Divine Art Recordings will soon be releasing an album featuring the first ever recordings of Sam Hayden’s complete music for solo piano, performed by well-known contemporary music specialist Ian Pace. The album includes the monumental virtuosic 7-movement cycle Becomings, the most recent work from which the album takes its name, and some earlier shorter works reflecting diverse modernist and experimentalist influences. Although Hayden’s output for solo piano spans three decades, he has tended to use the instrument much more often in ensemble, chamber or electronic music contexts, often focusing on the percussive and resonance characteristics of the piano. During the fewer occasions when he has engaged with the piano as a solo acoustic instrument, the medium is always pushed to its sonic, spatial and physical limits. These solo pieces have in common constant transformation, existing at the extremes of gesture, polyphony, density, register, dynamics and textual juxtaposition.
Sam Hayden is a composer whose work contains much diversity and variety in its modernism; he teaches at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London, and Pianist Ian Pace is one of the UK’s primary exponents of contemporary music as well as being head of music at City, University of London. His previous recordings for Metier over several years include highly praised albums of music by Michael Finnissy including the gigantic 5-CD long History of Photography in Sound.
The new Hayden album “Becomings” is scheduled for release in November.
“Becomings” – piano music by Sam Hayden (MSV 28611)
All World Premiere Recordings
Becomings (Das Werden), nos 1-7
…still time…
Fragment (After Losses)
Recorded at City University London in April and May 2020
Métier Records to release new recording of piano music from Iran by composers Amir Mahyar Tafreshipour and Hormoz Farhat, performed by Mary Dullea
Divine Art Recordings is honoured and delighted to announce a new recording of piano music by two foremost Iranian composers, of two generations, to be released in winter 2020-21 on the Métier new music imprint. The recording has been engineered and produced by top-ranked expert Adaq Khan in London.
Amir Mahyar Tafreshipour was born in 1974 and specialises in music which reaches across boundaries of geography and politics – and also time. He studied in Denmark and England and has enjoyed international success with recordings on Métier and Naxos. He wrote the first ever Harp Concerto by an Iranian composer on a commission from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His opera The Doll Behind the Curtain – the first Iranian opera with an English libretto – was premiered in London in 2015. Some of his works for string ensemble were recorded along with works by Fozieh Majd on the album ‘In Absentia’: Metier MSV 28576 (2019)
Hormoz Farhat
Hormoz Farhat is perhaps the most senior of Iranian composers of ‘international’ art music. He was born in 1930, became a student of Darius Milhaud, and was the first Iranian to write a formal piano sonata.
The works here are performed by Irish pianist Mary Dullea, a formidable virtuoso dedicated to contemporary works whose skill and ability to realise aleatory and avant garde works is astonishing. She is pianist with the world-acclaimed Fidelio Trio which has performed in many countries and has made recordings with several leading labels including Delphian, Atarus and NMC as well as Métier; as a soloist she has performed throughout Ireland, England, Europe, USA, Hong Kong and South Africa. She has recorded for Métier music by Michael Finnissy, Eric Craven and Paul Whitty as well as a collection of new Irish works by Benjamin Dwyer, David Fennessy, Ed Bennett, Frank Lyons, Gráinne Mulvey, Jonathan Nagle and John McLachlan. She has just completed a recording of Craven’s ‘Pieces for Pianists’ (2 CDs) which will appear early in 2021.
Piano music from Iran (working title) Métier MSV 28610
Originally scheduled as part of the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, on 16 August 2020, Peter Seivewright will now be performing his Piano Music from the United States of America programme as an independent recital at St. Mark’s Unitarian Church, Edinburgh. The programme will include Edward MacDowell’s Piano Sonata No. 2 (‘Eroica’) which will be recorded on a future installment of his American Piano Sonatas recordings on Divine Art! On 3 August, Peter will also be live streaming a DVD recording he made of Charles Ives’s “Concord” Sonata from The Byre Recording Studio in Inverness, Scotland.
A posthuman fantasia about cities, virtual reality and the A.I. singularity: ROBE is an award-nominated opera inspired by fashion and machines. This new (world premiere) recording will be released by Métier Records in late 2020/early 2021. (MÉTIER MSV 28609). An audio recording which will be available on CD and Hi-Res digital download and streaming, it will be supported by promotional video shorts – the label hopes for a full staged video version in the future. An opera in form, it is also beautifully choreographed and is visually stunning.
Story
Descending into the mind of the superintelligence EDINBURGH, a young cartographer is tasked with mapping this creature so as to grant its desire: to become a living city, teeming with human life and activity. But they grow close, and she weaves into the map those things that cannot be known or spoken: the hidden histories of joy and longing each privately our own. As these rifts in the structure undo causality itself, she must answer the question: what exactly has she created?
