This new recording brings together violinist Gil Shaham, conductor Eric Jacobsen, and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in a program exploring the violin concerto as a vehicle for cultural memory and continuity. The album pairs Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 80, and Antonin Dvorak's Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53, with the world-premiere recording of "F. Harper," from The Famous People by Curtis Stewart. Coleridge-Taylor's concerto reveals a Romantic voice shaped by lyricism and rhythmic vitality, while Dvorak's work reflects folk influence and communal musical expression. Stewart's F. Harper responds through a contemporary lens, engaging questions of naming, lineage, and identity. Inspired by the layered meanings of "Slavonic," the work draws parallels between European histories of enslavement and the ways Black Americans continue to shape pride and cultural legacy today. Together, these works connect past and present through sound.
Performing three concertos written specifically for him, renowned violinist Gil Shaham is joined by acclaimed conductor Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now (TON), Bard College's graduate orchestral masters. Scott Wheeler's "Birds of America" (Violin Concerto No.2) was premiered by Shaham, Botstein, and TON at the Fisher Center at Bard and Carnegie Hall in 2021. The birds making appearances in the concerto include a hawk, a whippoorwill, loons, a mourning dove, and a downy woodpecker. Winner of the 2018 Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music, Avner Dorman's "Nigunim" (Violin Concerto No.2) was originally commissioned as Sonata No.3 for violin and piano by New York's 92nd Street Y, Gil, and his sister, pianist Orli Shaham. Gil premiered the orchestrated version that appears on this album with CityMusic Cleveland, conducted by Dorman, in 2014. The main melodic gestures of the piece are drawn from common elements found in Jewish music from around the world. Chinese-American composer Bright Sheng's violin concerto "Let Fly" had it's premiere in 2013 with Shaham and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, led by legendary conductor Leonard Slatkin. The title of the work was inspired by an aural image of the violin melody flying off into the air.
In this release, Orli Shaham comes to the end of her monumental survey of Mozart's complete Piano Sonatas. With this achievement, the pianist puts a double bar line on an exhilarating journey through music she has known most of her life. Shaham's affinity for Mozart is evident in each sonata, to which she applies tonal beauty, technical fluency, textural lucidity, and interpretive flair. Revered as a "thrillingly expressive" interpreter of Mozart's works, Orli Shaham brings "technical virtuosity and deftness" to performances that "connect directly with an audience".
Orli Shaham continues her survey of Mozart's complete Piano Sonatas in this, the fourth of a six-volume set. Shaham is revered as a "thrillingly expressive" interpreter of Mozart's works, bringing "technical virtuosity and deftness" to performances that "connect directly with an audience". Of the project as a whole, Orli Shaham says: "It has been eye-opening to look at the totality of [Mozart's] output across these sonatas. Of course, I knew them and had heard them so many times. But I had only ever thought about them in isolation, one sonata at a time, or about the small groups of three or four works written in close succession. When you become open to all eighteen sonatas as one body of work, you discover that the breadth of ideas, types of sounds, and depth of expression they contain are quite mind-boggling." The artistic genius in Mozart is that he leaves the performer to capture the mood in the music, and this Orli Shaham does with aplomb, the studio environment for this recording encouraging her to experiment and "go all out" with ornamentation, adding or subtracting trills and grace notes with successive takes.
Memory is at the forefront of this program, which pairs Steven Mackey's moving, evocative violin concerto, Beautiful Passing, with Mnemosyne's Pool, his expansive symphonic saga, to explore the different ways in which we engage with that most human of experiences. These performances capture the enduring relationship between David Robertson and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, in a stunning rendering of works by a composer Robertson has long championed. Anthony Marwood brings a performance that is lyrical, touching and thrilling in equal measure.
This is the second installment in Orli Shaham's complete Mozart sonatas cycle and follows her recording of the Mozart Violin Sonatas with brother, violinist Gil Shaham, and her acclaimed release of Mozart Piano Concertos, conducted by David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony. Mozart's singing line and it's translation to the piano has served as Orli Shaham's constant guide in her interpretations of Mozart. The artistic genius in Mozart is that he leaves the performer to capture the mood in the music, and this Orli Shaham does with aplomb, the studio environment for this recording encouraging her to experiment with ornamentation, adding or subtracting trills and grace notes with successive takes. Recording in her favorite recording venue, Mechanics Hall, she fully explores the pathos and cultivates the humor in Mozart's B-flat sonatas. In her own words, "he had such insight into what it means to be human and had to get that out in his music. Mozart was superhuman in what he was able to do... but that never comes across in music that is so human. Mozart's three B-flat sonatas are so varied and different in their inventive brilliance. Each has a truly individual and distinct voice, yet together they stand on a timeline that clearly maps Mozart's development from his late teens to full maturity."
This first volume of a complete Mozart Piano Sonata series from pianist Orli Shaham is dedicated to the three B-flat Major sonatas. Shaham embarked upon this project in August 2019. It follows her widely acclaimed release of Mozart Concertos with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. She combines musical and artistic insight with a deft technical virtuosity revealing an individual and sensitive musical offering. Recorded at Mechanics Hall in Massachusetts, these sonatas revel in the elegance of the Hall's acoustic. Since lockdown in March, Shaham has been releasing movements and performances from her Mozart recording sessions on her "MidWeek Mozart" to help restore souls in the current climate of the pandemic.
A disc devoted to two very different, much-honored American composers Pianist Orli Shaham has an established and impressive international reputation and is admired for her interpretations of both standard and modern repertoire. Internationally renowned conductor David Robertson and 1984 Gold Medalist, Leeds Piano Competition, Jon Kimura Parker join Ms. Shaham for this recording. Includes two world premiere recordings!
Recognized for her grace, subtlety and vitality, Orli Shaham has established an impressive international reputation as one of today's most gifted pianists. Hailed by critics on four continents, Ms. Shaham is in demand for her prodigious skills and admired for her interpretations of both standard and modern repertoire. The Chicago Tribune recently referred to her as "a first-rate Mozartean" in a performance with the Chicago Symphony, London's Guardian said Ms. Shaham's playing at the Proms was "perfection" and The Winnipeg Free Press declared Ms. Shaham's piano skills "almost too good to be true." Ms. Shaham's new CD, Brahms Inspired, includes music by Brahms, music that inspired Brahms and music inspired by Brahms. Alongside familiar works by Bach, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Schoenberg are new works by Brett Dean, Avner Dorman, and Bruce Adolphe. "Like works of art grouped in the same room by the museum's curator, I find the works on this album speak to and illuminate each other." (Orli Shaham)
