Bootleg is a project from Russ Zokaites showcasing Appalachian inspired music based on fold music or elements of folk music. The six year commissioning project was premiered in February 2020 at Morehead State University, and is his debut recording. The project has received widespread critical praise. "Russ Zokaites shines in this diverse and colorful album made during one of the most trying times in modern history. From chamber music to fully orchestrated concertos, he finds a unique and warm voice that takes you on a musical journey into many different landscapes. I particularly enjoyed the lush interplay of cello, piano, and bass trombone in "Serenity" by Martin Hebel, and the funky looped beats and harmonies of "A Strange Wayfarer" by William Timmons." (John Romero Principal Trombonist Metropolitan Opera Orchestra)

Fuchs’s distinctive voice, flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through.

Kenneth Fuchs is fortunate indeed to have not one but two discs of his music recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. The first, in 2003, was nominated for two Grammys in 2005 and the second, recorded in 2006, should do well too, such is the quality of both the music and music-making. Holding it all together in the orchestral pieces and the mixed quintet is conductor JoAnn Falletta, who made such a strong impression in her recent disc of Respighi (review).

United Artists, the first item on the disc, was written specifically for the LSO as a gesture of thanks for their earlier recording of Fuchs’s works (Naxos 8.559224). At its core is a four-note motif, presented first in the Coplandesque opening fanfare. But this isn’t derivative music; indeed, the composer’s distinctive ‘voice’ is evident from the outset, and his flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through in this atmospheric opener.

Quiet in the land is another of those vast musical landscapes that might provoke comparisons with Copland, yet Fuchs’s evocation of the Midwestern Plains just as the Iraq war was beginning is rather more complex and ambiguous in its sentiments. As the composer writes in the liner notes, ‘I wondered how quiet the spirit of our land might be’.

Even without this programme the opening bars hint at harmony, subtly undermined by vague discord - just listen to that quiet, agitated figure that begins at 1:30, beneath the more lyrical and expansive melody above. It is such lucid, ‘hear-through’ writing, yet it’s full of warmth. The members of the LSO manage to bring out both these aspects of the score, blending precision with feeling. And what a haunting close, too.

The recording venue – St Luke’s in London’s Old Street – is very well captured by the engineers, with no hint of brittleness or edge. The musicians seem ideally placed, too, which is particularly welcome in Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze for brass quintet. Subtitled an ’Idyll ... after two works on paper by Helen Frankenthaler’ the first movement yokes together two eternal opposites – fire (the restless first section) and ice (the more muted second section).

There seems to be an underlying creative tension in some of these pieces, perhaps an attempt to reconcile musical and emotional extremes. For instance, in Summer Bronze the music is strangely mercurial – now lyrical, now dissonant, now both. But it’s that other dichotomy, between outward virtuosity and inner feeling, that these seasoned players – always secure, always poised – convey so well.

Based on a painting by Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm does contain some jazzy snippets, but the emphasis seems to be on sonorities, with long, lyrical melodic lines and, at times, a quirky bass. It is a strangely ‘in-between’ piece; to use the autumn analogy, summer is not quite done, yet winter is on its way. In his notes Fuchs describes how the two states are drawn together and, indeed, how one becomes the other: ‘An unusual aspect of this composition is that in its final section the flute, oboe, and clarinet metamorphose into their lower – perhaps autumnal – counterparts, the alto flute, English horn, and bass clarinet.’ It’s a remarkable sleight of hand, deftly constructed and seamlessly executed.

Canticle of the Sun – a hymn tune based on 13th-century texts by St Francis of Assisi – is built on a four-note motif. Written for the LSO’s principal horn player, Timothy Jones, this 20-minute gem has a radiant, all-embracing optimism that is just irresistible. Indeed, it is not unlike a stained glass window, all those fragments of high colour glowing in the light behind. But at the centre of it all is Jones’s supple and passionate playing, surely as seductive a performance of this piece as we are ever likely to hear.

As with Respighi’s Church Windows, Falletta displays a sense of line and phrase that is most welcome in this music. And while I’ve grumbled about the sound on some Naxos releases I’m prepared to eat humble pie on this one. The engineers have done an exceptional job capturing the sound of the LSO at St Luke’s; what a pleasant change from the dry-as-dust Barbican.

Early days, I know, but this could be one of my discs of 2008.

Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

2019 Grammy Award WInner - Best Classical Compendium


Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers. He celebrates his unique fifteen-year recording history with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra with this stunning release of three new concertos and an orchestral song cycle. Kenneth Fuchs has composed music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. His music has achieved significant global recognition through performances, media exposure, and digital streaming and downloading throughout North and South America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia. The London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, has recorded five discs of Fuchs’s music for Naxos American Classics. The first, released in August 2005, was nominated for two GRAMMY® Awards (“Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra” and “Producer of the Year, Classical”).

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REVIEW:

Now stretching back over the past fifteen years, JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra have been recording the major works of Kenneth Fuchs.

All of the present disc comes from the past six years, the most recent, Poems of Life, completed in 2017. The opening Piano Concerto, in the conventional three movements, was composed at the request of Jeffrey Biegel, who is the soloist on this disc. Often testing his technical virtuosity, the finale calls for prodigious dexterity in the fast flowing finale.

We can admire the London Symphony for the multitude of colours they provide, just as if the play the music regularly, and our gratitude to the conductor, JoAnn Falletta, the composer’s unstinting champion.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

The present release is a truly ravishing program for violin and orchestra! Ukrainian born Solomiya Ivakhiv is an accomplished concert violinist, chamber musician, collaborator, educator, and champion of new music. Concertizing internationally, her wide range of repertoire includes the premiere of numerous new works for violin. Dr. Ivakhiv has performed solo and chamber music at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Italian Academy in New York City, Pickman Hall in Cambridge (MA), San Jose Chamber Music Society, Old First Concerts in San Francisco, Astoria Music Festival (Portland), Tchaikovsky Hall in Kyiv, Concertgebouw Mirror Hall, and at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. A dedicated champion of new music, Dr. Ivakhiv has been privileged to premiere numerous new works for violin by composers Eli Marshall, David Ludwig, John B. Hedges, Bohdan Kryvopust, Yevhen Stankovych, Bruce Adolphe, David Dzubay, Leonid Hrabovsky, and Oleksandr Shchetynsky.

REVIEW:

Kenneth Fuchs' An American Place is a bright, big-hearted, neo-romantic work in the style of John Adams' Harmonielehre. Adams' finale is an unmistakable influence as both works open with motor rhythms chugging along in the strings while woodwinds and high percussion chirp and tingle above as the music builds to a spirit-lifting sunrise. Fuchs pretty much goes his own way from there as the piece travels through a series of engaging episodes--some featuring wonderful brass writing--and closes in a similar atmosphere to its opening. Eventide is a concerto for English horn, harp, percussion, and strings inspired by Negro spirituals such as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Mary Had a Baby", though Fuchs does not quote them directly, at least not in a manner that's easily recognizable. The work is reminiscent of the pastoral mood-music of Vaughan Williams, though the English horn writing occasionally brings to mind jazz saxophonist Kenny G--a tribute perhaps to the free spirited, highly virtuosic playing of soloist Thomas Stacy.

The pleasantries end with Out of the Dark, which is a set of three pieces based on works by expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler. Heart of November begins in thorny string paroxysms, while Out of the Dark moves somewhat away from the gnarly harmonies of the previous piece. Summer Banner gradually reintroduces consonance, and the work ends in a blissful, subdued atmosphere (with fine solo work by hornist Timothy Jones). Jo Ann Falletta leads first-rate performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, captured in excellent sound--another fine addition to Naxos' American Classics series.

--ClassicsToday.com (Victor Carr Jr.)

Composer Kenneth Fuchs and conductor JoAnn Falletta completed their fourth recording with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios, August 30–September 1, 2013. The recording features baritone and Naxos artist Roderick Williams and is produced by Grammy Award-winner Tim Handley. The repertoire includes Falling Man (for baritone voice and orchestra); Movie House (seven poems by John Updike for baritone voice and chamber ensemble); and Songs of Innocence and of Experience (four poems by William Blake for baritone voice and chamber ensemble). Fuchs’ music continues to find its visual counterpart in the work of Abstract Expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose art adorns the cover of this disc.

