In my long orchestral career, the times that I find myself playing chamber music with string instruments, especially by living composers, are the times that I feel most like myself. The works gathered here quite literally span my entire career. I have worked closely, over many years, with each composer involved in this project and I am grateful to them all. I am grateful as well to my instrumental colleagues. The process of performing and recording these works with such truly distinguished string players has been a sustaining privilege. Many different compositional styles are at play here, yet the works all have an important unifying element to me, that of feeling entirely native to the instrument. I am honored to have helped bring these chamber pieces for English horn and strings into the world, to have been a part of each composers’ gravitational pull.
- Robert Walters

As a second generation Korean-American woman, violinist Dawn Wohn notes that it has not always been easy to relate to the world of classical music, which is still largely Euro- and male-centric. Since delving into the diverse world of female composers, I have felt much joy, connection, and ownership to the music that I perform. To be able to champion this repertoire feels unbounded— joyful and limitless. I am particularly excited to share this album, which celebrates the music of American women, as performed by two American women.

There is no denying that historically, female composers have faced challenges. Amy Beach was unable to take composition lessons or have a performing career for most of her life, as it was deemed improper for a married woman. The two Black composers on this album, Dorothy Rudd Moore and Irene Britton Smith, faced further struggles for widespread recognition during their lifetimes, due to the classical world’s long reluctance to admit works by minority composers into the performing canon.

In an ideal world, there would be no need to call attention to the race or gender of these composers. In doing so, my concern is that the composers or their works will be overshadowed or grouped together by those labels. Just as Moore cautioned against typecasting, stating that “there are many Black artists in all disciplines and each is an individual with his or her unique experiences,” it is important to listen to and recognize each composer as an individual.

However, an all-male composer program would not raise questions on how to present it without diminishing the music or pigeon- holing the music or the composers. So, with this album, I choose to amplify and celebrate music by these four composers and all they have created through adversity. I relate deeply to the optimism, humor and beauty in these works, and hope that it inspires the listener.

REVIEW:

The two artists play with passion and elegantly the music of four composers defined not by gender or ethnicity but by the kind of tenacity that helped them achieve the often seemingly unreachable acceptance of the music establishment. Highly recommended!

-- All About the Arts (Rafael de Acha)

Learn more about this release on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

Duo Duel, a concerto for 2 percussion and orchestra, is dedicated to the two percussionists who inspired it, Svet Stoyanov and Matthew Strauss. The work is in one continuous movement, but the pacing of the individual sections is: slow, fast, slow, fast-cadenza (one of the fastest cadenzas ever written for percussionists), fast (with dueling timpani).

The soloists sometimes play together, and sometimes they “duel” their way through the music. There is some seriously high-speed playing in this concerto, so don’t blink – you might miss something!

The Concerto for Orchestra is truly a concerto in that it requires virtuosity from the principal players, the individual sections and the entire orchestra. The first movement was the last to be composed. It took writing the other four movements to create a clear picture of what was needed to start this virtuosic tour-de-force. The second movement was written next, inspired by the string sound of The Philadelphia Orchestra. The third movement was written first, and it is this movement that allows each principal player a solo, before moving into section solos. The fourth movement is a tribute to rhythm, and the percussion section of the orchestra. The fifth movement, which begins with the entrance of the violins, highlights the entire orchestra.

SOMM RECORDINGS announces the eagerly anticipated Volume 3 of Treasures from the New World throwing revealing new light on music from the Americas. Pianist Clélia Iruzun returns, accompanied by feted guitarist and Royal Academy of Music Professor Fabio Zanon (who provides informative booklet notes) and celebrated flautist Marcelo Barboza, both making their label debuts. Works by six Brazilian composers for permutations of guitar, flute and piano are featured, three of which – by Marlos Nobre, Ronaldo Miranda and João Luiz – are First Recordings. Also included is American composer Jennifer Higdon, whose questing flute and piano duet, Legacy, is a rhetorical meditation on suffering and loss.

Composed for Iruzun in 2011, Nobre’s Desafio No.37 pits guitar and piano against each other echoing Brazil’s jousting troubadour tradition; Miranda’s single-movement Alumbramentos for flute and piano fuses the traditional and the new; Luiz’s Três na Pipa an animated depiction of three duelling kites; Paulo Porto Alegre’s Choro Suite for guitar and flute blending dance forms with improvisatory-like brilliance. Radamés Gnattali’s Sonatina No.2 is a charming guitar and piano dialogue, Roberto Sierra’s Crónicas del Descubrimiento (Chronicles of Discovery) a major addition to the flute and guitar repertoire. Volume 1 of Treasures from the New World (SOMMCD 0609), saw International Piano praise Iruzun as “a sterling advocate with impeccable phrasing, tone and timing”, Fanfare hailing it “a first-class release”. BBC Music Magazine lauded Volume 2 (SOMMCD 0632) “a delightful programme… every bit as vibrant as the previous volume”. Clélia Iruzun’s SOMM recordings include two volumes of music by Federico Mompou (SOMMCD 0121, 0155). Her recording of Piano Concertos by Albeniz & Mignone (SOMMCD 265) was nominated for an International Classical Music Award in 2019. International Piano said: “Clélia comes into her vivid own, playing with a superb mastery and empathy; it is difficult to imagine… greater skill and affection”.

