Divine Art Recordings Group is delighted that the distinguished English composer Bernard Hughes (b. 1974) has joined the label for an album of his complete (so far) output of works for solo piano. The composer describes the works as “an eclectic collection” which covers a period of over 25 years. The oldest piece dates back to his student years at Oxford and the most recent is a brand new suite (simply named “Suite”) in which Hughes transforms Baroque dance forms into something quirky and new. The rest of the music ranges from the large-scale Strettos and Striations to little occasional pieces written for the composer’s children. The album represents the culmination of many years of collaboration between Hughes and the pianist Matthew Mills, who commissioned and will premiere the new Suite. The recording is to be made in the spring of 2022 in Belgrade and is scheduled for release in the autumn of next year.
Bernard Hughes studied music at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford and Goldsmiths College, London. He received a Ph.D in composition from Royal Holloway College and was then appointed as Composer-in-Residence at St. Pauls’ School. Bernard’s music has been widely performed and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and across Europe. His latest commission Birdchant was chosen to receive its premiere by the BBC Singers at the 2021 Proms; he has composed operas, choral and vocal works as well as piano music, to great acclaim. A recording of his choral music was issued on Signum Classics in 2016, and will be followed by a further choral album in 2022 on Delphian Records.
Matthew Mills is an established pianist and himself an accomplished composer and also the founder and owner of publishing company Wild Woods Music which includes Bernard Hughes amongst its roster of composers. He now lives in Montenegro.
‘Bagatelles’ (DDA 25231)*
Composer: Bernard Hughes
Artist: Matthew Mills
Works
Suite (in 7 movements) O du liebe meine liebe Bagatelles (12 movements) Beginner’s Guide to Boiling a Nourishing Egg Strettos and Striations Miniatures (12 movements) Song of the Walnut Song of the Button Three Studies Cradle Song
Violinist Aisha Syed Castro may well be one of the most remarkably gifted musicians to come from the Dominican Republic and the team at Divine Art are tremendously excited to have signed this young virtuoso for an album of works with American and Latin roots.
Aisha (born 1989) began to study violin at the age of four, and only two years later was a member of the Children’s Symphony Orchestra. At the age of 11, she made her debut with the National Symphony Orchestra, becoming their youngest solo performer. In 2002 she entered the Yehudi Menuhin School in London, the first Latin American to be accepted there, followed by studies at the Royal College of Music. She has performed in the UK, in Israel, Spain, Switzerland, USA (Carnegie Hall), Abu Dhabi, Lithuania, many South American countries and in her home country. She has been described as a virtuoso by the music press in the USA, Germany and Lithuania.
Aisha is the Honorary Cultural Goodwill Ambassador of the Dominican Republic and works tirelessly through charitable ventures (some of which she founded) to bring classical music to the underprivileged and socially disadvantaged, part of her work as a devout Christian to serve humanity. She won the Premio Soberano award as Best Classical Artist Abroad in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2019. She has released four previous albums.
In her new album (title to be finalized but possibly to be called ‘Heritage’) Aisha has brought together a program of works that have special meaning for her, from Spanish/Latin/American sources, including extracts from ‘West Side Story’, works by the Dominican maestro Rafael Solano, music from black composers Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and William Grant Still, and well-known little masterpieces by Piazzolla, Granados and Albeníz. A special piece for the artist is ‘Aisha’s Dance’ from Khachaturian’s Gayaneh ballet, which she has played since she was 15. This recording was made in April 2019 in England. Aisha’s musical partner here is pianist Martin Labazevitch who also arranged the closing track, a medley of hymns dear to Aisha including a beautiful rendering of the timeless ‘Amazing Grace’.
The album will be scheduled for release in February 2022.
