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Author Archive for Divine Art Recordings Group – Page 5

Métier Announces “Anthology”: Contemporary Music for Saxophone

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

19 October, 2022

The latest addition to the Métier Records roster is the virtuoso saxophonist Anthony Brown,
whose debut commercial recording, ‘Anthology’ will be released in the first quarter of 2023. The album includes seven world première recordings of brand new commissioned works for the saxophone. Each work has its own unique sound world, offering different, exciting new duo and solo works. The performers and composers on this disc represent some of the major influences that have impacted Anthony’s career to date, including teachers, colleagues and friends.

These virtuosic works explore the range and characters that the 4 main saxophones (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone) have to offer. The sound world of the contemporary saxophone is explored in great depth, with influences ranging from jazz, film, poetry, electronic music, and theatre. Each work was commissioned especially for this project and has taken 5 years to complete. The disc was recorded between Nov 2021-Jan 2022 at Halle St. Michael’s, Ancoats, by Joe Riser.

The artist provides the following extra detail:

Delicate sonorities of two soprano saxophones intertwine in a dance-like Sonata for Two Saxophones by Julian Arguelles. The title track of the album, Anthology by Andy Scott, is a homage to Charlie Parker. It contains virtuosic angular phrases of bebop language interspersed with quarter tones, and explores the extended range of the saxophone. Graham Ross, Director of Clare College Cambridge, has produced an intimate work for alto saxophone and piano based on Maya Angelou’s poem, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. The Caged Bird here, is used as a metaphor for the struggle and fight against the racism she was subjected to as a young woman. Larry Goves makes use of electronics and multiphonics on two alto saxophones to evoke the brutish images and text of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist in The Two From Rastibon Could Start A Hailstorm. Anthony was involved in Steve Jackson’s III, during the composition process, recording the manipulated samples that provide the electronic backdrop to this rocky work for alto saxophone and electric guitar. Gary Carpenter’s work, Everything is Connected for tenor saxophone and double bass, uses playful time signature changes combined with floating melodies and walking bass lines. Finally, Meriel Price has composed a humorous work for saxophone which asks the performer and audience to consider, Where The Mind Goes.

Anthony Brown

Described by The Times on his debut Purcell Room performance as an ‘outstanding young saxophonist’, multi-award winning, Manchester based saxophonist Anthony Brown graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with an International Artist Diploma in chamber music and a First Class Honours degree, attaining full marks in his final recital. He has won awards from The Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Tillett Trust, Park Lane Group, Making Music and the Hattori Foundation, as well as first prize in the Haverhill Sinfonia Soloist Competition and the Bromsgrove International Young Musicians’ Platform.

Anthony has performed extensively throughout the UK, including solo recitals at the Wigmore Hall and the Southbank Centre. He has performed with orchestras including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Hallé, Opera North, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He features on a CD with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and has performed live and recorded broadcasts as a soloist at the BBC Proms and also with Beats and Pieces Big Band on BBC Radio 3. Anthony is a member of the Ferio Saxophone Quartet. They have recorded two albums together, one with pianist Timothy End, and another with the Corvus Consort (Revoiced – music for saxophones and voices), two exciting projects that explore a varied range of repertoire and styles.

Album Details

Catalogue number: MSV 28634
Title: ‘Anthology’
Style: contemporary music for saxophones
Recording dates: November 2021 – January 2022
Venue: Halle St Michaels, Ancoats
Engineer: Joe Riser
Release formats: CD/ HD digital download /streaming
Works:
- Sonata for Two Saxophones (Julian Argüelles)
- Anthology (Andy Scott)
- Caged Bird (Graham Ross)
- The Two from Ratisbon Could Stat a Hailstorm (Larry Goves)
- III (Steve Jackson)
- Everything is Connected (Gary Carpenter)
- Where the Mind Goes (Meriel Price)
Artists:
- Anthony Brown (saxophones)
- Carl Raven (saxophones)
- Daniel Brew (electric guitar)
- Grant Russell (double bass)
- Louise Stevens (tickling)
- Ben Powell (piano)

News

Tags : Anthony Brown, Métier, Saxophone

Métier Announces a New Album of Vocal and Chamber Works by Michael Finnissy

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

10 October, 2022

The long-standing relationship between Métier and Michael Finnissy continues with a forthcoming album featuring the superb Marsyas Trio in collaboration with award-winning mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean. The album is to be titled ‘Alternative Readings’ and will showcase solo vocal music by Michael Finnissy with diverse instrumental ensembles.

Lotte Betts-Dean and Joseph Havlat © Marsyas Trio/Divine Art

Throughout his life and music, Finnissy has thought to bring apparently dissimilar things and people together, confronting the problems of social-discourse, power, mysteries and beauty. The common thread that runs through the album is the notion of ‘alternative readings’ in its broadest sense, which culminates in Finnissy’s substantial new work ‘Wisdom’, commissioned by the Marsyas Trio during the lockdown of 2020. This piece explores isolation and ways of dealing decisively and sensibly with solitude and abandonment, while transcending the boundaries and seeking connectivity between continents and cultures. It draws on a multitude of texts ranging from Australian Aboriginal (Nunggubuyu) Dreamtime myths to Shakespeare’s poetry to Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’.

Métier is the new-music imprint of Divine Art Recordings Group and this will be the fourteenth album in the label’s Finnissy series. Stephen Sutton, CEO of Divine Art, is delighted with this news: “It’s been a few years since our last album devoted to Michael’s music, so we are really pleased about this new project, as Michael is without doubt one of the most outstandingly talented composers of today and we are also excited to welcome the Marsyas Trio to our roster of artists.”

The news of this release is also welcomed by Judith Weir (CBE, Master of the King’s Music) who says:
A new release of Michael Finnissy’s work is always welcome news; this is important repertoire. Yet another generation of new, front-rank performers are now championing Finnissy’s music, and this is especially true of Marsyas Trio and the remarkable vocalist, Lotte Betts-Dean.

About the Marsyas Trio:

The London-based Marsyas Trio, formed in 2009 by graduates of the Royal Academy of Music, is the UK’s only permanent flute-cello-piano ensemble. Showcasing a hugely diverse repertoire from the Classical and Romantic eras to the present day, the Marsyas Trio’s programming illuminates forgotten masterpieces, whilst inspiring a generation of new works through commissioning initiatives and recording projects.

The Trio’s concert highlights include performances at Conway Hall and Kettle’s Yard, tours in Europe, China, the USA & Canada. UK festival highlights include the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, St David’s Cathedral Festival, Vale of Glamorgan, Three Choirs Festivals and Spitalfields Music in the City.

The Trio’s last CD In the Theatre of Air (NMC Recordings 2018), debuted at No. 7 on the classical charts and was one of NMC’s highest selling CDs in 2018/19.

In June 2022, the Marsyas Trio were announced as recipients of an Artist By-Fellowship at Churchill College, at the University of Cambridge.

