These works were commissioned by the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart to write works to mark Bach Year 2000. Osvaldo Golijov´s Pasión Según San Marcos is the work of one who moves back and forth between different worlds and can scarcely be pigeonholed as representing a specific culture. His work unites the music of South America, Cuba, the West and Jewish tradition to produce an unconventional conception of a “Passion“ in which Jesus is not a light skinned European, but instead a person of color. Sofia Gubaidulina's response was a St John Passion, and subsequently she added a sequel, St John Easter, which was premiered in Hamburg in March 2002. Both those works originally had Russian words, drawn mostly from St John's gospel and the Book of Revelation, but in 2006, prompted by conductor Helmuth Rilling, Gubaidulina collaborated on a German translation of the text, while also making revisions to the score itself.

Orbit, a three-disc compilation of music for solo cello, all composed between 1945 and 2014 and performed by world-renowned cellist Matt Haimovitz, is the second release in the PENTATONE OXINGALE SERIES. In this series PENTATONE joins forces with Grammy Award-winning OXINGALE RECORDS, a trailblazing artist’s label since 2000 which is equally committed to revelatory interpretations of the canonic repertoire as to riveting performances of works by recent and living composers.

The album documents Matt Haimovitz’s musical journey since the turn of the millennium, together with his partner in life and music, composer Luna Pearl Woolf. It contains nearly all of the solo contemporary works that were initially released on Oxingale Records as five thematic albums - Anthem (2003), Goulash! (2005), After Reading Shakespeare (2007), Figment (2009) and Matteo (2011), as well as two newly recorded tracks: Philip Glass’s “Orbit” and a new arrangement by Luna Pearl Woolf of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter”. More than twenty composers are represented in this set, fifteen of them still living, and ten works are recorded for the very first time.

This impressive solo cello odyssey offers the listener a fascinating kaleidoscope of musical influences from the past sixty years, encountering a variety of composers who range in musical style from vanguards Elliott Carter and Philip Glass to young, rock ‘n roll-influenced American composers, to the Italian avant-garde of Luciano Berio and Salvatore Sciarrino: a true 20th century Tower of Babel.

The Avalon String Quartet, “a remarkably fine ensemble” (The Strad), makes its Cedille Records debut with an irresistible and richly varied program of captivating works by Claude Debussy, Benjamin Britten, Osvaldo Golijov, and rising American composer Stacy Garrop. The ensemble presents the world-premiere recording of Garrop’s String Quartet No. 4: Illuminations, a tantalizing, Pictures at an Exhibition-style tour of spectacular illustrations from an ornate medieval manuscript. Debussy’s lush, exotic String Quartet in G minor unfolds through iridescent quasi-orchestral textures. Golijov’s lyrical, deeply moving Tenebrae (Latin for “shadows”), written for the Kronos Quartet, pays tender tribute to the earth, depicted in its remote celestial beauty, haunted by undertones of human discord. Britten’s youthful, energetic Three Divertimenti and Alla Marcia are alluring, rarely recorded studies in inventiveness and perpetual motion.

The Avalon is quartet-in-residence at the Northern Illinois University School of Music. “…an ensemble that invites you — ears, mind, and spirit — into its music.” (Chicago Tribune)

REVIEW:

The folks at Cedille seem to have mastered the art of putting together classical music collections that make good musical sense. Debussy’s String Quartet is, of course, standard fare, and it usually appears in tandem with the Ravel and something else French. Not here. Instead, we have two Britten rarities, the entertaining Three Divertimenti and the lone Alla Marcia (the first of the Divertimenti is also a march, so you can see the logic), a self-described “Pictures at an Exhibition” type piece by Stacy Garrop, and a moving conclusion in the form of Osvaldo Golijov’s single-movement Tenebrae. The entire program provides consistently interesting and entertaining continuous listening, and the sonics are drop-dead gorgeous.

So, for that matter, is the playing of the Avalon String Quartet. The group’s corporate sonority is warm and mellow, but with just a touch of “rosin” in the tone. They attack rhythmic moments such as the scherzo of the Debussy, the Burlesque and the marches in the Britten pieces, and Garrop’s musically impossibly named “Mouth of Hell” with plenty of guts and precision, but no unpleasant hardness in the tone. The slow music is simply luminous. I am not generally a fan of pseudo-religious programmatic stuff such as Garrop offers here, but it’s awfully well done, and the booklet provides well-produced, full-color reproductions of the illustrations from the late medieval Book of Hours that Garrop took as her inspiration. They are exquisite, as is much of Garrop’s writing more generally.

Here, in short, is another excellent program that chamber music fans looking to venture off the beaten path will surely relish.

- ClassicsToday.com (10/10)

This selection was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for "Best Choral Performance."
This selection was nominated for the 2002 Latin Grammy Award for "Best
Classical Album."

Stunning contemporary music from the French-Canadian violinist – a ClassicFM Album of the Week

After a fight against cancer, the French-Canadian violinist Angèle Dubeau has produced an album of beautiful contemporary pieces that are linked by their common evocation of light and peace - all works that she says have personally helped her through her illness.

The album consists of 14 pieces from 12 different composers including international movie maestros - Ennio Morricone, Joe Hisaishi and Ryuichi Sakamato - and such varied genres as jazz and folk, as exemplified by the music of Dave Brubeck and Cat Stevens.

Angèle Dubeau is a sensational violinist and the selection here is serene and heartfelt. She is ably accompanied by her all-female string ensemble La Pietà, who turn "Morning Has Broken" into a rolling, pastoral rhapsody.

– classicfm.com

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"Blanc like purity, serenity. Blanc for light music which, by their size and their evocative power, can bring inner peace. Of emotions on skin that reflect this strange loneliness qu'amène disease. After months of struggle against cancer, music has help me stay on track, music brought me comfort, tranquility and often Escape necessary. These songs, which are those of Brubeck, Dompierre, Golijov, Hisaishi, Morricone, Mozetich, Munsey, O'Connor, Phillips, Sakamoto, Schyman and Stevens. Musical moments without artifice, true and hopeful. This album tells a story, my story, that of a woman who, like so many others had to fight against the disease, and serenely grown spring." – Angele Dubeau

Includes work(s) by various composers. Soloists: Livia Sohn, Benjamin Loeb.

Cellist Antonio Lysy, winner of the 2010 Latin GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Contemporary composition, joins pianist Bryan Pezzone in performances of colorful works for cello and piano by Argentinian composers.