Heritage (DDA 25229)
Artists: Aisha Syed Castro (violin) & Martin Labazevitch (piano)
Works
Una Primavera para el Mundo (Rafael Solano) Oblivion (Astor Piazzolla) West Side Story (Bernstein): America / Somewhere / I Feel Pretty Aisha’s Dance (Khachaturian) Tango por una Cabeza (Gardel, arr. John Williams) Suite for Violin and Piano (William Grant Still) Spanish Dance (Granados, arr. Solano) Danse Orientale from Scheherezade (Rimsky-Korsakov, arr. Kreisler) Tango (Albeníz, arr. Solano) Deep River, Op. 59 No. 10 (Coleridge-Taylor) Aisha’s Prayer (arr. Labazevitch)
Congratulations to Orlando Jacinto García on his 2021 Latin GRAMMY® nomination for Best Classical Contemporary Composition! His nominated work is his String Quartet No. 2, “Cuatro” performed by the Amernet String Quartet on our Métier release of his String Quartets Nos. 1 – 3. See the full list of nominees here, and make sure to tune in on November 18, 2021 at 8pm EST on Univision for the awards ceremony.
The music of the Cuban-American composer Orlando Jacinto Garcia inhabits a sonic universe of its very own, one where the musical landscape is constructed in order to evoke a thorough suspension of time. The three works on the present release correspond almost precisely to the past three decades of Garcia’s career and thus present for the interpreter and listener alike a kind of survey of his development. Garcia’s mentor and teacher was Morton Feldman and the aesthetic of Feldman and his inspiration are preoccupations which color several of Garcia’s compositions.
Garcia writes music that aims to suspend time. His syntax has a personal originality that sets it apart from other composers. A special thing, serious and expressive, thoughtful; sincere, intimate and a musical world unto itself. The Amernet String Quartet perform all three quartets with care, precision, and understanding. Recommended.”
—Grego Edwards, Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
Divine Art has announced the signing of the exceptionally talented Russian cellist Marina Tarasova for a recording of the Suites for Solo Cello by J.S. Bach.
Marina Tarasova is an acclaimed Russian cellist, the winner of international competitions in Prague, Florence, and Paris, she was awarded the laureate of the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, and is an Honored Artist of the Russian Federation. Marina Tarasova’s wide repertoire covers works of composers from the 17th century to the 20th. She has worked with many famous musicians, such as Mikhail Pletnev, Mariss Jansons, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Kurt Masur, Edward Grach and Yuri Bashmet among others. She has recorded much Russian repertoire for Northern Flowers, and has joined Divine Art to explore non-Russian repertoire more actively.
The cellist believes that Johann Sebastian Bach, universally hailed as one of the greatest composers of all time, is often interpreted in an overly academic and formal way. In fact, he was a passionate and creative man, and this is evident in his writings and in his actions. For example, his biographer Philipp Wolfrum wrote that Bach’s impetuous artistic nature probably pushed him to extremes: when Bach with divine obstinacy demanded to be released from his contract at Weimar, in order to take up a new post with Prince Leopold, it led to a harsh confrontation, as a result of which Bach was arrested at the behest of Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar (for what we might now call “breach of the peace”) and was obliged to spend four weeks in prison.
Marina Tarasova’s interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello, emphasizes the living dynamic reality of the composer’s work, not formalized studies but music full of vitality and spirit. Stephen Sutton, CEO of the Divine Art group, expressed his delight at securing this project. “We look forward very much to the completion of Marina’s new recording. She has an inspirational approach to Bach and can bring his music to life for new young generations of music lovers as well as those of us who (a little older) often had to suffer quite dull and academic readings which hid the real magic of Bach’s genius.”
The recording is taking place currently in Moscow with esteemed Tonmeister Alexander Volkov (who has produced previous albums for Divine Art) and will be scheduled for release in the spring of 2022, though the exact date has not been fixed.
J.S. Bach – The Suites for Cello Solo (DDA 21238)
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach Performer: Marina Tarasova
Works
Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV1007 Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008 Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009 Suite No. 4 in E flat major, BWV 1010 Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011 Suite No. 6 in D major, BWV 1012
The latest signing among 20 new artists joining the Divine Art Recordings roster this year is the brilliant, radical, and forward-looking Chinese pianist Jenny Q Chai, whose new recording of Schumann, Bach and Ives is scheduled for release in February.
Described as ‘an artist of singular vision’ Jenny Q Chai is widely renowned for her ability to illuminate music of many centuries. Whilst thoroughly grounded in core repertoire (and a special affinity for the works of Scarlatti, Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Debussy and Ravel) she has developed a strong expertise in new, groundbreaking and experimental music and techniques, working with many contemporary composers including Jarosław Kapuściński, Cindy Cox, Andy Akiho, and György Kurtág. She is also a noted interpreter of the works of Cage, Messiaen and Ligeti.