Album Details

Label: Métier
Catalogue number: MSV 28635
Release date: March 2024
Recording venue: Goldsmiths Music Studios, London, UK
Title: “Alternative Readings”
Composer: Michael Finnissy
Artists: Marsyas Trio (Helen Vidovich, flute; Valerie Welbanks, cello; Volha Stsiazhko (piano)); Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano); Joseph Havlat (piano)

Works:

Alternative Readings (for flute, cello and piano) – version 1 (Recording date: February 2021)
Alternative Readings – version 2 (Recording date: February 2021)
Wisdom (for mezzo-soprano, flute, cello and piano) (Recording date: February 2021)
- All above recorded in February 2021
Blessed be I (mezzo-soprano, cello and piano)
Blessed be III (mezzo-soprano, flute and piano)
Botany Bay (Mezzo-soprano, flute and piano)
June (for flute, cello and piano )
- To be recorded in January 2023
Salomé (2 songs)
An den Mond (3 songs)
Oxford in 1817 (3 songs
All for mezzo-soprano and piano
With guest pianist Joseph Havlat
- To be recorded in December 2022

Total duration: about 74 min

News

Tags : Joseph Havlat, Lotte Betts-Dean, Marsyas Trio, Michael Finnissy

Announcing A New Chamber Music Release of Music By Rachmaninov

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

26 September, 2022

A new album of chamber works by Sergei Rachmaninov is in preparation by Divine Art for release in the late spring of 2023. The recording is taking place at two venues in Poland: the Łódź Academy of Music, and the Czestochowa Philharmony, and is due to be completed in early November 2022. The principal performer is pianist Barbara Karaśkiewicz who has made several highly praised recordings for Divine Art (and before that the esteemed Polish label Acte Preable). She performs two piano duos with her musical partner Michał Rot. The chamber works are played by the Huberman Piano Trio whose Divine Art recording of 20^th Century Chamber music was also acclaimed by critics.

The Huberman Trio was formed at the initiative of Barbara Karaśkiewicz, named in honour of the great Polish artist Bronislav Huberman, famed for his performances and transcriptions of works by Chopin and others. The current line-up includes Polish pianist and violinist and a Ukrainian cellist.

Album details

Recording made in September and November 2022 in Poland, Engineer/producer: Wojciech Marzec
Release date Spring 2023 (to be confirmed)
Label: Divine Art
Catalogue number: DDA 25242
Artists:
- Barbara Karaśkiewicz and Michał Rot (piano duet)
- Huberman Piano Trio:
  - Barbara Karaśkiewicz (piano)
  - Dagmara Swystun (violin)
  - Sergei Rysanov (cello)
Works (all by Sergei Rachmaninov)
- Piano Suite No. 1, Op. 5 (piano duet)
- Piano Suite No. 2, Op. 17 (piano duet)
- Trio Elégiaque No, 1 (piano trio)
- Elegy, Op. 3 no. 1 (arranged for piano trio)
- Vocalise, Op. 34 No. 14 (arranged for piano trio)
Album duration: c. 71:00

Barbara Karaśkiewicz was born in Krynica, where at the age of 5 she began learning to play the piano, and continued her studies at music schools in Łódź and Katowice. She went on to study piano at The Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice under Prof. Monika Sikorska-Wojtacha, where she received a diploma with distinction in 1999; at the same university she partook of post-graduate studies under the guidance of the outstanding Polish pianist, Prof. Wojciech Świtała. In 2013, she obtained a doctoral degree, and in June 2018 a Postdoctorate honours, both awarded by The Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.

As an artist Barbara has been honoured with awards in prestigious competitions in her own country and abroad. She has performed widely in Europe as well as in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and of course in her native Poland, performing as soloist in symphonic concerts, in piano recitals and in chamber music; she is the founder of the Huberman Duo, Huberman Piano Trio, and the piano quartet 4Tpianos. Barbara has recorded the entire repertoire of piano compositions by Roman Statkowski, across three albums (the third was published by Divine Art: DDA 25129). She has also recorded the piano works of English contemporary composer Michael Garrett. Her fifth solo album, with music by Karol Szymanowski (Divine Art DDA 25151) was nominated for the Fryderyk 2018 Music Award in the category of Best Polish Album Abroad. Barbara is associated with The Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław. She actively participates in teaching activities and numbered among her pupils are international piano competition prizewinners. She is regularly invited to participate as a member of the jury in piano competitions, and she also conducts piano and chamber workshops.

News

Tags : Barbara Karaśkiewicz, Huberman Piano Trio

Coming to Métier: Music for Quarter-Tone Accordion

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

15 September, 2022

The Métier New-Music label of Divine Art Recordings Group is to issue an album of music for a unique and amazing instrument! Basque accordionist Lore Amenabar Larrañaga has signed to the label for her debut album which will comprise eight works for the Quarter-Tone Accordion. She explains the concept:

“I am engaged in a detailed investigation of a self-designed quarter-tone accordion as well as exploring its technical and sonic boundaries through the commissioning of a new body of collaborative works. These works have been written between 2020 and 2022, during my PhD studies at the Royal Academy of Music.
The design of my instrument allows the production of quarter tones in both the right and left-hand manuals. The range and timbral possibilities of this instrument are expanded through the use of fifteen registers on the right manual and seven on the left manual, resulting in a sounding range of E-2 to B-quarter-sharp-6 in the right hand and E-1 to D-quarter-sharp-6 in the left. From Electra Perivolaris to Christopher Fox, Michael Finnissy to Mioko Yokoyama, this album will accommodate diverse textures, voices, and ideas; all gravitating around the Quarter-Tone Accordion”.

Lore Amenabar Larrañaga completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s studies at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, with Prof Matti Rantanen, Dr Mika Väyrynen and Dr Veli Kujala, having graduated with first-class honours. At present, she is pursuing a PhD at the Royal Academy of Music in London and is generously supported by ‘La Caixa Foundation’. An accomplished performer across styles – from folk music to the classical canon – Lore is especially passionate about artistic collaboration and performing new music. In addition to the premières of the featured works in this album, she has recently given the first performances of ‘She Keeps Walking Over Paper’ by Claudia Molitor (London 2020) and ‘Unbroken’ by Howard Skempton (London 2021), and while studying in Helsinki premièred ‘Finnish Suite’ by Matti Murto (Ikaalinen 2017). Having won the 2018 edition of ‘Juventudes Musicales de España’, she gave a series of nine solo concerts as part of a Spanish tour.

Recording dates: Autumn 2022 – Spring 2023 (London)
Release date: Summer 2023 (exact date to be confirmed)

Album details:

Label: Métier
Title: to be decided
Catalogue number: MSV 28631
Artist: Lore Amenabar Larrañaga

Composers/works:

Die Stimme der Stadt (Christopher Fox)
Barafostus‘ Dreame (David Gorton)
Permissible Self-Expression (Michael Finnissy)
My Time is Your Time (Donald Bousted)
And new works (titles not yet to hand) by:
Mioko Yokoyama
Electra Perivolaris
Veli Kujala
Claudia Molitor

Coming Soon News

Tags : Lore Amenabar Larrañaga, Métier, Quarter-Tone Accordion

Announcing a new album from Australian Composer John Carmichael

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

9 September, 2022

Divine Art Records adds to its roster of new releases for the first quarter of 2023 with a collection of superb and approachable music by Australian composer John Carmichael, whose overall style can perhaps best be described as neo-Romantic, and which will appeal to a wide audience which may not be keen on the more avant-garde new music. His Piano Concerto, while being totally original, carries definite echoes of Rachmaninov.

John Carmichael was born 1930 in Melbourne, Australia. He studied piano and composition at the University Conservatorium there, followed by two years piano studies with Marcel Ciampi at the Conservatoire National in Paris. Further composition studies followed with Arthur Benjamin and Anthony Milner in London while Carmichael joined the first group of musicians working for the newly established Council for Music Therapy, for whom he introduced music therapy programs at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and Netherden Mental Hospital, Surrey. In 1960 he became musical director of the Spanish Dance group Eduardo Y Navarra touring extensively with them both abroad and in Britain; foreign languages are one of his passions – the latest challenge being Chinese.

