The Faerie Bride is a cantata for two singers and orchestra inspired by the Welsh myth of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach. The Welsh 'lady of the lake' myths are just one of many 'watery wife' tales from northern Europe that include the Mermaids of Ireland, the Kelpie of Scotland, and the Selkie of the Shetlands and Scandinavia. However, in each of those the women are portrayed as either malevolent, has something magical stolen from them, or is captured by a man and kept in human form. The Faerie myths of Wales are unique in that the woman sets very clear conditions under which she agrees to marry the man (they shall not strike her three blows or hit her with clay) the breaking of which would result in her returning to the lake forever. The Welsh myths are empowering, with strong female characters who set their own agenda. There is no coercion, theft, or kidnap but rather misunderstandings and cultural differences. The Faerie Bride is about compromise and respect in relationships, suspicion and fear of the outsider, and the societal pressures to conform in insular communities, something this faerie refuses to do. © Gavin Higgins

Lars Forssell's lyrics are both lyrical and down-to-earth and often deal with love experiences, exposure and vulnerability. They can be provocative, politically pronounced, mix light and dark and can be both shimmeringly beautiful and agonizingly black. Evert Taube had great significance for tango in Sweden during the 20th century. Lars Forssell was a close friend of the family and played an important role in how the view of Evert Taube changed from a slightly odd troubadour to the role of popular national poet. Sven Bertil Taube and Lars Forssell went to Argentina together in 1988 and experienced Argentine tango. When they got home, they recorded a tango LP. I have chosen some of these songs with Lars's ingenious lyrics. Our last cafe depicts how painful it is to be abandoned. In Lost Birds we meet the deceived man and the broken love. In Again, the lost love is portrayed. Belgrano is nostalgic and invites us to "play the piano of the past".

Dan Andersson died at the age of 32 in 1920, more than 100 years ago. His poetry is still relevant and beloved. Many can still recite his poems and sing many of the compositions. He is one of Sweden's most important poets, a romantic working-class poet who gave voice to the poor in the country, depicted areas and conditions in Sweden that had hardly been illuminated before. One of the great strengths of his poetry is that it is universal, human and beautiful. Nature, love and the conditions of life play the biggest role.

Composing for voice is a passion for me, and as a result the largest part of my catalogue is music for voice. The human voice - possibly the most subtle, complex, and fragile yet forceful carrier of musical ideas and meanings - has always been an inspiration for my musical thinking. I strive for craft, clarity, and passion. The carefully sculpted music and poems of Far Past War develop a labyrinth of musical interrelationships and connections that showcase the choir and musicians in a virtuosic display of their emotional palette, strength, clarity, and majesty. The opportunity to collaborate with my sister, Cammy Thomas, has been a highlight of my life. Music's eternal quality is it's capacity for transformation and renewal. Together, we have created a work that celebrates the unsurpassed power of nature, and it's potential to move us toward peace.

Hardly any other event during Mozart Week has remained so vividly in visitors' memories as the 1994 production of Ombra felice. Mozart's creative excess in the field of opera is evident not only in fragments of stage works such as Zaide KV 344, L'oca del Cairo KV 422 and Lo sposo deluso KV 430, but also in the more than seventy arias and ensembles he composed as individual works. Some of these are abandoned or unfinished drafts, as Mozart's singers (or sometimes Mozart himself) were not entirely satisfied with them, while others were contributions to foreign opera productions, which were often performed in the form of pasticcios at that time. This broad compilation thus provides a good overview of Mozart's aria compositions.