Jenny is also a leading champion of the synchronous-score-following software Antescofo and was instrumental in testing and honing the program which offers a real-time computerised animation response to live performance elements, enabling performers to create sophisticated, fluent and relevant multimedia presentations. Jenny has toured internationally with the software giving multimedia performances in Shanghai, New York, Havana and several other cities.
Ms Chai made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2012, Wigmore Hall in 2018 and she has given lectures and recitals in many countries. In 2019 she became a piano faculty member at University of California Berkeley, an alumni mentor at the Curtis Institute of Music, and an official career mentor at the Manhattan School of Music. Her studies took place at Manhattan, at Shanghai Music Conservatory, Curtis Institute and Cologne University of Music and Dance. She has previously recorded for Naxos, MSR, ArpaViva and Duetschlandfunk and she has been the recipient of a number of competition prizes and awards.
Proving that an artist working so much at the cutting-edge of experimental media can still be an astoundingly good interpreter of core repertoire, Jenny Q Chai presents this album as a special tribute to her teacher and mentor Seymour Lipkin. Born and raised in China, Jenny was accepted at the age of 12 into the Curtis Institute of Music to study under Seymour Lipkin for seven years. She credits Lipkin with giving her a wide and solid musical understanding. At 18, Lipkin introduced her to Schumann’s Kreisleriana, which she performed at her graduation. The work has ‘lived inside of me’ as the pianist puts it, and this new recording of the work is devoted to the man that Jenny calls her ‘music grandpa’.
(a more detailed biography and ‘dedication’ statement are available and will be included in the album booklet)
Songs of Love (DDA 25228)
Label: Divine Art
Artist: Jenny Q Chai
Works:
Robert Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16
J S Bach: Aria from Goldberg Variations, BWV988
Charles Ives: The Alcotts (3rd movement) from Piano Sonata No. 2 (‘Concord’)
January 2022 will see the release of a mini-album (31 minutes duration, longer than an ‘EP’) on the mid-priced Diversions label, containing five arias from operas by British composer James Cook.
The album showcases items from the operas Jane the Quene (2014) and Abishag (2019). The former relates the tale of Lady Jane Grey, the tragic ‘nine days Queen’ who so briefly ascended to the throne (but was never formally crowned) in July 1553. Abishag dramatizes a story found in the First Book of Kings.
Both operas have a young female character at their centre, sung by soprano Joanna Songi. Tenor Roberto Abate sings three roles: Queen Jane’s husband, Lord Guilford Dudley, and Abishag’s lustful suitor (Adonijah), and her true love, Solomon.
The role of the dying King David in ‘Abishag’ is sung by baritone Adam Green in David’s Liebestod, the title of the aria (and the album) an indirect tribute to the work of Wagner in Tristan und Isolde.
The piano accompaniment is played by Paul McKenzie.
James Cook (b.1963) briefly studied composition at Oxford University during the Hilary Term of 1994. Prior to that he composed works which include ‘A Carrollean Symphony’, ‘Symphony in Yellow’ and the ‘Jude the Obscure Symphony’. After his stint at Oxford, he wrote sacred vocal music, much of which has been released on the Divine Art and Diversions labels. From the year 2000, he turned to writing organ music and in 2006 completed a sequence of nine organ symphonies, four of which have also been released by Divine Art.
Since 2010 he has concentrated on composing opera, four of which make up a cycle of Biblical operas. His first opera, Dorothy was performed by Secret Opera at Theatre N16 in London in December 2015.
“David’s Liebestod” — operatic extracts by James Cook (DDV 24170)
Artists
Joanna Songi (soprano)
Roberto Abate (tenor)
Adam Green (baritone)
Paul McKenzie (piano)
Tracks
Abishag: Opening Scene
Abishag: Closing Scene
Abishag: David’s Liebestod
Jane the Quene: Gentle My Aylmer
Jane the Quene: Love’s Farewell
Duration: 31.50
To be released in CD and digital formats on January 14, 2022
Chris Gekker is Professor of Trumpet at the University of Maryland School of Music. He appears as soloist on more than thirty recordings and on more than one hundred chamber, orchestral, jazz, and commercial recordings. Formerly a member of the American Brass Quintet, principal trumpet of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and on the faculties of The Juillard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Columbia University. In 2018 he was named a Distinguished University Professor, the first from Maryland’s School of Music to receive this honor.