The album includes duos, solos, a Piano Concerto (exuberant pianism matched with string orchestra, with a Caribbean flavoured final movement), a Piano Trio aspiring towards the light, works designed to bring the viola, regarded by many as the Cinderella of the string instruments, into the spotlight, a Divertimento for flute, oboe, clarinet & piano; overall a varied collection of works with melodic elements being an important feature. Joining this celebration of the potential in new orchestral and chamber music are many of Britain’s most highly talented artists, including pianist Antony Gray whose recent recordings of Saint-Saëns piano music for Divine Art have attracted glowing praise and are the label’s top sellers of 2022.

Music of John Carmichael (DDA 25240)

Works and Artists:

Piano Concerto No, 2
Antony Gray (piano); St. Paul’s Sinfonia; Andrew Morley (conductor)
Piano Trio “Toward the Light”
Paul Manley (violin); Andrew Fuller (cello); Michael Dussek (piano)
Aria & Finale
Contrasts
Morgan Goff (viola); Antony Gray (piano)
Short Cuts
Susan Torke (flute); Clare Hoskins (oboe); Shelley Levy (clarinet); Antony Gray (piano)

Album duration approximately 74 minutes
Recorded in London, summer 2022
Release date to be announced – around February / March 2023

News

Tags : Antony Gray, Coming Soon, Divine Art, John Carmichael

Announcing a New Release from Organist Carson Cooman!

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

2 September, 2022

The New Year will see the release of a new album by esteemed American composer and organist Carson Cooman, from Divine Art. The label has issued a number of Cooman’s recordings and is also producing the series of Cooman’s own compositions played by Erik Simmons (currently at volume 15). The Divine Art catalog currently includes 199 of Cooman’s compositions.

On Cooman’s new album ‘Companions’ he presents a program of contemporary music for organ recorded on the remarkable post-romantic Thomas Gaida organ of the Pauluskirche in Ulm, Germany. The album features ten works by nine composers representing six countries. The music varies widely in character and scope, from smaller character pieces and meditations to several dramatic, large-scale works. The final piece is the grand 15th organ symphony of English composer Bernard Heyes.

Carson Cooman (b. 1982) is an American composer with a catalog 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-five 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 3,000 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.

Companions (DDA 25241) – Coming January/February 2023

Recording date: May 8, 2022
Artist: Carson Cooman (organ of Pauluskirche, Ulm, Germany)

Works:

Prismatic, Op. 24 (Carol Williams, b. 1962)
Companions (Carlotta Ferrari, b. 1975)
Three Short Fantasy Pieces (Thomas Åberg, b. 1952)
Recitative (Carson Cooman, b. 1982)
The Grave of Keats (Carlotta Ferrari, b. 1975)
Peace Prayer No. 1 (David Lasky, b. 1957)
Sursum Corda (Tate Pumfrey, b. 1998)
Voluntary in F major (Phil Lehenbauer, b. 1960)
Canzona (Michael Calabris, b. 1984)
Organ Symphony No. 15 (Bernard Heyes, b. 1951)

Coming Soon News

Tags : Carson Cooman, Coming Soon, Divine Art

Announcing a forthcoming Christmas Single

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

30 August, 2022

Select options

Divine Art Records will step out of its usual classical-contemporary genres to release a special Christmas digital single. Light of the World is a beautiful new carol with words and music by Robin White, a well-known name in English light music circles, whose recent album From Russia (Divine Art DDA 25223) is proving successful – and well–received by critics. The carol is performed by Alban Voices, with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by the composer.

Light of the World will be available for download and streaming from all main platforms, and as download only, direct from Divine Art

Coming Soon News

Tags : Coming Soon, Light of the World, Robin White

New organ recording by Robert Sholl from Métier

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

11 August, 2022

Métier Records, the new-music label of Divine Art Recordings, will be releasing many new titles in 2023, among them an organ recording of a rather unique nature!

Les ombres du Fantôme is a set of fourteen improvisations created by Robert Sholl and Justin Paterson that act as thematic shadows of Gaston Leroux’s novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (1910). They shadow the narrative, themes, characters and events of the book. The improvisations were recorded using the organs of Coventry and Arundel Cathedrals in July 2021, some with soprano and saxophone/bass clarinet. They use an invented musical language, and explore the acoustics of those buildings, the gesture and the materiality of the instruments in physical, spiritual and sonic space that is enhanced and extended (by Justin Paterson) through recording technology and electronic augmentations.

Robert Sholl is a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music which is supporting this project, and both he and Justin Paterson also teach at the University of West London. The album will be scheduled for release in the first half of 2023 ((exact date to be advised).

Also find more information at https://www.phantomopera.co.uk/

Album Details

Title: Les ombres du Fantôme (Shadows of the Phantom)
Label : Métier
Catalogue number : MEX 77105
Tracks (all composed/improvised by Robert Sholl and Justin Paterson
with additional material by Anna McCready and Andy Visser):

The Ghost with the Death’s Head
You must love me’
The angels wept tonight
At the graveyard at Perros-Guirec
The enchanted violin: the resurrection of Lazarus
The Chandelier
Masked ball
Souterrain: ‘Everything that is underground belongs to him’
‘I am Don Juan Triumphant’
Christine! Christine!
From the cellars to the house on the lake
In the torture chamber
La mort du Fantôme
Epilogue

Performers:

Robert Sholl (organ)
Anna McCready (soprano)
Andrew Visser (saxophone/bass clarinet)
Justin Paterson (electronic wizardry)

Recorded at Coventry and Arundel Cathedrals July 2021.
Producer: Justin Paterson
Recording Engineers Mike Exarchos (aka Stereo Mike) and Justin Paterson

Coming Soon News

Tags : Coming Soon, Métier, organ music, Robert Sholl

Announcing A Second Release from Composer Rodney Lister

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

11 July, 2022

Métier Records (the new-music arm of Divine Art Recordings) is delighted to announce the forthcoming release of an album of choral music by New England composer Rodney Lister, following a recording of chamber and vocal works (‘Faith-Based Initiatives’, Métier MSV 28618) which will hit the streets and online stores on September 9.

The new album (title not yet decided) will be performed by the members of the Church of the Advent, Boston, Massachusetts conducted by Mark Dwyer with pianist Julia Carty, and recording is due to take place in September, with a release date of early spring 2023.

Rodney Lister has been teaching at Greenwood Music Camp in western Massachusetts for around 30 years. The facility, described by Rebecca Fischer as “an intensive musical experience for teenagers in a natural environment, fertile for personal and artistic growth and development.”, has been the springboard for the development of countless musical careers. While the program is primarily focused on chamber music, all students also participate in the camp choir, and almost every year Rodney Lister has composed new choral works – which although intended to be ‘tried-out’ by the campers, are in no way less than first class compositions of distinction. Partly inspired by his teachers Peter Maxwell Davies, who wrote stunning works for ‘less experienced performers’, and Virgil Thomson, with his innate gift for brilliant settings, Lister began setting texts by leading poets in a fairly transparent tonal language. After a while he began to expand into a more complex and fluid tonality, inspired by Virgil Thomson’s Wheat Fields at Noon and perhaps surprisingly, also by Gesualdo’s modal motet Morro Lasso.

