During the period of lockdown in 2020, tenor recipient of a BBT Fellowship in 2022, Alessandro Fisher and his wife spent many hours in their garden. A heightened awareness of the beauty of nature, the flowers in their garden and the changes to the garden as winter moved to spring, and then to summer formed the basis of this beautifully curated recital. All the songs are about flowers, the language of flowers, and flowers as a tokens of love. Above all, the album is about the way songs of the many composers on this album reference deep human emotions and the role of flowers in these emotions. Where words fail, the language of flowers and nature take over. Nature regenerates, life continues, though for some composers, the short-lived glory of flowers is also an allegory for loss, or indeed the transience of romantic love.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. A singular album from the jazz guitarist - more well-known for his later period funk records - Fisher grooves here with a stripped-down jazz sound and group featuring organ and a second guitarist in Phil Westmoreland. Soul and style prevail, especially on the title track and a transcendent 12-minute take on "The Shadow Of Your Smile".

Julie Giroux has been composing since the age of 8, and has been hard at work ever since. Her first composition for band was published when she was only 13 years old. With over 100 film, television and video game credits, Giroux has collaborated with dozens of film composers, producers, and celebrities. She won an individual Emmy Award in the field of "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction." When she won her first Emmy, she was the first female and the youngest person ever to win that award. On this release, Shine, the University of North Texas Symphonic Band presents some of her most fantastic concert band pieces. The Symphonic Band at UNT has developed an exemplary national reputation for both their performances and recordings. Membership is drawn from the finest musicians attending the College of Music. The highest quality traditional, mixed with contemporary literature make up the foundation of musical repertoire performed by the group.

Born in 1963, John Pickard is best known for a series of powerful orchestral and instrumental works and previous recordings on BIS of his music have received critical acclaim in reviews such as Gramophone (''simply stunning''), American Record Guide (''superb works in wonderful readings'') and BBC Music Magazine (''an absolute triumph''). The present album brings together some of Pickard's most recent orchestral compositions, in performances by two of his long-time collaborators: the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Martyn Brabbins. The opening work is Symphony no. 5, which was composed in 2014 with these performers in mind. Lasting some thirty minutes, the symphony is in a single continuous movement. It requires no less than three timpanists who are placed at the back of the orchestra to the right, left and centre, leading to some dramatic antiphonal exchanges. The symphony is followed by Sixteen Sunrises, the result of the composer's wish to compose a piece ''filled with light''. The title of the piece refers to the number of sunrises that can be observed during a twenty-four-hour period from the International Space Station, as it orbits the earth. Musical depictions of sunrises are normally gradual processes, but viewed from the ISS, a sunrise occurs in a matter of seconds, and it is the idea of suddenly shifting from darkness to light that formed the basis of the shape of Pickard's piece.

Inspired by diaries, letters, and personal accounts from the 1860s, Rappahannock County is a music-theatre work which movingly and dramatically commemorates the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. The location of the Rappahannock River as a border between north and south is a metaphor for the region's many conflicts. Performed by a cast of five singers who play over 30 rôles, the piece brings this dramatic historical period to life in songs which express the devastating impact of the Civil War on all of the people who endured it.

The Passion of St. Thomas More is a chamber opera scored for three singers and four players (on English horn, guitar, Indian harmonium, and percussion). The plot, familiar to many from A Man For All Seasons, concerns Thomas More's refusal to countenance Henry VIII's divorce of Catherine of Aragon and sign a statement of support for the king's subsequent schism with Rome, for which "crime" he was beheaded. American composer Garrett Fischer (b. 1970) focuses on the moment of decision itself and its effect on three principal characters: More (who must follow his conscience knowing the penalty for refusal to renew his loyalty to the king); his daughter Margaret (who must come to accept her father's choice); and King Henry (forced to understand that his power to compel obedience is not absolute and that More has vanquished him spiritually). These singers also take on additional roles as "dark angels", figures that elucidate the spiritual consequences and implications of the decisions that the human characters make. There's also a role for a dancer, and a prelude and postlude consisting of a lovely traditional Norwegian poem that sets the stage by recalling the "old voices" of legendary times.


Fisher's work, haunting in its simplicity, consists largely of chant-like, at times highly ornamental vocal lines (think of Hildegard of Bingen with some occasional counterpoint added and delicate instrumental accompaniments), and might superficially call to mind the music of composers such as John Tavener, save for the fact that Fisher writes music whereas Tavener patently does not. There are no screaming countertenors, pseudo-apocalyptic visions, crude tonal analogs, or obscure, autobiographically motivated sectarian philosophies forced on listeners here.


Indeed, Fisher's laudable objective clearly has been to universalize the story through a ritualistic stylization that treats the music in the most traditional way possible: not as "representation" of some abstract concept or event, but as a means of elevating the expressive impact of the text. The libretto itself, by the composer, is as simple, eloquent, and direct as his setting of it, and finds room not only for its Norwegian prelude and postlude but also for a little Latin prayer and a touch of the poetry of William Carlos Williams (among other interesting things).


The result, while admittedly (and intentionally) slow moving and largely contemplative, is an extremely touching morality play about the consequences of choice, the need to be true to one's self and follow one's own conscience, and the struggle between temporal and spiritual values. The work stands pretty squarely in the tradition of Benjamin Britten's Church Parables, and above all Holst's Savitri. Even the choice of a soprano voice for the role of Thomas More has dual validity, first as a reinterpretation of an ancient tradition of male characters playing women (as in Japanese "Noh" plays or Britten's own Curlew River), and second in order to establish the musical opposition of More and his daughter on the one hand (both sopranos) and Henry VIII (a baritone) on the other.


This beautifully recorded performance features the composer on Indian harmonium, an amazingly expressive and creamy-toned Taina Karr on English horn (no quacking or honking here!), two more excellent players, and three absolutely superb singers--none really better than the others. They present the music with tremendous concentration and also wring a surprising amount of variety from Fisher's deliberately limited resources. Perhaps the most appealing thing about The Passion of St. Thomas More is the way it gently touches on spiritual matters without ever becoming preachy or pretentious, telling a human story with words and music that truly work well together. It succeeds most of all because Fisher never, ever, falls prey to the temptation to subordinate musical values for the sake of irrelevant, unmusical, philosophical point making, and that's a remarkable achievement all by itself.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com