Divine Art is delighted to announce two new albums from clarinettist Helen Habershon with pianist John Lenehan, both due for release in the first quarter of 2022.
For Found in Dreams, Helen has once again collaborated with John Lenehan and they offer a wonderfully diverse collection of repertoire. This includes beautiful arrangements of some of their favourite pieces; a couple of short movements of outstanding clarinet repertoire by Brahms and Finzi and some delightful new compositions of their own. As well as his beautifully crafted arrangements John has also written two lovely pieces to add to Helen’s.
Throughout history, mankind has been intrigued by the idea of dreams and Helen is no exception. As she says: “It’s interesting that all happenings begin as an idea and in order to get an idea one has to be in a receptive place. When creating I find myself in a kind of timeless space, rather like a daydream. I love the freedom of dreams, anything can happen. There are no boundaries and we are free to explore with no limits. The theme of ‘dreams’ came quite naturally and many of the pieces in the album reflect this.”
Helen and John have also recorded a second album of clarinet works by Brahms and Finzi, including Brahms’ F minor sonata and Finzi’s 5 Bagatelles (extracts from which appear on Found in Dreams) as well as four of Brahms’ glorious songs arranged for clarinet and piano.
Pianist John Lenehan has performed all around the world and has more than 70 recordings to his credit, with much critical acclaim including a Gramophone award. He was praised by The New York Times for his ‘great flair and virtuosity’. One of the most versatile pianists on the concert circuit today, playing major concertos, chamber music, solo recitals and jazz, he is also an accomplished arranger and composer with two songs and several arrangements on these new albums.
Album Details
Found in Dreams DDA 25225
Artists: Helen Habershon (clarinet), John Lenehan (piano)
Works
Après un rêve (Gabriel Fauré, arranged by John Lenehan)
Stephen Wilkinson, the eminent British choral conductor, composer, BBC producer, and energetic friend of countless British composers, died on 10th August at the age of 102. Those who knew him well thought of him as well-nigh immortal, as indeed his musical legacy should certainly be. He must surely be the most distinguished and highly regarded choral conductor of the second half of the twentieth century. A full appreciation will be published in the British Music Society news in the near future. Wilkinson’s music has been recorded on several labels, most recently Prima Facie; two of his songs can be found on ‘The Wagon of Life’ (DDV 24168).
Zoe Samsarelou is a well-known Greek pianist and currently a Professor at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki. She is also the Artistic Director of the International Pelion Festival. She studied the piano in Greece and Germany (Berlin and Hamburg). Having also studied archaeology and then pursuing a career as a pianist, she has been closely connected to mythology, history and the Arts her entire life.
This has led her to present in a new double album recording a unique series of compositions, under the title “Ekstasis – Dionysus, Nymphs and Satyrs”, which will be scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2022.
The god Dionysus (also known as Bacchus) had ardent supporters throughout the ancient Greek world, making his cult the most popular in classical Greece. He is primarily the god of fertility and vegetation and his worship was identified with mystical religious ecstasy. It is believed that ancient drama, the tradition of tragic and comic performance – one of the most complete forms of expression that combined poetry, music and dance – originated in Athens from the cult of Dionysus in the 6th century B.C.E.
The two discs (and digital programmes) include pieces (some of them recorded for the first time) by the following three groups of composers:
by the French clavecinists, such as Couperin, Rameau, Dandrieu and Daquin
by international composers of the 19th-20th century, such as Debussy, Séverac, Dukas, Schmitt, Bortkiewicz, Levitzki, Farjeon, and Juón, and
by many eminent Greek composers of the 20th-21st century, including Koumentakis, Marangopoulos, Nasopoulou, Skalkottas, Taylor, Terzakis and Tonia.
All pieces chosen have a strong and direct relation to the myth of Dionysus and its symbolism. This unique programme highlights the creativity and ingenuity of the Greek spirit and its influence on humanity for over 2,500 years.