This recording with AZICA Records marks the first modern-day capture of the music of Julia Lazarevna Weissberg Rimsky-Korsakov (1878-1942). During her lifetime, Weissberg ascended the heights of cultural life in Russia's "Silver Age", only to be relegated to obscurity in the subsequent era of socialist realism. A prominent composer, critic, and public figure, she was particularly celebrated for her art songs, symphonic poems, and children's operas. Her works, known for their harmonic ingenuity, were widely published and performed during her lifetime in both Russia and Germany. Born to a prominent Jewish family in Orenburg, Weissberg was a composition student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and continued her studies in Berlin with Max Reger and Englebert Humperdink. While in Germany, she saw the premieres of many of her songs for voice and orchestra, which received reviews across Germany, France, England, and Russia. By the time of her return to St. Petersburg in 1912, she was a widely-published composer, publishing under the name Julie Weissberg. She subsequently married musicologist Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai's son. The couple founded the first Russian music magazine Muzïkal'nïy sovremennik (Contemporary Music) for which Weissberg served on the editorial board and was one of the main reviewers. In her lifetime, Weissberg published more than 75 works, including art songs, symphonic poems, symphonies, chamber works, folk songs, and operas for children. Contemporary Russian composer Mikhail Gnesin referred to her as "the first professional female composer in the history of Russian musical art of the 20th century," and contemporary critic Leonid Sabanayeff claimed that she was "a master in the full sense of the word" for her extraordinary musical and text setting abilities. Many of her art songs feature texts by prominent contemporary women creatives from across the globe, including Indian activist Sarajini Naidu (1879-1949), Polish author and activist Maria Knopnicka (1842-1910), German children's author Paula Dehmel (1862-1918), and her close collaborator Sophia Parnok (1885-1933), later known as the 'Russian Sappho'. Weissberg was a leader in the contemporary music community, championing the creation of new works. She died in 1942 with her son Vsevolod Rimsky-Korsakov in the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Soprano Sarah Moulton Faux, an Opera America and America Prize winner, first saw mention of Julie Weissberg's work while researching the art songs of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Intrigued, Sarah began a two year research project into Weissberg's catalogue with the assistance of musicologist Dr. Olga Panteleeva. Together, they found a treasure trove of Weissberg's published manuscripts in the Russian State Library in Moscow. Panteleeva also discovered a doctoral dissertation by Mazur Marina Moiseeva from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Composer Julie Weissberg: Personality and Creative Heritage (According to the Materials of the Archives of St. Petersburg), which proved to be an invaluable resource. Fifteen songs for voice and piano handpicked from that treasure trove comprise this album, featuring Sarah Moulton Faux and internationally acclaimed pianist and composer Konstantin Soukhovetski. Seven-time Grammy-winner for Classical Music Producer of the Year Judith Sherman is the lead producer and sound engineer.

One of the foremost vocal chamber ensembles active today, New York Polyphony is renowned for it's innovative programming ranging from Gregorian chant to contemporary commissions. On Sky of my Heart, the selection spans over four hundred years of musical history and bears witness to this vocal ensemble's commitment to discovering and developing new works that augment it's core early music repertoire. Some of the works performed here deal with the essential themes of life, death and the afterlife and have been inspired by personal bereavement (Smith) or by the impact of Covid confinement (Moravec). Others are steeped in a spiritual atmosphere, whether religious (Byrd, Moody, Tavener and McGlade) or meditative (Naito). The contemporary works, some of which were written at the behest of New York Polyphony, are firmly rooted in the rich history of plainsong, while at the same time featuring some very contemporary harmonies. The vocal ensemble is joined by LeStrange Viols in three pieces: My Days by Nico Muhly, a ritualized tribute to the early 17th-century English composer Orlando Gibbons, The Silver Swan by Gibbons himself, which brings the programme to an appropriately quiet and poignant close, and Byrd's Agnus Dei. The viol ensemble adds a colour that is both appropriate for Gibbons and original in it's treatment of sound.

Nancy Dalberg's (1881 - 1949) songs were written in the period from 1909 to the beginning of the 1930s, and through her choice of lyrics she tells a lot about herself and her life. She grew up in a prosperous entrepreneurial environment, and early on she developed skills as a pianist. In 1901 she married First Lieutenant Erik Dalberg, who also had a significant artistic vein, and a few songs were thus written together. Due to an arm disease, however, she had to give up becoming a concert pianist, and with Johan Svendsen and especially Carl Nielsen as teachers, she acquired from 1909 on the compositional skills that, in addition to the songs and other smaller works, led to her string quartets and orchestral works, thus three of her songs are also available in an orchestral version. With the very personal choice of 47 mainly Danish poems, her songs take up a considerable amount of space, and she provoked her contemporaries with a sometimes quite rich piano accompaniment, whereby the soloist and pianist became more equal in the performance. The lyrics range widely from the cheerful to several more serious lyrics that revolve around the family and marital dreams that remained unfulfilled due to her lifelong health challenges and her husband's increasing mental illness, of the present selection, 9 songs have not previously been recorded.