“Music is an ancient, powerful technology,” says composer-librettist Alastair White. “In ROBE we’re trying to explore the idea that virtual reality has existed since the dawn of time: in the way that books, theatres – even the clothes we wear – transform and augment our perception of the world. And, how music has this astonishing power to contain and combine its participants – audiences, performers, writers – into a type of artificial superintelligence. “
This first full studio recording features the original cast from the 2019 UU Studios production at Tête-à-Tête festival, where the opera was shortlisted for a Creative Edinburgh Award and won praise for the ways in which it “successfully evoked the strange abstract world of cyberspace, creating a real sense of non-reality…The performances from all concerned were excellent.” (Planet Hugill).
People
Alastair White is a Scottish composer and writer whose work is characterised by a lyrical complexity that draws influence from materialism, fashion, cosmology and computers. Previous work includes 2018’s WEAR, shortlisted for a Scottish Award for New Music: “an opera of rare imagination and success” (Mark Berry, Boulezian). Produced at Goldsmiths Music Studios by Henri Växby (French For Cartridge), this release features a cast of rising stars from the new music scene: virtuosic pianist and music director Ben Smith (ROH, Wigmore Hall, Barbican), experimental flautist Jenni Hogan (Barbican, Radio 3, Queen Elizabeth Hall), Clara Kanter (Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, BBC), the “theatrically and vocally excellent” (Opera Magazine) Kelly Poukens, “staggeringly good” (New Statesman) Rosie Middleton and Sarah Parkin, described as “a joy to watch” (The Times).
This recording has been supported by Help Musicians UK, the Hinrichsen Foundation and the Goldsmiths Graduate Fund and Music Research Committee.
In a society where difference between the real and the virtual is no longer meaningful, a powerful new being threatens the stability which holds these worlds together. Two elders, Neachneohain and Beira, convince the young cartographer Rowan to complete a terrible task: descend into the mind of the superintelligence EDINBURGH and map this creature so as to grant its desire – to become a living city, teeming with human life and activity. Witnessing visions of the awful realness of life beyond cyberspace, Rowan agrees – plunging into its depths: a strange, abstractworld of data and dream.
30 years later, Rowan and EDINBURGH have fallen in love, have lived their lives together. Though every morning she awakes with no memory of the past, Rowan has almost completed the map that EDINBURGH desires. But into this map Rowan has woven something else: something hidden, silent, unsaid. As these rifts in the structure undo causality itself, she must answer the question: what exactly has she created? And what does it have to do with this strange, otherworldly figure who sings the red song of a forgotten city – of an ancient, poisoned ROBE…
Songs for Sir John: Works by composers including Robin Stevens, Martin Bussey, Sally Beamish, David Matthews, Peter Dickinson, Lennox Berkeley, Robin Walker and many more
Divine Art Records is honoured to announce a new album for release later this year in tribute to one of Britain’s most influential figures in recent musical history – and yet one whose name is shamefully little known outside the music profession.
Sir John Manduell
Sir John Manduell, who died in 2017, was a consummate musician in many ways and held many posts of importance from being Director of Music at Lancaster University, to senior producing roles at BBC Radio 3, eventually (as composition was closest to his heart) taking up the post of Head of Composition and Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Indeed he was the founder of the college, incorporating the Royal Manchester College of Music and the Northern School of Music, thus building the foundation of what is now one of the UK’s most dynamic centres for ‘serious’ music. He was also the founder of the European Opera Centre.
Sir John’s own works are masterful and embody the best of the modern tonal tradition alongside composers such as William Alwyn and Lennox Berkeley (both of whom were his teachers), and most remain to be discovered by the worldwide audience. Two major orchestral works (the Double Concerto for Oboe and Cor Anglais, and the Flutes Concerto for flutes and harp) were recorded alongside works by Gordon Crosse for the album “Mixed Doubles” (Métier MSV 77201) released by Divine Art in 2013.
The new album is titled ‘Songs for Sir John’. Curated by Sir John’s erstwhile colleague and close friend John Turner, it is a garland of tributes by several composers, who have in some way found their professional careers guided and encouraged by the enthusiasm and ever-generous support of Sir John. Most of the pieces were originally composed for concerts celebrating Sir John’s life in 2018 and 2019 and are focused around the evocative poetry of William Butler Yeats. One set (works by Robin Walker) was recorded for a previous album and features as narrator the mellifluous voice of the late TV presenter and newsreader Richard Baker.
‘Songs for Sir John’ will be released on September 11, 2020.