Rodney Lister was co-founder and director of “Music Here and Now”, a concert series for new music by New England composers, has received a great number of commissions and fellowships and has had his music performed by leading artists at Tanglewood, Edinburgh Fringe, the Library of Congress and many other venues from New York to London. He has also been a busy and sought-after pianist. Rodney is currently on the faculties of Boston School of Music and the preparatory school of the New England Conservatory, as well as teaching at Harvard University and playing a leading role at Greenwood Music Camp. Stephen Sutton, CEO at Divine Art Recordings’ USA office, said, “It was very good news to hear that Rodney wished to present a recording of his choral work; having recently put together his first album for Métier, I was aware that we have here a very fine composer deserving of even greater international recognition, who creates superb works which seem to be mainstream, individualistic and inventive all at the same time.”

Choral music by Rodney Lister

Label: Métier
Catalog number: MSV 28630
Performers: Choir of the church of the Advent, Boston, Mass
Conductor: Mark Dwyer
Piano: Julia Carty
Works – this is a working program and final tracks will be most but not all of these. Author of text named in parentheses:

Of Mere Being – five poems (Wallace Stevens)
Stanzas in Meditation – Stanzas XV, XVI and XXXVIII (Gertrude Stein)
Three Poems of Richard Wilbur (Richard Wilbur)
The Bees (David Feny)
A Downward Look (James Merrill)
On the Road Home (Wallace Stevens)
To the Harbormaster (Frank O’Hara)
The Lost Feed (Kenneth Koch)
Once by the Pacific (Robert Frost)
Our Revels are now Ended (William Shakespeare)
A Supermarket in California (Alan Ginsberg)
This is the Garden (e.e. cummings)
To the Republic (Frank Bidart)
Vanishing Point (Lawrence Raab)
To a Waterfowl (William Cullen Bryant)
Carol (Donald Hall)
The Awakening (Willam Carlos Williams)
Never Give all the Heart (William Butler Yeats)
The Choirmaster’s Burial (Thomas Hardy)
The Mockingbird (Randall Jarrell)
The Gift (William Carlos Williams)
The Annunciation (Wystan Hugh Auden)

Coming Soon

Tags : Coming Soon, Métier, Rodney Lister

Roderick Chadwick & Peter Sheppard Skaerved

Announcing Spanish Meditations and Dances from Composer Gregory Fritze

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

27 June, 2022

Divine Art Records, which itself has offices in both the USA and UK, is proud to announce a new album, recorded in London, of the ‘Spanish Meditations and Dances’ by the most excellent American composer Gregory Fritze. The works are performed by two of England’s most celebrated soloists and regulars in the catalogs of Divine Art and its sibling labels Athene and Métier: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano).

“Spanish Meditations and Dances” for violin and piano was composed and arranged especially for Peter Sheppard Skærved in 2021. It is a set of seventeen pieces that showcase the violinist in both expressive and exciting technical playing. The titles of the movements are from the many towns and regions of Spain that have been a great inspiration in the composer’s music over the years.

The six exciting dances – Tenerife Dance, Madrid ; Variations on a Theme by Luigi Boccherini, Bilbao; at the Guggenheim; Lliria Dance, Barcelona; Gaudi Dance; and Carcaixent Dance – are interspersed with eleven expressive meditations.

Gregory Fritze is a prize-winning composer and Fulbright Scholar. His compositions have been performed more than one thousand times in twenty-six countries. He has written over one hundred compositions for orchestra, band, chamber ensembles and soloists. He won over sixty composition awards including Menzione d’Onore (highest award given) of the Mario Bernardo Angelo-Comneno International Music Competition by the Accademia Angelica Costantiniana Arti E Scienze (Rome, Italy) for “String Quartet”, First Prize Winner of Reneé Fisher Composition Prize for “Piano Sonata” and others.

His music is published by several publishers in the US, South America and Europe and has been recorded on Albany Records, MSR Classics and others. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities and music festivals in the United States, Canada, Japan, South America and Europe. He taught at Berklee College of Music as Professor and Chair of Composition. He attained a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Composition from the Boston Conservatory and Indiana University respectively.

Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano) are both highly popular, talented and critically acclaimed musicians. Both have extensive concert and recording careers and have appeared together and separately on a number of recordings. More detailed biographies can be supplied on request.

The recording was made in London in the early part of 2022 and the album which will be issued on CD and all digital formats worldwide is scheduled for release between November 2022 and February 2023 (date to be confirmed).

“Spanish Meditations and Dances” (DDA 25239)

Composer: Gregory Fritze
Performers: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano).
Label: Divine Art
ALBUM RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 22 – FEBRUARY 2023 TBC

Peter Sheppard Skærved & Roderick Chadwick Recordings on Divine Art

Coming Soon

Tags : Coming Soon, Peter Sheppard Skærved, Roderick Chadwick

Burkard Schliessmann’s At The Heart of the Piano Nominated for Opus Klassik

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

23 June, 2022

Burkard Schliessmann‘s At The Heart of the Piano release has been nominated for the 2022 OPUS KLASSIK Award in the Solo Instrumental Recording category!

The OPUS KLASSIK is a top prize for classical music in Germany and is awarded by the Verein zur Förderung der Klassischen Musik e. V. The 2022 Award will be presented to 45 winners across 27 categories as selected by a specialist jury comprised of representatives from the music and media industry. The winners will be announced on the weekend of 9 October at the official awards ceremony in Berlin.

At The Heart Of The Piano

A special 3-CD / triple digital album of great Romantic works by one of the world’s most accomplished pianists specialising in works of that era. These stunning performances of Busoni’s Chaconne (after J S Bach) and Berg’s Sonata are receiving their first release; the other tracks were previously issued (on CD only, not digitally ) by Bayer and have been newly remastered.

“Schliessmann’s commanding performance is beautifully variegated… [his] technique is rock solid. Considered, polished reading… magnificently powerful, warmth and academic integrity” —Colin Clarke, International Piano

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Tags : Award, Burkard Schliessmann, Opus Klassik

New Album of Recorder Music from John Turner: The Whistling Book

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

15 June, 2022

In the world of serious recorder music, John Turner has been at the top of the tree for many years, as soloist and member of illustrious ensembles including the Academy of Ancient Music, English Chamber Orchestra, and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He features as the main attraction in ‘The Whistling Book’ – a double CD/digital album to be released worldwide by Divine Art in November 2022.

Most of the works on this double album are included in the Forsyth catalogue of recorder music, and many of them have become standard repertoire pieces for the recorder, known and loved all over the world, and frequently set as test and examination pieces. Alan Bullard’s Recipes, John Golland’s New World Dances, John Turner’s Four Diversions and Robin Walker’s A Book of Song and Dance all fall into this category. The album first appeared on a special release by Forsyth Bros under the title ‘John and Peter’s Whistling Book in 1998; this reissue adds three new items, Robin Walker’s ecstatic and virtuoso Her Rapture for solo recorder, John Addison’s Spring Dances for solo recorder, written for John after a memorable visit to the composer’s Vermont home, and, for the more adventurous, Kokopelli by Richard Whalley, inspired by an American fertility deity, with magical sounds played on a prepared piano by the composer.

John Turner and his piano partner Peter Lawson are both stalwarts of the English music scene and have made substantial numbers of recordings for many labels over the years; Turner appears on 25 current Divine Art group titles and Lawson 6. This album will (re)introduce a host of works epitomising the best in modern recorder music from the UK.