Soprano Ruby Hughes, celebrated for the profound "understanding and stylishness" (Gramophone) she brings to her artistry, has a distinguished discography of recitals showcasing the exquisite beauty of her voice. She is particularly known for her carefully curated programs that weave together works from diverse eras. In Amidst the Shades, Hughes reunites with gambist Mime Yamahiro Brinkmann and lutenist Jonas Nordberg. The same inspiring sonic constellation contributed to the success of Heroines of Love and Loss (BIS-2248). This new recital explores their shared passion for Elizabethan music, which served as the catalyst for the program's creation. The contemplative and melancholic songs of John Dowland form the foundation, leading to works by Robert Johnson and John Danyel, interwoven with Purcell's intimate vocal pieces. Seeking to further enrich the repertoire for lute and voice, Hughes commissioned new works from Errollyn Wallen and Deborah Pritchard, setting texts by William Shakespeare. She also obtained permission from Cheryl Frances-Hoad to arrange one of her existing compositions for this unique ensemble. Amidst the Shades promises a recital brimming with nuanced expression and delicate sonic colors.

Dmitri Shostakovich is known for his symphonies, his chamber music, maybe the popular Suites, and to some extent even his film. Largely unknown, however, is his vocal symphonic music, of which only the cycle on Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79, has gained some wider popularity. Here these hidden gems are brought together in authoritative interpretations under Michail Jurowski and the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne with it's rich Shostakovich tradition under Semyon Bychkov and Rudolf Barshai, among others, from the Six Romances on words by Japanese poets to the Suite on Verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Korean Tapestry

Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005) was an Afghan poet writing during a period of turmoil. In 1995, when the Taliban captured Herat, her birthplace, women's liberties were drastically reduced. A gifted student, Nadia faced a future with no hope of education. With other women she attended an underground educational circle called the Golden Needle Sewing School. Meeting under the guise of learning how to sew, the meetings were in fact discussions on literature with Herat professors. The project was dangerous: if caught, the punishment could be imprisonment, torture or hanging. Nadia was 21 when the Taliban was ousted. While earning her degree in literature she published her first book of poetry. She married into a family who believed that, since she was a woman, writing brought disgrace on their reputation. Yet she continued to write. At the age of 25 she was beaten to death by her husband. The five poems I chose are wide-ranging and cover extremes of emotion: from love; to delight in being a poet; to despair at her lack of freedom; and even contemplation of suicide. © Richard Blackford

Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005) was an Afghan poet writing during a period of turmoil. In 1995, when the Taliban captured Herat, her birthplace, women's liberties were drastically reduced. A gifted student, Nadia faced a future with no hope of education. With other women she attended an underground educational circle called the Golden Needle Sewing School. Meeting under the guise of learning how to sew, the meetings were in fact discussions on literature with Herat professors. The project was dangerous: if caught, the punishment could be imprisonment, torture or hanging. Nadia was 21 when the Taliban was ousted. While earning her degree in literature she published her first book of poetry. She married into a family who believed that, since she was a woman, writing brought disgrace on their reputation. Yet she continued to write. At the age of 25 she was beaten to death by her husband. The five poems I chose are wide-ranging and cover extremes of emotion: from love; to delight in being a poet; to despair at her lack of freedom; and even contemplation of suicide. © Richard Blackford

Antoni Gaudí's monumental temple La Sagrada Familia is a universe within a building. It's mass of stone and metal is bathed in coloured light diffused from dazzling stained-glass windows. The colossal structure is supported by great pillars inspired by the shapes of tree trunks that reinforce the impression of a spiritual forest. Around the main access points to the basilica are three great facades: Nativity, Passion and Glory. Each is a visual world unto itself, stylistically apart yet united by Gaudí's grandiose vision. These three facades are the inspiration of my three-movement A Gaudí Symphony, a sequence of narratives. The visual journey, from the representational to the abstract, is something I also tried to mirror in the music. When I visited La Sagrada Familia in October 2019 there was still scaffolding to support the work on the remaining towers. Whereas A Gaudí Symphony is inspired by that unique building, I hope that my musical structure can stand alone as an homage to Gaudí in it's own right. - Richard Blackford