Songs for Sir John (DDA 25210)
Works:
Men Improve with the Years (Robin Stevens) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Sonnet (Elis Pehkonen) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
The Cold Heaven (Martin Bussey) for soprano, recorder, violin and cello *
Reflection (Geoffrey Poole) for soprano, bass recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Yeats Interlude (Sally Beamish) for recorder, oboe, violin and cello
Be Still (Michael Ball) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Those Images (David Horne) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Two Yeats Songs, Op. 23b (David Matthews) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Zuzu’s Petals (Kevin Malone) for recorder, oboe, violin and cello
This Great Purple Butterfly (Gary Carpenter) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Strings in the Earth and Air (Peter Dickinson) for soprano, recorder, violin and cello (text by James Joyce)
Three Duets (Lennox Berkeley) for two recorders
Four Nursery Rhymes (Robin Walker) for narrator, recorder and piano (texts by Thomas Pitfield)
The Cat and the Moon (Jeremy Pike) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Into the Twilight (Nicholas Marshall) for soprano, tenor recorder, viola and cello *
The Cloths of Heaven (Naji Hakim) for soprano, recorder, oboe, viola and cello *
* Indicates setting of a Yeats poem
Artists
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano)
Richard Baker (narrator)
John Turner (recorder)
Laura Robinson (recorder)
Richard Simpson (oboe)
Benedict Holland (violin
Susie Mészáros (viola)
Nicholas Trygstad (cello)
Keith Swallow (piano)
Apart from the Walker work (2005), the album was recorded on 18 and 19 December 2019 at St Paul’s Church, Stockport.
Producer: Paul Hindmarsh. Engineer: Philip Hardman
We were saddened by the news of the passing of composer Gerard Schurmann on March 24, at the age of 96. Born in what is now Indonesia, he moved at the age of 17 to England where he served in the RAF, worked in the diplomatic service and began his long composing and conducting career. Introduced to the world of film by his close friend Alan Rawsthorne, he achieved success as a movie-score composer but also produced orchestral and chamber works of great quality. He moved to Los Angeles in 1981. Schurmann contributed his touching short piece ‘Memento’ for Divine Art’s album ‘A Garland for John McCabe’ (DDA 25166)
Divine Art Recordings is delighted to announce a new album of piano music from English pianist Roderick Chadwick. Alongside the first book from Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux are works by Karol Szymanowski and David Gorton.
Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux for solo piano evokes the sights and sounds of the French landscape, exploring time and memory across its two and a half-hour span. The diversity of Messiaen’s imagination can be heard in the progression from the sharp, solitary cries of the alpine chough to the fanfares of the golden oriole and harmonious, sapphire-blue sea along the Roussillon coast, where the headlands (in the composer’s words) ‘stretch into the sea like crocodiles’.
Each of the cycle’s seven livres suggests a variety of contexts, and on this new recording the first book is presented as an echo of the programming of the Parisian Domaine Musical, where it was first heard: old music, modern classic, and contemporary. The theme is Mediterraneanisation, journeys to and from water: the elusive moods of David Gorton’s Ondine point from the Messiaen towards the more human drama of Szymanowski’s Third Sonata, a pinnacle of the heady series of works that followed transformational trips to Italy and North Africa.
Roderick Chadwick can also be heard on the Métier and Divine Art labels in music by Michael Finnissy, Mihailo Trandafilovski, David Gorton, Mozart and Ole Bull, in partnership with Peter Sheppard Skaerved and the Kreutzer Quartet. He is the co-author, with Peter Hill, of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux: from Conception to Performance (CUP).
Divine Art DDA 25209
Works:
Olivier Messiaen: Catalogue d’Oiseaux, Book 1 (Le Chocard des Alpes ; Le Loriot ; Le Merle bleu)
David Gorton: Ondine
Karol Szymanowski: Piano Sonata No. 3
Details
Recorded 17 and 18 December 2019 in Angela Burgess Recital Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London.
Prospective release date: October 2020 (exact date to be confirmed)
Divine Art is delighted to announce its latest project for the Métier label with leading chamber ensemble Gemini and its clarinettist leader, Ian Mitchell. The album, to be recorded this autumn, will be titled “for clarinet and strings” and contains works by several prominent composers, with a number of premiere recordings.
From its very beginning in 1974 Gemini has commissioned composers in a variety of styles, and programmed works and composers that have been overlooked sometimes for many years.
This album presents works by Cyril Scott and Rebecca Clarke that have been championed by the ensemble. The Scott quintet was premiered by the Melos Ensemble in 1953 and possibly given only its second performance (his widow thought this was the case) – at London’s South Bank Centre in 1995. The Clarke duo, like much of her music, was unfamiliar to most people, and (performing from manuscript copies) Gemini has given a number of airings including a live BBC Radio 3 broadcast. A central plank of Gemini’s programming has always been to promote contemporary composers including music by women – 32 of whom have been commissioned, with over 70 performances of works by women. The ensemble has developed long-standing relationships with many composers: commissioning, performing and recording with the aim of giving their music a wider audience. Gemini has had a long and close musical relationship with Nicola LeFanu (eventually inviting her to be the ensemble’s Honorary President); supported Sadie Harrison from very early in her career and commissioned a number of works from Howard Skempton.