The Whistling Book DDA 21421

Release date: scheduled for 11 November 2022
Total playing time c. 126 minutes
Three works receive their premiere recording – recorded 2021 (Spring Dances and her Rapture) and 2017 (Kokopelli).
All other works previously appeared on Forsyth FS001-002, recorded in 1998

Works and Artists:

John Turner (recorder) & Peter Lawson (piano):
- Skally Skarecrow’s Whistling Book (Geoffrey Poole)
- Prospero’s Music (Michael Ball)
- Recipes (Alan Bullard)
- Suite (Alan Rawsthorne)
- Caprice (Nicholas Marshall
- Song (Douglas Steele)
- A Book of Song and Dance (Robin Walker)
- Air (Walter Leigh)
- Capriccio (Arnold Cooke)
- Farings (Anthony Gilbert)
- Four Diversions (John Turner)
- Shadows in Blue (David Ellis)
- Divertissement (John Golland)
- New World Dances (John Golland)
- Saturday Soundtrack (Kevin Malone)
John Turner (solo recorder):
- Spring Dances (John Addison)
- Her Rapture (Robin Walker)
Richard Whalley (prepared piano):
- Kokopelli (Richard Whalley)

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Tags : Coming Soon, Divine Art, John Turner, recorder

Simon Mold’s “Passiontide” Cantata World Premiere Coming to Divine Art

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

7 June, 2022

Following several well-received albums of Simon Mold’s vocal and choral music in recent years, a recording of his Lenten cantata Passiontide for soloists, choir and organ is currently underway in the UK. Premiered in Kent in 2009, Passiontide was conceived as an alternative to Stainer’s Crucifixion, telling the story of Holy Week in the manner of a small oratorio and including several hymns for choir and audience in a nod to the earlier composer’s well-known choral work. Simon Mold has compiled an eclectic libretto that combines some quirky 17^th-century metrical Gospel narrative with a variety of choral and solo reflections; the result is a strikingly accessible work that explores a range of emotions with a sure feel for word-setting and an irrepressible tunefulness, while nonetheless capable of many passages of gravitas, poignancy and lingering beauty.

Highlights include dramatic moments in the Garden of Gethsemane and before Pilate, a searching setting of the Reproaches for choir and soloist, the heart-rending farewell duet for Mary and Jesus and a final scene that taps into the feelings of believer and non-believer alike.

The Gospel Narrator is Philip Leech, tenor (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), Jesus is sung by experienced song recitalist Stephen Cooper (Southwell Minster) and the soprano soloist is Helen Bailey (Royal Academy Opera), along with bass-baritone Jeremy Leaman (Loughborough University) as a taunting Pilate. Roxanne Gull (Christ’s College, Cambridge and Lincoln Cathedral) conducts The Knighton Consort made up of choral specialists. The organist is David Cowen (Oxford, Paris and currently Organist of Leicester Cathedral).

Passiontide (duration around 75 minutes is scheduled for worldwide release in February 2023 in time for the Passiontide and Easter season. It consists of 24 sections.

Simon Mold – author and composer

Simon Mold was born in Buxton, UK in 1957, and following success as a treble soloist in the North West of England became a chorister at Peterborough Cathedral under the legendary Dr Stanley Vann. After reading English Language and Medieval Literature at Durham University, where he was a cathedral choral scholar, Simon embarked upon a teaching career principally in the south of England, and sang in several cathedral choirs. Upon retirement from teaching he joined Leicester Cathedral Choir just in time to take part in the acclaimed Richard III reinterment ceremonies in 2015. His interest in composition began at Peterborough where he directed a performance of one of his own choral pieces in the cathedral whilst still a boy chorister. Subsequently Simon’s music has been widely published, performed, recorded and broadcast: for instance his anthem Come, praise the saints, for choir, organ and 3 trumpets was conducted by John Scott in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and his well-known Candlelight Carol featured in Lesley Garrett’s television series Christmas Voices. Three albums of Simon Mold’s vocal and choral music have been released in recent years, and his verse collection Poetry of the Peak was published in 2019. Simon has also been a regular contributor to various musical and literary magazines, and has written widely on diverse aspects of music, language and literature.

Simon Mold: Passiontide – a Lenten Cantata (DDA 25238)

Artists

Philip Leech (tenor)
Stephen Cooper (baritone)
Helen Bailey (soprano)
Jeremy Leaman (bass-baritone)
The Knighton Consort
Roxanne Gull (conductor)

Dates

Recording dates: April and June 2022 Venue: Mountsorrel Methodist Church, Leicestershire
Release date: scheduled for February 10, 2023

Reviews of previous Simon Mold recordings

“Hush Little Child” – Christmas carols by Simon Mold and Antony Baldwin: “Warmly recommended” – MusicWeb International. “Simon Mod;s writing frequently reveals a fresh creativity whilst his settings of the texts are very convincing.”
– Cathedral Music Review

“Simon Mold: Song Cycles: “Mold’s music is unashamedly conservative, finding stylistic parallels with folk-inspired composers such as Vaughan-Williams. Mold’s song settings keep the home fires burning for highly approachable lyrical expression and amply demonstrate an unerring ear for rhythmic stress and a sure sense of converting feeling into sounds.”
– Opera Today

“The Beatific Vision” – Choral Organ Music by Simon Mold and Charles Paterson: “Bravo. There is much to enjoy on this CD. The musical language (of the Mold pieces) is immediately accessible and serves the text admirably.”
– Organists’ Review

Coming Soon

Tags : Coming Soon, Divine Art, Easter, Simon Mold, World Premiere

Announcing Ian Stephens: Chamber Music

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

30 May, 2022

Divine Art will be adding another exceptionally talented composer to its roster soon. To be recorded later this year, the new album is a celebration of the chamber music of Devon-born composer Ian Stephens, who has made a name for himself with acclaimed works for choir, orchestra, brass band and small ensemble. A cellist himself, his deep love for string instruments shines through in these five pieces; his music has been described as containing “a fathomless richness of harmony, sumptuous depth of orchestration.”

The world-class Fitzwilliam String Quartet is joined by two outstanding guests, clarinettist Mandy Burvill and oboist Jonathan Small, in recordings of two string quartets, a clarinet quintet, an oboe quintet and a duo for clarinet and cello.

Born in Sidmouth, Devon, Ian studied music at Bristol University, and is based near Liverpool. His music has been performed by ensembles including the Brodsky Quartet, Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Northern Ballet Sinfonia, Salisbury Cathedral Choir and Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. He is active as a workshop leader, cellist and double bassist, and is a Composition Tutor at Chetham’s School of Music and a mentor for the Rushworth Young Composer scheme.

For more detail on the composer visit www.ianstephens.net

Ian Stephens: Chamber Music DDA 25237

Springhead Echoes (for string quartet)
North Country (for string quartet)
Clarinet Quintet
Oboe Quintet
Celtic Elegy (for clarinet and cello)

Artists

Mandy Burvill (clarinet)
Jonathan Small (oboe)
Fitzwilliam String Quartet: Lucy Russell & Andrew Roberts, violins, Alan George, viola; Heather Tuach, cello

The recording is being done in two sessions, both at Wyastone Leys concert hall in Monmouth. The first is 17-18 December 2022, the second is March or April 2023, to be confirmed.