The recording was made in the Dimitris Mitropoulos Hall, Megaron, Athens, on June 24 and 25, 2021.
The album was produced by Zoe Samsarelou, engineered by Nikos Espialidis, and mastered by Konstantin Kontos.
Ekstasis: Dionysus, Nymphs and Satyrs
Label: Divine Art
Catalogue no.: DDA 21237
Availability: CD, download in HD and SD formats, and streaming
Artist: Zoe Samsarelou (piano)
Works:
La Sirène (Jean-Francois Dandrieu, 1682-1738)
Les Naïades et le Faune indiscret (Déodat de Severac, 1872-1921)
Prelude of Naïades (Lina Tonia, b. 1985)
Satyr und Naïdaen (Dimitri Terzakis, b.1938)
La Ronde Bachique (Louis-Claude Daquin, 1694-1772)
La plainte, au loin, du faune (Paul Dukas, 1865-1935)
From Tethys to the Mediterranean (Giorgos Koumendakis) **
Et Pan, au fond des blés lunaires, s’accouda (Florent Schmitt, 1870-1958)
Procession to Acheron (Nikos Skalkottas, 1904-1049)
6 Epigraphes antiques : No. 1 Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d’été
And No. 4 Pour la danseuse aux crotales (Claude Debussy, 1862-1918)
Huis Clos – Erinyes (Nestor Taylor, b.1963)
Les Cyclopes (Jean-Philippe Rameau, 1683-1764)
Pictures from Greece, Op. 13 (Harry Farjeon, 1878-1948)
Dionysus and the Pirates: the Voyage from Ikaria to Naxos (Dimitris Marangopoulos, b.1949)
La Bacante (Jean-Francois Dandrieu, 1682-1738)
9 Miniaturen für klavier “Satyre und Nymphen“ (Paul Juón, 1872-1940)
Krokeatis Lithos-Lakonia (Apasia Nasopoulou, b. 1972)
** From the collection ‘Mediterranean Desert’. Koumendakis rose to fame as the musical director and creator of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics.
On 17th August 2021 at the Round Chapel, in London, Alastair White’s RUNE fashion-opera will receive it’s world premiere performance as part of the Tête à Tête Festival. There will also be an interactive broadcast of the show on 17th September. Learn more and purchase tickets at tete-a-tete.org.uk
Re-opening theatre doors with a grand fashion-opera spectacle, RUNE is a vast cosmological fantasy from the team behind the award-nominated ROBE (“excellent” – BBC Music) and WEAR (“spellbinding” – Boulezian) — featuring an ensemble of three grand pianos, contemporary dance with interactive sculpture, and high fashion by Ka Wa Key.
On a planet where history is forbidden, a young girl dares to tell her story. A voyage across galaxies and millennia, hers is a tale of the archipelagos of Khye-rell and their matterwork, through transdimensional canals and sealanes to the RUNE of the universe’s origin. This song, her story — through the very act of being told — will have consequences beyond imagining…
The interactive broadcast will include a Q&A with the creative team.
Supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Hope Scott Trust, the Marchus Trust, the Royal Musical Association, the RVW Trust and the Sarah Caple Scholarship.
Opera Today has published a fantastic new piece looking at Gráinne Mulvey’s Great Women work for voice and electronics, recorded by soprano Elizabeth Hilliard. The article looks at the women whose words are heard as part of the piece, and breaks down the new recording:
Elizabeth Hilliard’s performance is a veritable tour de force of vocal sound, experimentation and expression. In conversation, the Irish soprano explained to me that, as a soprano, she has been working with Gráinne Mulvey (who is a member of Aosdána and Professor of Composition at Trinity University Dublin Conservatoire of Music) for over a decade now. Her initial musical training did not, however, begin in the field of vocal studies. When an injury prevented her continuing her studies in piano and violin, Elizabeth switched to the voice, supported by a very active vocal department at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. She worked to improve her German and French language skills, to develop her vocal and operatic technique, but her curiosity about contemporary music was strong. “I always wanted to explore contemporary repertoire as a pianist,” Elizabeth explains, “but I wasn’t good enough. There is just so much information to absorb and process; but, with singing there was an immediate and instinctive path into the music.”