Antoni Gaudi's monumental temple La Sagrada Familia is a universe within a building. It's mass of stone and metal is bathed in coloured light diffused from dazzling stained-glass windows. The colossal structure is supported by great pillars inspired by the shapes of tree trunks that reinforce the impression of a spiritual forest. Around the main access points to the basilica are three great facades: Nativity, Passion and Glory. Each is a visual world unto itself, stylistically apart yet united by Gaudi's grandiose vision. These three facades are the inspiration of my three-movement A Gaudi Symphony, a sequence of narratives. The visual journey, from the representational to the abstract, is something I also tried to mirror in the music. When I visited La Sagrada Familia in October 2019 there was still scaffolding to support the work on the remaining towers. Whereas A Gaudi Symphony is inspired by that unique building, I hope that my musical structure can stand alone as an homage to Gaudi in it's own right. © Richard Blackford

Falk and Schleiermacher once again prove to be the ideal interpreters of this multi-faceted music: from the smoky nightclub of the "Rue Chagrin" to the synagogue; past the children's playground to the cotton fields of America with hints of the blues - great art in a small form!

Samuel Andreyev’s music is incredibly varied, from the sparse resonance of the Sonata da Camera, the ‘cartoon music’ (as the composer puts it) of Vérifications, characterised by primary colours and strong instrumental timbres; the Sextet in Two Parts which in contrast focuses on minute timbral shadings; and of course the cantata for solo voice and ensemble which is the title track of the album. Performed by ensemble proton bern, conducted by Luigi Gaggero with the magical soprano voice of Peyee Chen on In Glow of Like Seclusion (set to verse by J. H. Prynne) this album was beautifully captured in Zurich in 2022. The CD and digital album is to be followed with a double-LP vinyl version in the New Year.

Samuel Andreyev’s music has been featured in portrait concerts in Bern, Geneva, Toronto, Paris, Kyiv, Strasbourg, Montréal, Tours, and many other cities. Andreyev is a laureat of the Henri Dutilleux Prize (2012, for ‘Night Division’), and the Grand Prix Lycéen des Compositeurs (2020, for ‘Vérifications’). He is also Vice President of the music council of the Fondation Prince Pierre (Monaco). With his YouTube channel and Podcast, Samuel Andreyev presents lectures on musical topics, as well as long-form interviews with prominent musicians as varied as Brian Ferneyhough, every member of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, Linda Catlin Smith, Hugues Dufourt, Adam Neely and countless others.

SOMM Recordings is proud to mark the centenary of the legendary German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (28 May 1925-18 May 2012) by adding to his canonical discography with live recital and concert recordings from the Music Preserved archive. Fischer-Dieskau was at the very height of his powers from 1960-75, and the performances on this album date from that period. A bonus CD contains two interviews conducted by Jon Tolansky-appearing here in their entirety for the first time-the 75th Birthday Interview (2000) and 80th Birthday Interview (2005). The extraordinarily vast repertoire of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau over his 45-year career comprised lieder, operas, cantatas, and oratorios. He sang these in German, Italian, French, Russian, English, Hebrew, Hungarian, and Latin, from eras that spanned the Baroque to the latter part of the 20th century. Particularly, it was the controlled power and beauty of his voice, and the dramatic intensity and poetry of his interpretations, that led him to excel in the genre of German lieder. In this form he exerted a virtually unprecedented stylistic and interpretative influence-not only on the musical world of his day, but also on generations of performers to come. SOMM's centenary tribute opens with four songs by Ferruccio Busoni, all being works that were written late in the composer's career. They come from a programme that Fischer-Dieskau gave with Gerald Moore in 1962.  At the 1971 Helsinki Festival, Fischer-Dieskau presented a recital with Irwin Gage, which was devoted entirely to songs with texts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The recital, described by a contemporary critic as "a landmark event," featured compositions by contemporaries of Goethe, who lived from 1749 to 1832, such as the Countess Anna Amalia, Kapellmeister Johann Friedrich Reichardt, and Goethe's friend Carl Friedrich Zelter. The more familiar composers represented on this Goethe-inspired recital were active during the first part of the 20th century. They include Richard Strauss, Max Reger, and Ferruccio Busoni. This tribute to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau also includes six songs from a programme of works by Gustav Mahler, which was presented with his long-time collaborator, Karl Engel. Three of the songs are from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, based on texts of German folk poems, and three are from the collection of five Ruckert-Lieder, after poems written by Friedrich Ruckert. The musical component of this collection closes with a concert performance of three songs by Zoltan Kodaly, sung in Hungarian by Fischer-Dieskau. The composer proves himself an outstanding interpreter of his own music in conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. In the two interviews included on the bonus CD, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau discusses his early years, his teachers, the development of his career, and a small but revealing cross-section of his enormous repertoire.