Coming Soon

Tags : Coming Soon, Divine Art, Fitzwilliam Quartet, Ian Stephens

Mihailo Trandafilovski’s ‘Polychromy’ to be released in November 2022

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

24 May, 2022

Divine Art’s new-music label, Métier, is to release a new album of solos, duos and a trio by the Macedonian-born composer, violinist and educator Mihailo Trandafilovski — all written for close friends and long-term collaborators: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin), Neil Heyde (cello), Roger Heaton and Linda Merrick (clarinets), Hugh Millington and Saki Kato (guitars), Roderick Chadwick (piano), and Mihailo himself. The recording will be issued on CD and in all digital formats in November 2022.

This album explores idiomatic and uncompromising techniques which, like other aspects of the musical language, stretch in different but complementary directions: spectral / elemental sonorities and more traditional approaches to virtuosity are bound by both harmonic / formal systems and physical directness. “These are pieces”, Mihailo says, “which can only come to life through deeply dedicated performances, in which such techniques become integrated and natural; such are those by the maverick musicians on this recording”.

Peter Sheppard Skærved, Mihailo’s violin-partner in the Kreutzer Quartet, wrote: “Mihailo is a performer-composer in the mould of Telemann, Bartók, Joachim and Liszt. Like them, it is quite impossible to separate his compositional and instrumental imaginations. His contribution to the violin [repertoire] is extraordinary – his works are gifts for audiences and players alike.”

Divine Art CEO Stephen Sutton says that he is delighted to have this new recording in the quickly-growing catalog of contemporary music on Métier, adding “We saw from Mihailo’s previous album ‘Diptych’ (Metier MSV 28582) that within what we might call ‘mainstream contemporary’, that he has a style which is individual, gripping and rather special. That he collaborates closely with his chosen performers means that we have definitive performances from the start.”

Mihailo Trandafilovski studied at Michigan State University (BMus) and the Royal College of Music in London (MMus, DMus). His studies and research have been supported by the Open Society Institute, the Macedonian Ministries of Science and Culture and the British Government (with a Chevening scholarship); among other awards are the United Music Publishers Prize for composition at the RCM and the Panče Pešev Award for best new work at the contemporary music festival Days of Macedonian Music. His music has been issued on several labels and both performed and broadcast widely.

He is a violinist in the Kreutzer Quartet, with whom he has performed and recorded extensively (with many premiere CD and DVD recordings on Métier) and held residencies at Tate St Ives, University of York and Goldsmiths College, among others; he has an avid interest in the application of new music to pedagogy, for which he was awarded his doctorate; and has led a number of shared projects among the arts promoting contemporary artistic creativity to a wider audience.

Polychromy (MSV 29629)

Mihailo Trandafilovski

Chaconne (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Grain-Song (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Šarenilo (violin duo) – Peter Sheppard Skærved & Mihailo Trandafilovski
Polychromy (cello solo – Neil Heyde)
Weaxan (clarinet trio – Linda Merrick, Peter Sheppard Skærved & Roderick Chadwick)
Sandglass (clarinet solo – Roger Heaton)
String Dune(s) (guitar duo – Saki Kato & Hugh Millington)

Recorded in London in April 2022 (recording engineer Adaq Khan)
Release date: November 11, 2022

Coming Soon

Tags : Coming Soon, Métier, Mihailo Trandfilovski, Peter Sheppard Skærved, Roderick Chadwick

New Métier Release of Flute Music by John Buckley

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

11 April, 2022

Divine Art’s new-music division, Métier, is to release an album of music for flute by Irish composer John Buckley. All will be premiere recordings, to be made under the composer’s supervision with engineer Chris Corrigan, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Chris has produced several previous albums for Divine Art and Métier, labels that are developing a strong relationship with the first-class art-music scene in Ireland.

The composer introduces the new set:

“Compositions for flute constitute a significant aspect of my musical output as a composer and now span a period of fifty years. Between 1967 and 1974, I studied flute with the legendary Doris Keogh, in the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin and she greatly encouraged my early efforts at composition. In the interim I have written a wide range of compositions involving flute: solo flute, flute ensembles, various chamber music combinations, a flute concerto, and works for flute and piano.
Composed in 1973, the earliest flute work in my catalogue is Three Pieces for Solo Flute, while the most recent work is In Memoriam Doris Keogh, for flute and piano which was completed in 2022. Both works are included in this album.
Over the years, I have composed a great number of works for Ireland’s leading concert flautist William Dowdall. These include Two Fantasias for Alto Flute (2004), Sea Echoes (2008) for flute with glissando headjoint and Constellations (2009) for multiple overdubbed flutes (bass flute, alto flute, C flute, piccolo). All of these works are included in the current album.
There are two works specifically composed for the album: Five Études for Two Flutes and In Memoriam Doris Keogh. The études are reinterpretations of earlier pieces for two violins, while In Memoriam Doris Keogh is a three-movement piece for flute and piano reflecting on my flute teacher’s broad musical interests.
I am delighted to be able to work with such wonderful flautists as Emma Coulthard (another former pupil of Doris Keogh), Emma Halnan and pianist David Appleton, who also performs two short pieces for piano solo.”

Boireann (MSV 28628)

Five Etudes for Two Flutes
Boireann (flute/piano)
In Memoriam Doris Keogh (flute/piano)
Constellations (flutes)
Three Pieces for solo flute
Two Fantasias for solo flute
Sea Echoes (solo flute)
Airflow (solo flute)
+ Two solo piano works

(all by John Buckley)

Artists:

Emma Coulthard (flutes)
Emma Hanlan (flute)
David Appleton (piano)

Availability: CD and digital audio
Recording dates: flute solos and duos: April 11 & 12. Other works: August 2022
Release date: to be confirmed, probably Jan/Feb 2023.

John Buckley

Born in Templeglantine, Co. Limerick, in 1951, John Buckley studied flute with Doris Keogh and composition with James Wilson at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. His subsequent composition studies were in Cardiff with the Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott, and with John Cage. He has written a diverse range of work, from solo instruments to full orchestra. The list includes numerous commissions, amongst them Concerto for Organ and Orchestra and Campane in Aria for the National Concert Hall, Rivers of Paradise for the official opening of the Concert Hall at the University of Limerick, Maynooth Te Deum for the bicentenary of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and A Mirror into the Light for Camerata Ireland’s inaugural concert, as well as many works for RTÉ.

John Buckley’s catalogue now extends to over 110 works, which have been performed and broadcast in more than fifty countries worldwide. His compositions have represented Ireland on five occasions at the International Rostrum of Composers and at five ISCM festivals. Amongst his awards are the Varming Prize (1977), the Macaulay Fellowship (1978), the Arts Council’s Composers’ Bursary (1982), and the Toonder Award (1991). In 1984 he was elected a member of Aosdána, Ireland’s state-sponsored academy of creative artists. His music has been recorded on the Anew, Altarus, Black Box, Marco Polo, Lyric FM, Atoll, Celestial Harmonies, Divine Art and Métier labels. He has made numerous broadcasts on music and music education for RTÉ and Lyric FM, and his compositions are available on over twenty commerical recordings.