The work by Sadie Harrison will have been written in 2020 and is due to be premiered this year subject to the position with regard to social restrictions. The Coe quintet grew out of a commission for a clarinet and piano piece by Ian Mitchell, Gemini’s director, and the Skempton Lullaby was also written for him.
The recording is booked to be held on 6th October 2020 at St Michael’s Church, South Grove, Highgate, London N6 6BJ. Again this is subject to possible alteration given current circumstances. The Clarke and Scott works were recorded several years ago when Gemini was a winner in the Prudential Award for the Arts .
The new album marks the continuation of an established and successful relationship between Gemini, Mitchell and Métier Records. Given current difficulties in the world at large release is likely to be in the very early part of 2021.
“… for clarinet and strings …” (MSV 28608)
Works
Prelude, Allegro & Pastorale for clarinet and viola (Rebecca Clarke)
Fire in Song (Sadie Harrison)
Songs without Words (Nicola LeFanu)
Dream Sequence (Tony Coe)
Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet (Cyril Scott)
Divine Art Recordings are to release an album of orchestral music by Edward Cowie, which as with their recent and highly praised disc by John McCabe will be a remastered re-release of classic Hyperion vinyl LPs. The two works on this album have a coincidental close relationship with each other. The connection between them is WATER and its ceaseless and constantly changing character and ‘mood’. The intended release date will be this autumn.
The SECOND CLARINET CONCERTO is inspired by a man and his changing and often tempestuous relationship with a great deep lake, Coniston in The Lake District of England. John Ruskin, a famous and brilliant Victorian Arts Scholar, was prone to severe bouts of depression including hallucinations. He bought a large house overlooking and close to Coniston, thinking and hoping it would ‘heal’ his suffering. On good clear days, he felt euphoric, peaceful and uplifted, but when mists, wind, rain and black/grey storms raged, he was hurled into a tempest of fear, Illusions and delusions of overwhelming horror. Ruskin (the solo clarinet) is pitted against and within the forces of nature: fluxes between limpid calm and tortuous turmoil. Only the emergence of a glorious Lakeland sunset at the end of the piece rescues the great man from the black hell of madness.
The CONCERTO for ORCHESTRA (“Studies in the Movement of Water”), is named after the many and astounding drawings of water made by Leonardo da Vinci. Composer Edward Cowie made a celebrated BBC 2 TV film about Leonardo in which this massive work features. Da Vinci’s drawings abound in turbulence, complex wave-forms, pulsations, folding sand, weaving of water between extremes of mirror-calm and maximum fracture and fragmentation. Also inspired by often storm-bound sailing amongst Scotland’s western Isles, this is a tour de force of unchained orchestral energy- unremitting- unforgiving and unfathomable. It is as visual as it is sonic- bursting with acoustic spray, waves and winds……
EDWARD COWIE has been described as ‘the greatest living composer directly inspired by the Natural World’ – high praise indeed. His first BBC Proms commission was in 1975 for the massive orchestral work Leviathan. Since then he has produced a stream of works inspired by wild (and some not so wild) places on our planet; however his undergraduate studies on physics (and a continuing fascination with particle physics) and studies in painting have also strongly shaped his musical voice. Today he is a skilled composer, conductor, pianist, and visual artist. Following the imminent release of a recording of three of his string quartets in April (Métier MSV 28603) he is delighted to form a lasting partnership with Divine Art and its new-music imprint Métier and future projects already in hand include a disc of choral works (BBC Singers) and a programme of solo guitar music.
As this new recording is taken from a vinyl LP and no additional works are suitable as ‘fillers’ the 44-minute album will be issued at low-mid price. The great clarinettist Alan Hacker is soloist in the Clarinet Concerto, both works with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, for whom Edward Cowie was the first Granada Composer/Conductor appointee (1982-84). The conductor on this album is Howard Williams.