Sinfonia of London's second album of works of Kenneth Fuchs features four world premiere recordings. Two of the works feature soloists: the Bass Trombone Concerto loosely follows sonata form whilst utilising the full range of the instrument, and revelling in it's lyrical side. Eventide, for alto saxophone and orchestra, is a re-working of an earlier concerto that Fuchs wrote for cor anglais. Described by the composer as a set of 'fantasy variations based upon the simple triadic intervals typical of spirituals', the alto saxophone version was composed for this album's soloist, Tim McAllister. Point of Tranquility was originally composed for wind band, but Fuchs then prepared this orchestral version at the request of JoAnn Falletta for her Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. The piece is inspired by Fuchs's reaction to the eponymous painting by Morris Louis. The orchestral suite Light Year is also inspired by a series of paintings, these ones by Helen Frankenthaler. Cast in six movements, the extremely evocative work captures the breath-taking scale and mysterious nature of the universe. Light Year was composed for and dedicated to John Wilson and Sinfonia of London.

The fifth Naxos recording of works by Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by JoAnn Falletta, won the Grammy Award in 2018 for Best Classical Compendium. This new album reveals his mastery of the band medium and features the exceptional United States Coast Guard Band, in definitive performances of seven works for symphonic winds by one of America’s leading composers. Kenneth Fuchs is one of America’s leading composers, and has written music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. This release features the alto saxophone concerto Rush, in its version with wind ensemble, presented by soloist Greg Case, who is co-principal saxophonist of the United States Coast Guard Band and has been a member since 1997.

Grammy-Award-winning Kenneth Fuchs (born 1956) is without doubt one of American music’s leading orchestral composers. His orchestral output has grown and developed to encompass a wide range of genres, from overtures and tone poems to suites and concertos (ten to date, including ones for string quartet, electric guitar, and piano, the last entitled Spiritualist), inspired by a diverse range of subjects, testimony to his wide sympathies and fields of knowledge. His output includes chamber music (including five string quartets), solos and duos, vocal and choral music, and four chamber musicals. Cloud Slant is a virtuoso orchestral concerto based on three of Helen Frankenthaler’s canvasses: Blue Fall (1966), Flood (1967), and Cloud Slant (1968)–not just musical depictions of them but also the composer’s reactions to their artistic sweep and power.

The flute was Fuchs’ first instrument, so it was inevitable that he would compose a flute concerto. However, it was not until 2019 that he set about the task – for the flautist Peg Luke, to whom the concerto is dedicated. As is customary of compositions by this composer, the concerto carries a descriptive title, Solitary the Thrush, a reference to lines from Whitman’s elegy for Abraham Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d'. Commissioned by the Californian Musique Sur La Mer Orchestras, Pacific Visions is scored for string orchestra, and is a single, dynamic movement sub-divided into five sections. Quiet in the Land, a Poem for Orchestra is a revision of a chamber work Fuchs composed in 2003, inspired by the rolling prairie of the Midwestern United States and the ‘immense arching sky’ under which it sits, cast against the impact of the Second Gulf War which had then recently broken out. The orchestral version heard here was composed in 2017 for the Phoenix Symphony. The album was recorded in Surround Sound, and is available as a Hybrid SACD and in Spatial Audio.

REVIEW:

The scores, as heard here in gloriously deep-staged and brilliant sound, are awash with oxygen and rich in melody. The players and conductor are celebrities and their playing is of a piece with that hard-won status.

The sound style of these four pieces, written between 2016 and 2021, is inviting; there are few complexities of texture. The scores are oxygen-rich and their skies are blue Californian or Mid-West vaults. The explosion of cornflower blue is that of Hockney’s A bigger splash and almost has you reaching for the aural equivalent of Ray-Bans. His sound signature is stable and uniform without being tedious. Allowing for passing echoes of others, like Martinů, he has his own sound and you can almost hear him intoning his article of faith: to thine own self be true.

The first piece is a concerto for orchestra in three movements: Cloud Slant (2020-2021). Impressions flood in: a Bernstein brilliance, succulent softness, very exposed Britten-like writing, as in the Grimes Interludes. It’s all superbly recorded[.]

The booklet notes are by Guy Rickards – so we are in safe hands – and are in English, German and French. They tell us much of what we need to know. Even so, I would have liked a lot more about what the music meant to the composer, a fuller biographical setting and what stung Fuchs into creating the music.

Fuchs has a brilliant tonal voice and here it is heard through a medium that equates to un-smeared dustless glass.

-- MusicWeb International