British composer and arranger Robin White is the latest addition to the roster at Divine Art Edition, the music publishing arm devoted to works recorded for the Divine Art group of record labels. The first three works to be published in the autumn will be White’s Russian Suite for Clarinet and Orchestra, based on traditional and folk themes, and two arrangements (also for clarinet and orchestra : Rimsky-Korsakov’s Clarinet Concerto (originally written for military band under the title Konzertstück in E flat) and Vittorio Monti’s brilliant Czardas.
These three works appear in a recording of White’s arrangements which also includes pieces by Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky, entitled ‘From Russia’ (Divine Art DDA 25223) featuring clarinet soloist Ian Scott with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Robin White. The album is due for release on September 10, and it is hoped that the scores will be ready for publication at around the same time.
Divine Art Recordings is delighted to announce a forthcoming album of musical and historical importance, which presents first-ever recordings of works by the great Belgian composer Eugène Ysaÿe, whose known violin works are masterpieces of their genre. Fronting the album is Romanian violinist Sherban Lupu, who has been for almost ten years avidly researching the unpublished manuscripts left by Ysaÿe. All the works here are receiving their first recordings; it should be noted that the Violin Concerto here is NOT the same work (also recently rediscovered) which has been recorded by Nikita Boriso-Glebsky.
The production of this album originated from Sherban Lupu’s tribute to the great 20th century violin teacher Joseph Gingold, who made significant contributions to violin teaching in the United States. Gingold was a pupil of Ysaÿe during his stay in Belgium from 1927 to 1930 and Lupu studied with Gingold in his studio at Indiana University in the 1970s.
In 2012, Lupu started his journey to discover Ysaÿe’s remaining manuscripts by visiting the libraries of Brussels and Liège, the main libraries containing most of his personal archives. He found some very interesting things in the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels, though the main sources of this album were discovered in the library of The Royal Conservatoire of Liège. Lupu edited the pieces on this album out of the manuscripts, adding fingerings and bowings, and readied them for performance use. This album is a result of several years of effort by Lupu, similar to previous contributions he has made to the Romanian violinist and composer George Enescu, the dedicatee of Ysaye’s Sonata no.3, “Ballade” for solo violin.
One of the world’s leading performers of George Enescu’s music, Sherban Lupu is professor emeritus of violin at the University of Illinois and has been artistic director of the Gubbio Festival in Italy. Solo appearances include The Kennedy Center, Gstaad Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elisabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Berlin Philharmonic Hall and Carnegie Hall. He has also performed the Brahms and Tchaikovsky violin concertos in live broadcasts with the BBC Orchestra and has appeared as soloist with the Northern Israeli Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Lupu has published eight volumes of previously unknown works for violin by George Enescu. The works were discovered, edited, and arranged by Sherban Lupu. Since December 2011 Mr. Lupu has been President of the George Enescu Society of the United States.
In addition to concert tours and masterclasses Mr. Lupu is presently pursuing several other recording projects, such as the complete works for violin by Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst.
The inaugural Ciccolini Competition for pianists was held at the beginning of the year – and of course was ‘virtual’ because of lockdowns. The jury, appointed by the Ciccolini Foundation as sponsors and organizers of the competition, made two awards, to the overall winner and runner-up, including a sponsored debut recording to be released by Divine Art; the programs for the recordings have now been determined and are listed below. The recordings are to be made in southern Italy, probably in Trani or Foggia as soon as relaxation of Covid lockdowns allows. The Company CEO Stephen Sutton says: “We are obviously very keen to move forward with these recordings, and eagerly await news of the sessions, but safety is paramount, especially as one winner will be travelling from Ukraine.”
Winner of the First Prize is 24-year-old Ukranian Violetta Fialko. Violetta entered the Lysenko Music School in Kiev at the age of 9, graduating in 2016 to enter the Kiev Conservatory where she is currently studying for her Master’s degree. She has participated in many competitions often winning first prize (Olympiad Voice of the Century, Golden Time (UK)) and performs as both soloist and chamber musician. She hosts a classical music program on the Emannuel station and is currently working at the Academy of Musical Arts in Kiev and the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, an interdenominational school in Kiev.