Edward Cowie: Orchestral Works
Concerto for Orchestra Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Howard Williams
Clarinet Concerto No. 2 Alan Hacker (clarinet) Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Howard Williams
Métier MSV 92108 (Originally released as Hyperion A 66120 issued in 1984)
Original LP Reviews:
‘Scintillating! Powered by a relentless elemental force- what a triumph!’ – The Times (William Mann)
‘An absolute tour de force of orchestral colour and energy! The work pulsates with the ocean’s mood changes. Cowie is a true sonic poet of Nature’ – The Observer (David Cairns)
‘This is a ravishing and deeply moving testament to the forces of nature and the human mind’ – The Guardian (Gerald Larner)
‘This is Cowie in richly lyrical mood- music saturated with emotional ordeals and the ever-changing light and colour of Coniston. Loved it!’ – The Financial Times (Max Loppart)
William Overton (‘Bill’ to everyone) Smith was not only a clarinettist of distinction in both jazz and ‘straight’ fields, but also a composer of remarkably innovative music, much of it for his own instrument. He single-handedly expanded the capabilities of the clarinet beyond the wildest dreams of other musicians. From the beginning of the 1960s he regularly discovered and explored many new ways of playing the instrument: multiphonics (producing more than one sound at once; playing two clarinets at once – inspired by the ancient Greek double wind pipe the aulos; using a cork mute, and much more. He also composed the first clarinet and tape piece and a 12-tone jazz concerto. Born in California in 1926 he could claim (if modesty allowed) more than most to be dubbed a truly versatile musician. He studied clarinet at Juilliard and the Paris Conservatoire. As Bill Smith the jazz player he was the co-founder, with fellow Darius Milhaud student at Mills College, of the Dave Brubeck Octet in 1946-47, continuing to work frequently with Brubeck. He also studied composition with Roger Sessions at Berkeley, going on to write well over 200 works.
Bill was inquisitive and searching, inventing ways of playing purely for his own interest. I remember sitting on the bed in his hotel room once being shown how he had recently found that one could play the clarinet without a mouthpiece – flute-like, as side-blown instrument. He also explored the use of computers and electronics. He was modest, entertaining, and with an engaging high pitch laugh, carrying a root of ginger in his pocket, from which he’d occasionally slice a piece off to chew to help keep him healthy. He was a special musician and a special person, continuing to play literally throughout his life, playing at a 93rd birthday concert in September 2019. Many will not realise his enormous legacy as one of the most creative musicians of the second half of the twentieth century, as they begin to explore the world of ‘advanced’ techniques for the clarinet. RIP Bill.
New Recordings from Zeynep Ucbasaran, Miguel Ortega Chavaldas, and Sergio Gallo
Divine Art has announced two linked but very different new albums of piano music. The first comprises recordings of recent works for three pianos by an international group of composers from the USA, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Turkey. Though modernist, the works are also accessible and generally tonal with a rich and deep textured sound from the combined voices of the three grand pianos. The program includes the award –winning “Inni” (Hymn) by Luigi Dallapiccola together with works by Ince and Saygun, and pieces by other composers which have been commissioned by the trio and which are thus receiving their first recordings. The performers are Zeynep Ucbasaran, Miguel Ortega Chavaldas and Sergio Gallo, together ‘The 3-Piano Project’. Ucbasaran, based in California, is the ‘leader among equals’ in the group. She has made several highly-praised recordings previously for Naxos and Eroica.
As a counterpoint to this pioneering program, Ucbasaran and Gallo have recorded a second album – this time for four hands at one piano – of popular and well-loved works in splendid dynamic performances. The major work is Milhaud’s homage to Brazilian music with touches of jazz, ‘Le boeuf sur le toit’ and operatic themes and folk-inspired dances. Both recordings were completed at the Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara, California, in the latter half of 2019 and are scheduled for release in the summer of 2020.
Zeynep Ucbasaran made her Wigmore Hall debut in November 2004. She has recorded many albums, including music of Liszt, Schubert, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Bernstein and Muczynsjki. Most recently she recorded the piano music of Saygun (Naxos) and the complete piano sonatas of Mozart (Eroica Classical).
Dr. Sergio Gallo has won the piano concerto competitions of both the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra (Brazil) and the University Symphony, Santa Barbara (USA). He has performed with orchestras throughout the Americas and in Turkey, as well as broadcasting on Radio France and Radio Cultura. He now lives in the USA where he teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta and Rocky Ridge Music Academy in Estes Park, Colorado.
Miguel A. Ortega Chavaldas was born in Las Palmas on the Canary Islands and studied in Spain under Almudena Cano. He was awarded a first-class diploma in Piano and the highest prize in Chamber Music. Mr Ortega Chavaldas is currently Professor of Piano at the Conservatorio Superior de Aragón in Zaragoza, Spain, and also a collaborating pianist at Reina Sofia Academy in Madrid.
Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin), and Julian Perkins (square piano) have recorded Schubert’s three 1816 Sonatas for Violin and Piano on period instruments: No. 1 in D major, D.384, No. 2 in A minor, D. 385 and No. 3 in G minor, D.408.
While Franz Schubert is one of the most popular and well–loved of the ‘Great Composers’ not all of his works are quite as well known and this is perhaps true of the threeeSonatas for Violin and Piano, composed at the age of 19. While certainly not rare, they are far less often heard than the Symphonies and Lieder. Titled “Sonata” in the manuscript, the three works were published posthumously as “Sonatinas, Op. 137” and given their relatively intimate nature, and lyrical rather than virtuosic style, the name ‘Sonatina’ has been used often; the performers here insist that Schubert’s original title should be used.