He has been awarded both a PhD and a DMus by the National University of Ireland and was senior lecturer in music at St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University, between 2001 and 2017. A monograph on his life and work, Constellations: The Life and Music of John Buckley by Benjamin Dwyer, was published in May 2011 by Carysfort Press. Further information can be found at johnbuckleycomposer.com

Emma Coulthard

Emma Coulthard studied Flute and Recorder at the Royal Irish Academy of Music with Doris Keogh, and Musicology at Trinity College Dublin. Emma took a keen interest in contemporary music from early in her career, collaborating with Irish Composers including John Buckley, Martin O’Leary and Paul Hayes in the early 1990s. Emma was the soloist for Paul Hayes’s Prix Italia piece ‘Mass Production” and as a singer worked with Michael Holohan on settings of Seamus Heaney poems. In 2018, whilst living in Wales Emma returned to her work with Irish Composers, commissioning and premiering several new works from Fergus Johnston, Paul Hayes, John McLachlan, Graínne Mulvey, Jenn Kirby and Anna Murray which led to performances in Tokyo, Sofia, Cardiff, Dublin and Maynooth. In 2022 she was part of Benjamin Dwyer’s SacrumProfanum project, which has been released on Farpoint, and the ‘Connected Skies’ project with Angela Slater funded by ACE. She has been broadcast on BBC and RTÉ radio and television, and has been published by Music Sales and Trinity.

David Appleton

David Appleton’s most notable body of performance experience has been with the six piano ensemble Piano Circus, with whom he was a co-director between 1994 and 2014. As well as extensive touring in Europe, South East Asia and the USA and South America with the group, notable recordings include the album Transmission (Observer CD of the week in 2001), Future Sound of London with Max Richter and Skin & Wire with the legendary drummer Bill Bruford (2009.) Collaborations also include Pete Townsend: The Lighthouse at Sadlers Wells, Michael Clark: Oh My Goddess, also at Sadlers Wells and touring, plus combining abseiling with pianistic endeavour with aerial theatre company Scarabeus. Work with piano duo partner Kate Ryder (1998-2008) included Three Little Scandals film and live music at the Barbican and critically acclaimed performances of Stockhausen’s Mantra.

Emma Halnan

Emma Halnan first came to prominence as woodwind category winner of BBC Young Musician 2010. She has since appeared at major venues worldwide, and has performed concertos with orchestras such as the London Mozart Players and the European Union Chamber Orchestra. Other competition successes include the Sussex Prize for Woodwind in the Royal Overseas League Competition 2019 and first prize in the Sir Karl Jenkins/Arts Club Award 2016. Emma was selected as a “Making Music” Young Artist 2018-20, and is a City Music Foundation Artist.

Emma studied at the Royal Academy of Music with William Bennett and Kate Hill, and afterwards with Robert Winn. She previously studied at the Purcell School with Anna Pope.

Emma was principal flute of the European Union Youth Orchestra 2014-16. She has also freelanced with orchestras including the London Mozart Players, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, English National Opera and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Emma is a highly reputed and very dedicated teacher. She teaches privately, for the University of Cambridge, and at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Her pupils have gained places in national ensembles and at various conservatoires (both junior and senior departments).

John Buckley on Divine Art

Boireann: Music for Flute and Piano

Price range: £8.99 through £14.99

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‘To the Northeast’ – Choral music by John Buckley

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I am Wind on Sea

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Dancing in Daylight – Piano Trios from Ireland

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Coming Soon

Tags : Coming Soon, John Buckley, Métier

Peter Sheppard Skærved backstage with the violin

New Recording of 17th Century Violin Music from Modena

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

4 April, 2022

The irrepressible violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved is busy preparing quite a number of recordings, of both modern and ancient music, solo and with his Kreutzer Quartet. Next in line from the Athene label is a fascinating and historically informative collection of music from the cultural centre of Modena, around 1690.

The album contains eight pieces from the collection of partitas, Op. 13, by Giovanni Battista Vitali, 14 items by Giuseppe Colombi from a compendium of works published in or near Modena, and four pieces from the Rost Codex, by an anonymous hand. Several of the Vitali works have been recorded in their version for chamber ensemble, but it is believed that this is the first recording of all the works for the solo instrument. The album booklet will contain a note about the ‘crossover’ between solo and ensemble variants of works from this part of the late 17^th century.

The recording was completed in February and is to be scheduled for release in the autumn, the exact date to be announced in due course.

Peter Sheppard Skærved has built a formidable reputation for his musicological research, as well as his writing, teaching, and concert and recording performances, and has access to some of the world’s most treasured instruments, several of which are featured in Athene’s ongoing ‘Great Violins’ series. On this recording Peter plays a recently rediscovered Andrea Amati violin from 1572 and an even earlier, though anonymous, instrument from Brescia. The album is in a way a sequel to the recent ‘Florish in the Key – the Solo Violin in London 1650-1700’ (Athene ATH 23211).

Athene Records was originally founded in 1993 to issue recordings of historic square pianos; it was acquired by Divine Art and is the group’s main home for early and baroque music and historic instruments.

The violin in Modena (ATH 23214)

Partite sopra diverse sonate, Op. 13 (Giovanni Battista Vitali)

Toccata
Bergamasca per lettera B
Ruggiero per la Lettera B
Capriccio sopra li cinque passi
Capriccio di Tromba
Furlana
Passo e Mezzo per la Lettera E
Barabano

From ‘Scordature e Composizioni Varie’ (Giuseppe Colombi)

Tromba da violino solo, Mus. F. 283 e Mus E .282
A Corde Doppie, Mus. E. 34
Allemanda, Mus. F. 283
Corrente, Mus. F.283
Corrente a Due Corde, Mus. F.283 e E. 280
Allemanda, Mus. F. 283
Allemanda, Mus. F. 283
Sarabanda, Mus. F. 283
Giga, Mus. F. 283
Sarabanda, Mus. F. 283
Allemanda, Mus. F.283
Scordatura, Mus. F 283 e E. 282
Ciacona a Solo, Mus. E.282
Passemezzo, Mus. F.283

From the Rost Codex (anonymous)

Allemanda in D major
Allemanda in A major
Allemanda in A major
Sonata in A major

‘Mus’ references are to scores contained in Manuscript MS 244 in the Biblioteca Estense, Modena (volume DM 1240)

Peter Sheppard-Skaerved on Divine Art

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Gilbert Rowland To Record His Third Album of Froberger Harpsichord Suites

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

31 March, 2022

English harpsichordist Gilbert Rowland is preparing the third volume in his ongoing series presenting the complete Suites for Harpsichord by Johann Jakob Froberger. The album is to be recorded at Holy Trinity Church, Weston, Hertfordshire on 11-14 July 2022, with engineer John Taylor who produced all of Gilbert’s previous Divine Art and Athene recordings. The first two volumes attracted much praise:

“A glorious sound and enjoyable music recorded in a resonant acoustic, giving a truly luscious sound. Rowland plays with energy and a good forward drive.” —David Griffel (Harpsichord & Fortepiano) on volume. 1

“One of the finest recordings of Froberger’s harpsichord music I have heard, with a wonderful-sounding instrument and magnificent playing from Rowland.” —Stuart Sillitoe (MusicWeb International) on volume 1

“Froberger’s music is individual in nature and ground-breaking – he was one of the first composers to settle the ‘dance-movement’ style. These are thrilling and authoritative recordings by Gilbert Rowland of wonderful music.” —John Pitt (New Classics) on volume 2

“Froberger’s music – in this splendid rendition by Gilbert Rowland – reveals huge variety and baroque beauty. Clever, ingenious and melodious engaging and attractive works.” —Stuart Millson (Quarterly Review) on volume 2

Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667) was a highly accomplished composer of the middle baroque and is usually credited with inventing the ‘baroque suite’ used with variations by Bach, Handel and countless other composers; certainly it was his idea to set the ‘backbone’ of the Suite as the four dance movements of allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue. He was extremely prolific and indeed several works (including Harpsichord Suites) have been discovered only recently.