Apollo Chamber Players’ sixth commercial album, MoonStrike, is a universal celebration of storytelling, space and folk song, realized through new works by Jennifer Higdon, Jerod Tate, and Pierre Jalbert. Higdon’s In the Shadow of the Mountain (2020) is inspired by her upbringing in the Great Smoky Mountains and incorporates the sounds and colors of the area. Next is the title work, Emmy-winning Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s multidisciplinary MoonStrike (2019), which honors the Apollo space program through American Indian moon legends as narrated by astronaut John Herrington, the first Native American to fly in space. French-Canadian composer Pierre Jalbert’s L’esprit du Nord (“Spirit of the North”) (2019) is a three-movement work that fuses three of his culture’s folk songs with his unique, contemporary musical language.

Recording an album is always an amazing adventure, this time even more so, and we are very grateful to everyone who made this album possible. But why was it so special? Firstly, because of the choice of program, of little known, exciting works, and secondly due to the fact that this project was overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, there is the special significance that each of these works has attained precisely under the current circumstances. There is no doubt that the chronological sequence of the pieces tells a story documenting the development of musical styles over the course of the century in witness to contemporary events. But today, having experienced this music from the first lockdown through to the present day, the music itself and the sequencing have taken on a very significant relevance for us. From the melancholic, naïve and yet somewhat dreamy sounds of Lili Boulanger through the courage, tenderness and complexity of Grazyna Bacewicz, to Galina Ustvolskaya’s no-man’s land, where the absence of structured time reminds us of aimless days and hours without knowing what might happen the next day. And finally, Jennifer Higdon and her organized chaos that is nevertheless not hopeless, but a little rebellious, emotional, with deep insight into nature that seems to be a light and source of energy for humankind. Louise Chisson and Tamara Atschba.

Celebrating Lysander Piano Trio’s 10th anniversary in 2020, they present their FHR début with a new album featuring première recordings of new American piano trios commissioned or premièred by the ensemble. The works included on this album, with their richness of styles and origins, provide an exciting and optimistic glimpse into music being written for piano trio today. Of particular note is ‘Love Sweet’ written by Grammy Award winning composer Jennifer Higdon and featuring the brilliant soprano Sarah Shafer. The Lysander Piano Trio has been praised by The Strad for its “incredible ensemble, passionate playing, articulate and imaginative ideas and wide palette of colors” and by The Washington Post for “an uncommon degree of heart-on-the-sleeve emotional frankness.

The “King of Instruments,” the pipe organ, has a long and storied history. Its long association with the church has been a source of strength but also, in recent times, led to its seeming neglect by contemporary concert composers. Organon Novus is a monumental effort to bring together this hidden slice of American music. Clocking in at over three hours of music, and running the gamut from Adler to Zorn, it includes 25 works from the past 25 years by 25 celebrated composers – composers not often associated with their organ oeuvre. With 8,565 pipes in 132 ranks available to them, the 1928 E.M. Skinner symphonic organ in Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago is no modest resource for a composer’s imagination (not to mention a player’s active limbs). Randall Harlow, in this marathon tour de force, reaches them all. Compositional approaches range from the sonic tapestries of Thomas and Zorn, to the linear complexity of Adler and Mamlok; from the full-bodied symphonic approaches of Ran and Tower, to the eclectic and unique voices of Lang, Johnson, Lucier and Wolff. The album concludes with the premiere of Aaron Travers’ monumental Barlow Prize work, Exodus. Exploring the extremes of what is possible on the organ, the work offers a way forward for the instrument in contemporary art music, an exit from the common modern associations of the organ with churches and staid liturgical Gebrauchsmusik. Organon, “the device”: the original Greek word for the pipe organ from the third century BCE. Novus, “the new.” From its beginnings as a noise maker to its apotheosis as a contrapuntal keyboard-controlled orchestra, all coupled with the acoustic and architecture of its location, the organ can be many things. This musical snapshot is both a chronicle and a revelation.

Winner of the 2020 GRAMMY Award for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance!

The Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet performs works by three Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary composers: Shulamit Ran, Jennifer Higdon, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Written for the Pacifica and receiving its world-premiere recording, Ran’s Glitter, Doom, Shards, Memory — String Quartet No. 3 is a moving tribute to painter Felix Nussbaum, who perished in Auschwitz in 1944. Higdon’s Voices, dedicated to the Pacifica, evokes explosive energy, otherworldly calm, and spiritual serenity. In Zwilich’s Quintet for Alto Saxophone and String Quartet, a lusciously singing saxophone shares the spotlight with virtuosic string playing. The Pacifica, quartet in-residence at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, partner with their IU colleague, renowned classical saxophonist Otis Murphy.

REVIEW:

This disc exemplifies many aspects of how contemporary music should be presented so it can shine: superb recording standards, expert annotation, and performances of a standard up there with the likes of the Arditti Quartet. This showcase of three Pulitzer-winning composers is utterly remarkable.

– Fanfare

Pulitzer and GRAMMY® Award winner Jennifer Higdon is one of the most performed living American composers, and this program provides a unique opportunity to hear première recordings of her earlier chamber music. The String Trio was written while Higdon was a developing young composer, and the influences of Prokofiev and Copland can be heard in the Sonata for Viola and Piano. The beauty and immensity of the Western US sky was the inspiration for Sky Quartet, while Dark Wood explores the soulful and virtuoso character of the bassoon. Higdon’s “vibrant and individual voice” (Limelight Magazine) can be heard in further chamber works on Naxos 8.559298.