Austrian mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert, accompanied by expert pianist Joseph Middleton, presents a selection of Schubert lieder blending beloved masterpieces with lesser-known gems. Sophie Rennert's extensive operatic repertoire spans Baroque to contemporary works, encompassing Purcell, Rameau, Handel and Vivaldi, through Mozart and operetta - numerous recordings with leading figures in the early music scene further highlight the quality of her voice. Hailed by critic David Nice as "a mezzo of many colours, subtlety, dramatic intelligence and a crucially brilliant top", it was only a matter of time before she lent her voice to Schubert's highly dramatic songs. The title of this recital, Irrlichter (will-o'-the-wisp), her first for BIS Records, comes from Rennert's favourite song, "Des Fischers Liebesgluck". And much like a will-o'-the-wisp, the composer leaves us in a state of uncertainty. Is the song a memory or just a deep, unfulfilled longing? This feeling, which permeates all of Schubert's music, is in a sense the thread that runs through this collection of songs with their twilight atmosphere. Every single one of these Schubert settings depicts a different dream, a different longing to be discovered.

Featuring the first recording of BRITTEN's Les Illuminations, Op. 18 sung in English, from a brand new translation by Timothy Ades. Also includes the original French version. Coupled with Samuel BARBER's dramatic masterpiece Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24, written just a few years after Les Illuminations. Among the most personal and powerful music ever written for the human voice, Britten and Barber's masterpiece settings of texts by Rimbaud and Agee continue to resonate intensely. Taken together, they form bookends to the cataclysms of the 20th century, with it's two life-shattering world wars. The colours, verbal and harmonic, of such human drama are a dazzling mix, running the gamut of life in dramatic flux. Mild mannered it is not, though parts are hauntingly beautiful.

SOMM Recordings has had the good fortune to add to it's wide-ranging catalogue the "extraordinary voices" (BBC Radio 3) of the all-female a cappella vocal quintet Papagena these past few years. Formed in 2015, the ensemble is made up of sopranos: Elizabeth Drury, Imogen Ram-Prasad, and Suzzie Vango; mezzo: Shivani Rattan; and alto: Sarah Tenant-Flowers. What distinguishes Papagena is their gloriously adventurous programming, which defies pigeonholing: medieval, classical, folk, and contemporary music from around the world, juxtaposed with repertoire from Hildegard of Bingen to Katy Perry and all points in between. Papagena's debut album, Nuns and Roses, was self-released in 2017. Their second, The Darkest Midnight, was released in 2018 by SOMM. Selected as MusicWeb International's Recording of the Month, it reached No.6 in the classical charts and No.1 in Amazon's classical download chart. In 2020, Papagena's second release with SOMM was Hush!, a Recommended Recording by MusicWeb International, which was praised by John Quinn as "another winner from Papagena. More, please!" SOMM is happy to oblige. SOMM's third collaboration with Papagena is Tomorrow is Today: Songs of love, beauty and the passing of time. As an example of the unique diversity of their programming, this new collection opens with a set of four songs that are united by ideas of love in various guises. The Gallant Weaver with words by Robert Burns tells of the sincere love of a humble girl for her weaver. Sì Ch'io Vorrei Morire (Yes, I should wish to die), a madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi, deals with passionate sexual attraction. Oy Khodyt Son (Oh, sleep is coming) is a traditional Ukrainian melody about love within a family unit. Kaval Sviri (The Flute is Playing) is a traditional Bulgarian song of coquettish flirtation. A sampling of other highlights from this release includes Henry Purcell's Music for a while from his incidental music for John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee's 1692 play Oedipus. Holi, in a setting by Papagena's mezzo-soprano Shivani Rattan, is an Indian celebration song. The motet, Sicut lilium, is attributed to Leonora d'Este, a daughter of Lucrezia Borgia. From a collection of the earliest surviving examples of polyphonic music written in English, is the carol, Ther is no rose. The title song Tomorrow is Today, commissioned by Papagena from Janet Wheeler with a text by the composer's daughter Sarah Cattley, is subtitled Dawn Chorus, and is filled with bird references reflecting the ensemble's name of the bird-catcher's wife in Mozart's Magic Flute. Dolce Cantavi, written in the style of an Italian madrigal by American Caroline Shaw, also contains allusions of birdsong, natural beauty, and the dawning hope of love; while in Welcome somer, the Canadian composer Don Macdonald partners Chaucer's text with music that references medieval rhythms within a more contemporary harmonic idiom.