The new recording features two of the country’s foremost performers: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Julian Perkins (square piano). Both have accomplished enormous success as soloists and chamber musicians. Skærved has already made many recordings as soloist for Athene and its sister ‘new-music’ label Métier (both divisions of Divine Art Recordings). Importantly this is believed to be the first recording of the Sonatinas using a period piano and violin thus reproducing much more accurately the works as originally envisioned and heard.
Julian Perkins (Photo Richard Bram)
The new album is likely to be released in the summer.
ATHENE ATH 23208
Schubert: Sonatas for Violin and Piano Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) Julian Perkins (square piano) Recorded in London in the summer /autumn of 2019
Works
THREE SONATAS, Op. 137: No. 1 in D major, D. 384 No. 2 in A minor, D,385 No. 3 in G minor, D.408
Divine Art’s new-music division, Métier Records, will be releasing two albums of music by veteran Australian composer Geoffrey Allen this year. The first is an album of music for woodwind, which was recorded this January and will be released in the late summer. The music is for flute, clarinet and bassoon, all with piano. Of particular note are the three works for solo bassoon and piano, a brief Pastorale, a Sonatina, and a full-blown Sonata.
The artists are all local Perth musicians: Allan Meyer and Michael Waye from the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, Katherine Walpole who teaches bassoon at both the University of WA and the WA Academy of Performing Arts, and David Wickham, one of Australia’s leading accompanists.
In preparation for recording later this year is a set of music for flute (details to follow in the summer).
Born in 1927 and still incredibly active, Geoffrey Allen is something of a legend in his own country especially in the Perth area but has yet to establish a substantial international reputation. As well as being a fine composer, Allen also established and managed the Keys Press music publishing business until his retirement only recently. His music first appeared on a Divine Art album in 2001 with the Fourth Piano Sonata and Three Piano Pieces were performed by Trevor Barnard (‘Blue Wrens – piano music from Australia, Divine Art DDA 25017).
These new recordings are in addition to the 4-disc set containing Allen’s Piano Sonatas, performed by Murray McLachlan, which is being recorded this spring (details were announced some time ago).
Geoffrey Allen: Music for Woodwinds (MSV 28607)
Works
Pastorale, for bassoon and piano
Outback Sketches, for clarinet and piano
Sonata for Bassoon and Piano
Trio for Flute, Clarinet and Piano
Sonatina for Bassoon and Piano
Artists
Katherine Walpole (bassoon)
Allan Meyer (clarinet)
Michael Waye (flute)
David Wickham (piano)
Recorded in January 2020 in Perth, Western Australia
Album of Polish Chamber Music: Works by Szymanowski, Panufnik, and Bacewicz
Divine Art is delighted to announce the first recording by the immensely talented Huberman Piano Trio, based in Częstochowa, Poland. The program comprises three major works, though only one is a trio and the others are pieces for violin and piano. Recorded in January 2020 at the Huberman Philharmony in Częstochowa, the album will include works by Szymanowski, Panufnik and Bacewicz.
Karol Szymanowski is universally considered one of Poland’s greatest composers, while Grażyna Bacewicz has not yet received the full international recognition that her music deserves. Andrzej Panufnik is very well known especially in the UK having become a naturalised British citizen, but he is also held in very high esteem in the country of his birth.
The Huberman Piano Trio was established in 2013 and the violinist and pianist began performing as a duo in 2018. The three members are Barbara Karaśkiewicz (piano), Magdalena Ziarkowska-Kołacka (violin) and Sergei Rysanov (cello). They all obtained their musical education in leading centres including Moscow, Warsaw, Katowice and Poznan. They have performed throughout Europe and also in China, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Ukraine and Uruguay, also featuring twice in the Huberman Violin Festival.
The ensemble is named after Bronislaw Huberman, the legendary Polish violinist. He is remembered for his political work and efforts to help tolerance and understanding between peoples and nations. He was the founder of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The violinist of the ensemble, Magdalena Ziarkowska-Kołacka, plays the violin which was owned by Huberman since 1934.
The recording has been supported generously by the Huberman Foundation and Częstochowa Philharmonic and is scheduled for release in October 2020.
DDA 25206 Works
Karol Szymanowski: Sonata in D minor for Violin and Piano
Andrzej Panufnik: Piano Trio, Op. 1
Grażina Bacewicz: Sonata no. 4 for Violin and Piano
Acclaimed American trumpet player Chris Gekker has just made his second album for Métier, the new-music division of Divine Art Recordings. This collection of new and recent works (all but one are world premiere recordings) by a range of American composers including Richard Auldon Clark, Carson Cooman and Lance Hulme, demonstrates the mellow and lyrical aspect of the trumpet. Chris Gekker uses descriptions such as “warmly expressive” and “hauntingly beautiful”. However even though the album is largely ‘laid-back’ it’s never lacking in depth, meaning and ‘soul’.
