JOEL BRAUN is Associate Professor of Double Bass at the University of Texas at Austin. As an orchestral musician he has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and the New York City Ballet Orchestra. He participated in over a dozen national and international tours with the New York Philharmonic, including the Philharmonic’s historic trip to North Korea in 2008 under the direction of Lorin Maazel. He has performed under such eminent conductors as Kurt Masur, Jaap van Zweden, Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Muti, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Zubin Mehta, Paavo Järvi, and Alan Gilbert, among many others. He is a former member of the Ft. Wayne Philharmonic and currently serves as Assistant Principal Bass of the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra under the direction of Gerard Schwarz.

On this release, he performs a program of works by Lera Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Caleb Burhans, and Olga Magidenko, alongside an original work.

Stevens manages to blend the often dominating clarinet with subtle warmth and colour with the strings, giving the Clarinet Quintet a distinctive character of its own. An important strand in Stevens’ compositional output since 2007 has been writing music for relatively neglected instruments such as the tuba, the piccolo and the bassoon, and this strand was strengthened in the autumn of 2015 when he wrote a collection of six pieces for double bass and piano, to which Chasing Shadows and Obsession belong.

The Fantasy Trio (2009) is a relatively rare instance of a substantial chamber work combining the classical guitar with mainstream orchestral instruments. The Romantic Fantasy for flute (doubling piccolo), B flat clarinet, string quartet and harp (2010), is written for the same forces as Ravel’s ground-breaking Introduction and Allegro. The Romantic Fantasy is an ambitious work in one movement, an unbroken span of twenty three minutes’ music. British composer Robin Stevens (b. 1958) is a great talent who is being discovered by the global music community, due in part to the critical acclaim given to the 3 previous Divine Art albums of his music. His varied, stimulating and expressive work arises from many influences – from the music of the Romantic era, to mathematics, his faith and inspiration of his teachers, and he is now producing substantial works for varied instrumental groupings, which are modernist and original, but yet immediately accessible.

All four compositions of Ørenslyd are developed from an exploration of acoustic and vocal sound formation and the active participation of our listening ability in this formation. The four pieces represent different manifestations of the tonal expression of the human voice and the acoustic richness of the double bass. Ørenslyd (from “øre”, ear, and “lyd”, sound) means “the opportunity to hear something being said or to be heard yourself”.

It is definitely stimulating and challenging for an arranger to create unity between a folk trio and a chamber orchestra; let alone between different styles of music and instrumental playing. The Nordic Symphonic project; with its meeting of the Nordic trio and a classical orchestra; is a great example of the kind of musical cross-fertilisation one can only dream of. In this collaboration Nordic’s intricate swing-based style is set against the broader sound palette of the orchestra: the trio sets off on a whirlwind adventure; with sounds from across the whole planet; and the orchestra follows along.

Olcay Bayir gives voice to the hardships of the valiant people of Anatolia, who, despite innumerable injustices, continue to preserve their language, culture, and customs. "Tu Gulî," a collection of Kurdish Alevi soul-infused songs, honors her multicultural and multilingual background. While blending her own personal memoirs with London's modern cosmopolitan sounds, she also pays tribute to the strong, devoted women of her Anatolian geography, including her own grandmothers and her mother.

Inspired by Franz Schubert's late lieder compositions and works by Johannes Brahms, among others, in which voice and piano are enhanced by another melody instrument, we have taken a completely new approach to our lieder recital repertoire. The result can now be heard on this CD: Songs of the Romantic period, freshly arranged for soprano, violoncello and piano.
In art songs, as in chamber music in general, there are often concealed lines within the piano movements which gain greatly in expression through the accompaniment of a solo instrument. For this reason, we feel that our combination of voice, piano and melody instrument is particularly effective and has an enriching effect on the listening experience of the art songs presented here. The contrasting registers of soprano and cello complement both the music and the substance of the text from different angles, the timbre of the cello being ideal for the hues and shades of these songs as its solo role augments these delicate arrangements. The work"Auf dem Strom" by Franz Schubert - also on this CD - is one of the best-known original compositions of this genre.

Three Vienna-born composers and four elective Viennese performers come together in four challenging and deeply layered compositions that span 120 years of Viennese musical history. The significance and impact of the works, however, radiate far beyond Vienna itself. At the same time, the live recording also reflects a moment in contemporary history, as the concert, originally planned to take place before a live audience, eventually took place on 17 May, 2021 solely as a streaming event at Vienna's Arnold Schoenberg Center, due to the restrictions enforced by the COVID 19 pandemic. The title of this recording, Viennese Transfigurations, is ambiguous. Three pieces are arrangements of earlier compositions for a quartet with the rather unusual line-up of violin, piano, clarinet and double bass, while the other was written for a trio of clarinet, violin and piano. Two arrangements are by the composers themselves, and two are by violinist Maxim Brilinsky. Each of the works has the facility to arouse the curiosity of the listeners right from the beginning, and all end softly.