpokenWordLibrary.com.

On November 18, Naxos releases Gian Carlo Menotti’s beloved 1951 Christmas classic Amahl and the Night Visitors, paired with My Christmas (1987), a short choral work with a libretto by the composer (Naxos 8669019). This recording features the Nashville Symphony, led by Alastair Willis; members of the Nashville Symphony and Chicago Symphony choruses, led by directors George Mabry and Duain Wolfe; and soloists Ike Hawkersmith (Amahl), Kirsten Gunlogson (Mother), Dean Anthony (King Kaspar), Todd Thomas (King Melchior), Kevin Short (King Balthazar), and Bart LeFan (Page to the Kings). This recording marks the third in two months featuring the Nashville Symphony; the other releases are Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (Naxos 8570716) and John Corigliano’s A Dylan Thomas Trilogy (Naxos 8559394).Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera written for television, enjoys over 500 performances annually around the world and is immensely popular with amateur groups. A disabled boy, Amahl, and his mother encounter the three Kings who seek the newborn Jesus. After deciding to give his crutch to the Christ Child, Amahl is miraculously healed, and he joyfully accompanies the Magi to Bethlehem to give thanks. Sung in English, the opera is a humorous and poignant Christmas classic, beloved by audiences of all ages.

No post-war opera has enjoyed exposure comparable to Amahl and the Night Visitors, commissioned by NBC and first televised on Christmas Eve in 1951. Although it was subsequently staged at Bloomington in February 1952, conducted by Thomas Schippers, with whom Menotti enjoyed a long working relationship, the opera’s television potential has been explored in a number of subsequent presentations. Between 1951 and 1966, it was shown each year on NBC on or around Christmas Eve. In 1963, it was remade by NBC with an all-new cast, a production shown for the next three years. Then, in 1978, NBC filmed another new production, partly on location in the Holy Land. Meanwhile, the BBC commissioned two versions of its own, the first broadcast in December 1955, with the second following four years later. Menotti himself directed another filmed version as late as 1996. All of these productions attest to the appeal that Menotti’s unassuming stage work has exerted over audiences for almost six decades.