Adding to the richness of the sound world Chris Gekker is joined by pianist Rita Sloan (who also featured strongly in the previous Gekker album) , violist Katherine Murdock and oboist Mark Hill, and several members of the musically talented Gekker family: Suzanne (clarinet), Jason (double bass) and Lianna (piano).
The works here are wonderfully sonorous, harmonically conservative and will appeal to classical music lovers and also fans of soft lounge jazz.
The album is titled ‘Moon Marked’ and will be released in May 2020 on Métier (MSV 28605).
Moon Marked
Recorded at Dekelboum Concert Hall, University of Maryland on various dates in late 2019 except:
Variations and Fugue on a theme by Brahms (same venue, recorded 2011)
Moon Marked, recorded at Spencerville Seventh Day Adventist Church 2019
Works
… and justice for all? (Richard Auldon Clark) for trumpet, viola and double bass
Elegy for a Sultry Summer Afternoon (Lance Hulme) for trumpet and piano
Moon Marked (Carson Cooman) for trumpet and clarinet
Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Brahms (Eric Ewazen) for flugelhorn and piano
Divertimento (Richard Auldon Clark) for trumpet, oboe and viola
Acquainted with the Night (Alistair Coleman) for trumpet and piano
Peace on Earth (Franklin Kiermyer) for trumpet, clarinet, double bass and piano
Performers
Chris Gekker (trumpet and flugelhorn)
Katherine Murdock (viola)
Mark Hill (oboe)
Suzanne Gekker (clarinet)
Jason Gekker (double bass)
Lianna Gekker (piano)
Rita Sloan (piano)
Previously on Divine Art: Ghost Dialogues (MSV 28572)
Chris Gekker is a master of his instrument. His technique is impeccable: The Metier recording is so clear one can hear every detail of attack. In addition, there is a real musical intelligence at work, here coupled with a fervent belief in the music he plays. This is a most varied recital, then, caught in superb sound. The combination of technique, taste, and musicianship is remarkable.”
Saturday, 7 March, 2020 at 7.30pm at All Saints Center, Lewes will be a special screening of Emmy award-winning film-maker Cesca Eaton’s beautiful portrait of the Cuckmere river and Cuckmere Haven through the seasons, with a lush, evocative score by Lewes-based composer Ed Hughes, to mark the release of Ed Hughes’s CD “Time, Space and Change” on Métier.
‘Cuckmere: A Portrait’ was originally commissioned by the Brighton Festival and premiered by the Orchestra of Sound and Light playing live at the Attenborough Centre at the University of Sussex, where Ed Hughes is Professor of Composition in Music, as part of the 2018 Brighton Festival.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Ed Hughes, Cesca Eaton, Tony Whitbread (President, Sussex Wildlife Trust) and Trevor Beattie (Chief Executive, South Downs National Park Authority) chaired by local writer and musician Eleanor Knight.
Details
Saturday 7 March 2020 at 7.30pm All Saints Centre, Friars Walk, Lewes BN7 2LE Tickets £10 (under 16s free) or at the door. Entry includes CD.
Organist Philip Hartmann to record an album of music by Carson Cooman recorded on the organ of Pauluskirche, Ulm, Germany.
Divine Art Records has for some time championed the music of prolific American composer Carson Cooman, and as well as two orchestral and one chamber albums has reached Volume 13 in the Cooman Organ Music series, performed by Erik Simmons. While that series takes a short break, Divine Art has welcomed the acclaimed German organist Philip Hartmann to its artist roster for a new album of organ works by Cooman recorded on the magnificent organ of Pauluskirche, Ulm, Germany, an instrument constructed by Thomas Gaida in 2013 after Gebrüder Link (1910).
While some of the works have appeared in the Simmons series, Hartmann provides a different interpretation on a different instrument which makes comparisons interesting as each player makes individual interpretative and stop-combination choices.
The new recording will be released worldwide (CD and digital/streaming) on 12 June 2020.
Invocazione brillante
Recorded in Ulm, Germany on June 19-21, 2019 – Coming June 2020
Performer: Philip Hartmann Works (all composed by Carson Cooman):
Musica da processione (2018)
Arioso (2013)
Cortege, Intermezzo and Litany on the Joseph-Hymnus (2017)
Romanza (2000)
Praeludium in festo S. Philippi apostoli (2017)
Diptych for New Life (2017)
Arioso Cantabile (2018)
Suite in F (2017)
Prelude on ‘Das ist köstlich’ (2018)
Invocazione brillante (2017)
Two Nantucket Sketches (2018)
Lullaby (2018)
Sonatina No. 4 (2017)
Album playing time 76:14
Philip Hartmann
Philip Hartmann
German organist Philip Hartmann studied musicology at the universities of Berlin and Hamburg followed by studies in church music at the Musikhochschule in Bremen. He also participated in organ masterclasses with Daniel Roth (Paris) and Ben van Oosten (The Hague). From 1986 to 1991, Hartmann was cantor and organist at the Protestant town church in Ehingen (Donau). Since 1991, he has worked as a church musician in Ulm at the Pauluskirche, and since 1999 also as a cathedral organist at Ulm Cathedral (Ulmer Münster). In 2004, he became the director of the Martin-Luther-Kantorei, and in 2005 he was appointed district cantor (Bezirkskantor) for the Ulm deanery.