The world premiere recording of Durey's L'Offrande lyrique (Op. 4), six songs set to texts by Rabindranath Tagore (recipient of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature) in French translation by Andre Gide, is a highlight of this collection. Musically inspired by the atonality of Arnold Schoenberg's The Book of Hanging Gardens, and often credited as the first piece of free twelve-note technique in French music, L'Offrande lyrique navigates a harmonic language which can hold clarity and vivid colour in Lumiere ! ma lumiere !, or blur into dark heavy clouded gesture in Les nuages s'entassent, effectively supporting Tagore's language. At times, the words seem to muse over seemingly unconnected piano motifs, before meeting- sometimes harmonically, sometimes not-sometimes walking the same path, other times meandering separately again. For Paris 1913 to include a world premiere recording of such important music, written over a century ago, is thrilling, and places Durey firmly alongside his contemporaries in the cafes and salons of pre-war Paris. Far from being overshadowed by the better-known composers in this anthology, these songs stand as a testament to the strength of French melodies of the era. © Andrew Matthews-Owen & Claire Booth

Nadia Anjuman (1980-2005) was an Afghan poet writing during a period of turmoil. In 1995, when the Taliban captured Herat, her birthplace, women’s liberties were drastically reduced. A gifted student, Nadia faced a future with no hope of education. With other women she attended an underground educational circle called the Golden Needle Sewing School. Meeting under the guise of learning how to sew, the meetings were in fact discussions on literature with Herat professors. The project was dangerous: If caught, the punishment could be imprisonment, torture or hanging. Nadia was 21 when the Taliban was ousted. While earning her degree in literature she published her first book of poetry. She married into a family who believed that, since she was a woman, writing brought disgrace on their reputation. Yet she continued to write. At the age of 25 she was beaten to death by her husband.

The five poems I chose are wide-ranging and cover extremes of emotion: from love; to delight in being a poet; to despair at her lack of freedom; and even contemplation of suicide. The opening poem Turmoil, is an astonishing volte face, starting with a song of love for the solitude and beauty of the night, then a yearning to be free of earth’s constraints and to be united with God. It concludes with a passionate plea for the power of her own poetry to save her. The music starts hesitantly, unsure – the motif seems afraid to go any further, although it will become the unifying motif of the whole song. The angular outbursts give way to softer, more lyrical vocal and string lines as spring is evoked, with a solo viola emerging from the group and connecting the singer with the songs she once sang. The music surges at her hope to “leave this solitude and sing with joy”. At full intensity, surrounded by shimmering strings, the soprano affirms the poet’s determination to cry out her truth.

- Richard Blackford

The New Winter Songbook is a collection of twenty-one songs by a diverse range of composers, featuring contemporary musical settings and lyrical responses to the winter season. Whilst more traditional winter themes do recur within the songs - those of cold, loss, stillness, grief and darkness - those of belief, faith, and hope, offer an emotional counterbalance. Each individual composer approaches and explores these themes from their own perspective, lending their voice to a musical tapestry, expressing what it means to reflect upon and celebrate the season of winter today.

Music plays an integral role in Jewish worship. The songs on this album are selected from the traditional liturgy of the important Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Baritone Stephen Kalm gives nuanced renditions, with collaborative artist Douglas Cleveland playing piano. Flute, violin, cello, vocal soloists, and the University of Montana Chamber Chorale join throughout this exceptional release.