Gilbert Rowland first studied the harpsichord with Millicent Silver. Whilst still a student at the Royal College of Music, he made his debut at Fenton House 1970 and first appeared at the Wigmore Hall in 1973.

His mentors have included Kenneth Gilbert and Fernando Valenti. Recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, appearances at major festivals in this country and abroad, together with broadcasts for Capital Radio and Radio 3 have helped to establish his reputation as one of Britain’s leading harpsichordists.

His numerous records of works by Scarlatti, Soler, Rameau and Fischer have received considerable acclaim from the national press. The recording of the 13-CD set of Soler sonatas with Naxos was completed in 2006. He also recorded a CD of Sonatas by Albero for London Independent Records, which was released in 2009. He joined Divine Art in 2010 to record the harpsichord suites by Handel, followed by those of Froberger and Mattheson. Gilbert Rowland is assigned to Divine Art’s specialist early music label, Athene.

J. J. Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, Volume 3 (ATH 23213 – 2CD set, double digital album)

Works

Harpsichord Suites by Johann Jakob Froberger

Suite in A minor, FbWV 630
Suite in F major, FbWV 617
Suite in A major, FbWV 638
Suite in F sharp minor, FbWV 646
Suite in E flat major, FbWV 654
Suite in E minor, FbWV 651
Suite in D minor, FbWV 639
Suite in A minor, FbWV 601
Suite in D major, FbWV 624
Suite in G minor, FbWV 609
Suite in E minor, FbWV 623
Suite in B minor, FbWV 652
Suite in E major, FbWV 656

Previous Recordings

Johann Jakob Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, Vol. 4

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Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, volume 3

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Handel: Suites for Harpsichord, volumes 1-3

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Froberger: Suites for Harpsichord, vol. 2

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Johann Jakob Froberger – Suites for Harpsichord, volume 1

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Johann Mattheson: 12 Suites for Harpsichord

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Handel: Suites for Harpsichord, Vol. 3

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Handel: Suites for Harpsichord, Vol. 2

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Handel: Suites for Harpsichord, Vol. 1

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Coming Soon

Tags : Athene, Coming Soon, Froberger, Gilbert Rowland

COAL: Cutting-Edge Saxophone Music Coming to Métier Records

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

29 March, 2022

New signings to the Métier New Music division of Divine Art include composer Dorone Paris and saxophonist Noam Dorembus, both Israelis, though Dorone Paris has been resident in Ireland ten years.

They have collaborated on the recording of three modernist/experimental works for saxophone, to be released as a lower-price ‘mini-album’ CD, and digital /streaming options, under the title COAL. The recording, just made, is currently (March 2022) in post-production and will be scheduled for release in the autumn.

COAL explores the vast colours and possibilities of saxophones by examining and channeling the compounded challenges of the last several years: from a climate crisis to a global pandemic to the possibility of international nuclear war.

This album of saxophone works from Dorone Paris is performed by saxophonist Noam Dorembus. The pieces in the album include Hollow Memory for duo saxophones (performed together with Maayan James), Abyss for solo saxophone and loop and saxophone quartet (performed together with Maayan James, Eli Korman & Kim Kedar). The last piece in the album is All the Roads Are Blocked for solo tenor saxophone and echo.

Dorone Paris is a composer and artist specialising in Installation, Performance Art and Political Composition. Her work has been performed throughout West and Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Her international education and practice have gained her a unique approach to Music and Art in general. She also has a long track record of participating and lecturing in conferences, which are reflected by her varied and unusual connections in the New Music world.

Dorone holds a PhD in Music Composition from University College Cork in Ireland. Being raised in Israel influenced her political ideas and affected her musical creativity, aesthetics and philosophy. Her work focuses mainly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and women’s rights. She is the founder of PATH art: an organisation dedicated to convincing her people that a peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians is both possible and necessary. She, together with Sylvia Hinz, is the founder of ArtEquality: a non-profit organisation and an activist movement for equality and feminism that offers support to artists whose work concerns gender equality.

Noam Dorembus is an Israeli saxophonist and creator; he specialises in Classical and Jazz music. Among his performances, Noam has given the Israeli première of Ari Ben-Shabtai’s composition ‘Angel’s Tears’ for saxophone and orchestra, that was conducted by the renowned Mendi Rodan. Noam has also been performing together with harpist Ada Ragimov as part of the Dorembus Ragimov Duo, playing classical repertoire and with his Jazz Trio, playing jazz standards and originals. Noam is part of the Kerem Saxophone Quartet. He also plays with the Revolution Orchestra, The Haifa Symphony Orchestra as well as the Jerusalem East & West orchestra. Noam was a member of the Jerusalem Saxophone Quartet led by Prof. Gersh Geller and a founding member of The Apples, An Israeli based funk, jazz and groove band.

He graduated from The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and is currently teaching in the Conservatoire there.

COAL (MSV 92019)

All Works By Dorone Paris

Abyss
All the Roads are Blocked
Hollow Memory

Performers

All tracks: Noam Dorembus (tenor sax)
Abyss/Hollow Memory: Maayan James (alto sax)
Abyss: Eli Korman (soprano sax); Kim Kedar (baritone sax)

Coming Soon

Tags : Coming Soon, Dorone Paris, Métier, Noam Dorembus

Announcing A New Chamber Music Album for Composer Robin Stevens

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

17 March, 2022

Following the January 2022 release of the critically acclaimed album of his cello and piano music (DDA 25217), Manchester-based British composer Robin Stevens is currently recording a programme of his chamber music for mixed ensembles, entitled Chasing Shadows. The major work on the disc is Robin’s four-movement Clarinet Quintet, featuring Hallé Orchestra clarinettist Rosa Campos. This piece embraces, in a contemporary idiom, all the sweep and ambition of Brahms’ own famous work in the genre.

The remainder of the album demonstrates Robin’s penchant for writing for unusual and neglected combinations of instruments. His Romantic Fantasy for Harp Septet – employing the same forces as Ravel’s ground-breaking Introduction and Allegro – is a powerfully original composition encompassing an unbroken twenty-minute span. The Fantasy Trio for Flute, Cello and Classical Guitar explores the exciting sonic possibilities latent in this felicitous grouping of instruments, and a further dramatic contrast in timbres is provided by two miniatures for double bass and piano.

This project is blessed with a stellar cast of instrumentalists, including guitarist Craig Ogden, harpist Clifford Llantaff (BBC Philharmonic Orchestra), and Hallé Orchestra principals Amy Yule (flute) and Nicholas Trygstad (cello).

Chasing Shadows (DDA 25236)

Composer Robin Stevens

Works

Quintet for Clarinet and Strings
Rosa Campos (clarinet); Sophie Rosa & Rosemary Attree (violins) ; Alistair Vennart (viola) ; Nicholas Trygstad (cello)
Fantasy Trio
Clifford Llantaff (harp) ; Craig Ogden (guitar); Nicholas Trygstad (cello)
Obsession
Chasing Shadows
Alex Jones (Double Bass); David Jones (piano)
Romantic Fantasy
Clifford Llantaff (harp); Rosa Campos (clarinet); Amy Yule (flute/piccolo) ; Katie Stillman & Rosemary Attree (violins); Christine Anderson (viola); Nicholas Trygstad (cello)

Coming Soon

Tags : Chasing Shadows, Coming Soon, Divine Art, Robin Stevens