Hartmann has played more than 600 organ recitals throughout Germany and Europe and has also appeared as organist and choirmaster in various TV and radio productions as well as on a solo CD of the organ music of Andreas Willscher, recorded on the 2013 Link-Gaida organ in the Pauluskirche. Hartmann has a particular interest in American and British organ music as well as contemporary compositions. He has given numerous world premieres, and about 40 works by contemporary composers have been dedicated to him.
Carson Cooman, composer
Carson Cooman
Carson Cooman (b. 1982) is an American composer with a catalogue of hundreds of works in many forms—ranging from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. His music has been performed on all six inhabited continents in venues that range from the stage of Carnegie Hall to the basket of a hot air balloon. Cooman’s work appears on over forty recordings, including more than twenty complete CDs on the Naxos, Albany, Artek, Gothic, Divine Art, Métier, Diversions Altarus, Convivium, MSR Classics, Raven, and Zimbel labels. Cooman’s primary composition studies were with Bernard Rands, Judith Weir, Alan Fletcher, and James Willey. As an active concert organist, Cooman specializes in the performance of contemporary music. Over 300 new compositions by more than 100 international composers have been written for him, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of CD releases and more than 2,000 recordings available online. Cooman is also a writer on musical subjects, producing articles and reviews frequently for a number of international publications. He serves as an active consultant on music business matters to composers and performing organizations, specializing particularly in the area of composer estates and archives
In January 2020 pianist Tom Hicks began recording with the composer Camden Reeves for their new record for Metier, Blue Sounds for Piano. Since 2013, Camden has been working on a series of blues-inspired works for Tom – Tangle-Beat Blues (2013), Nine Preludes (2016) and Blue Sounds (2019) – which Tom has performed across the USA and UK. Blue Sounds was premiered in October 2019 in Chicago, alongside the other two works. All three works were all recorded in January 2020, followed by their performance in a recital at St Pancras. London on 9 January.
Reeves is currently working on a new piano piece, Blue Times, especially for this album, its energetic shuffle rhythms providing a counterpoint to the harmonic stillness of Blue Sounds. The final piece in the program(me) will see Tom Hicks joined by cellist Jennifer Langridge for Still Above Ground, a work written in memory of Camden’s grandfather (a jazz musician and the composer’s life-long mentor).
Guernsey-born pianist Tom Hicks has been hailed as ‘an artist of magnificent pianism’; he has established himself as a brilliant soloist, has won multiple awards and is also very sought after for accompaniment and chamber recitals in the UK and USA and around Europe. This will be his first album for Metier.
Camden Reeves
Meticulous in detail, dramatic in structure and with a touch of the bizarre, the music of Camden Reeves ranges from chamber, to vocal, to orchestral. His name has also become particularly associated with the piano.
Reeves was born in Oxford in 1974. At the age of four he began learning music with his grandfather, a Jazz musician. Reeves read music at the University of Exeter, studying composition with Philip Grange, and at the age of just 22 was appointed Composer Fellow with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. Further Composition studies followed with Roger Marsh and David Blake at the University of York. In 2000-2001, Reeves was awarded a CIMO Scholarship to study with Paavo Heininen on a CIMO Fellowship at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and he still cites his engagement with the music of Sibelius during this period as one of the most important influences underlying the organic and dramatic structure of his music.
Reeves’s catalogue includes five string quartets, two piano trios, music for voice/s, solo pieces (with and without piano), orchestral music and a large amount of solo piano music. Reeves’s music is available from Edition Peters and Composers Edition. A good number of works are available in the form of commercial recordings. Visit camdenreeves.com for more information. Reeves is currently Professor of Music at the University of Manchester, where he has taught since 2002.
Metier Records was established in 1992 and quickly gained a reputation as one of the foremost labels for contemporary music. It became part of the Divine Art Recordings Group in 2005.
Album Details
Title: Blue Sounds for Piano (MSV 28604) Works (all composed by Camden Reeves):
Tangle-Beat Blues
Nine Preludes
Blue Sounds for Piano
Blue Times
Still Above Ground (with Jennifer Langridge, cello)