Violetta’s program includes her two winning competition pieces. It is a well-balanced set of pieces in the Russian Romantic and post-Romantic traditions, an exhilarating and demanding program. (Details below)
Second prize was awarded to the young Italian pianist Gabriele Micheli, who is 22. Like Violetta he also gained admittance to a music school at 9, this time to the Conservatoria Santa Cecilia in Rome. Graduating with honours in 2017 he then went on to obtain his Master’s degree also at Santa Cecilia in 2020. He has won many international competitions and has contributed to concerts and festivals in Italy, Bulgaria, Denmark and Germany so far.
Gabriele chose a program which presents keyboard music from different eras: the baroque, Romantic and 20th Century. (Details below)
To provide a special home for these talented artists and those who follow in subsequent competitions, Divine Art is creating a new ‘Debut’ series, purely for Ciccolini Prize Winners.
Album details:
Violetta Fialko
Divine Art DBU 20211
Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 4 in F sharp major, Op, 30
Nikolai Medtner: Piano Sonata “Reminiscenza”, Op. 38 No. 1
Sergei Prokofiev: 10 Pieces from “Romeo and Juliet”, Op. 75
Anatoly Lyadov: Prelude, Op. 11 No. 1
Anatoly Lyadov: ‘Biyul’ki’, Op, 2
Gabriele Micheli
Divine Art DBU 20212
Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata in A minor, K. 217
Johannes Brahms: Theme with Variations in D minor, Op. 18b
Johannes Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Books 1 & 2, Op. 35
Later this year Divine Art Records will release an album of Russian music arranged for clarinet and orchestra by Robin White. In some ways an old-fashioned potpourri of tuneful, enjoyable music, though all of the arrangements are new, the album presents some well-loved pieces in a new and fresh soundworld. The works include a new orchestration of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Clarinet Concerto (originally scored for military band), a suite of Russian folk songs, popular lollipops by Tchaikovsky and items from Mussorgsky’s unfinished comic opera ‘Sorochinski Fair’. The program ends with a non-Russian work, but one which has been immensely popular and is heard anew in this clarinet arrangement: Monti’s Czardas.
The recording was made in two sessions with musicians ‘socially distanced’ due to Covid regulations, an interesting challenge for the recording engineers to achieve a natural balance of sound – which they have mastered wonderfully.
Arranger Robin White, who also conducts, trained at Imperial College and the Royal College of Music, both in London and has enjoyed a varied and busy career. His first album of Edwardian light music (Chandos 1992) was a very successful title on Classic FM and he has since recorded ballet and choral music for Silva Classics, Classic Fox and Claudio. He also appeared with his own choir in an episode of the British TV soap opera ‘EastEnders’ in 2002. As an arranger, his work has been broadcast by BBC orchestras and featured in Australia.
On this new recording Robin White conducts the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, the soloist being the Sinfonia’s principal clarinet, Ian Scott.
Ian Scott studied in Scotland and the USA. He has been guest principal with several major London orchestras, toured the Far East with the Gulbenkian Orchestra and appeared as soloist with I Solisti Veneti and Orchestra da Camera. He has recorded British concertos for ASV and Dutton and joined the Royal Ballet Sinfonia after being principal of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon.
The Royal Ballet Sinfonia is Britain’s busiest ballet orchestra, playing for the Royal Ballet in London, the Birmingham Royal Ballet and other major companies including the Kirov, New York City Ballet and the Australian Ballet. It also performed with Royal Opera’s acclaimed production of Turandot at Wembley Arena.
Album Details
Title: “Russian Music for Clarinet” (working title) Label: Divine Art Catalogue no.: DDA 25223
Artists
Ian Scott (clarinet) Royal Ballet Sinfonia Robin White (conductor)
Children’s Album, Op. 39 – Waltz in E flat (Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
Six Romances, Op. 6 – No. 6 ‘None but the Lonely Heart’ (Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
Czardas (Vittorio Monti)
All works arranged for clarinet and orchestra by Robin White. Recorded at the Henry Wood Hall, London in September 2020 (engineer Paul Crichton) and March 2021 (engineer Tony Faulkner) under partial lockdown conditions
Métier Records, the new-music imprint of the Divine Art group, is to release in the autumn of 2021 an album of works for violin solo and violin/piano by the esteemed Romanian composer Dan Dediu.
The composer explains that all four works on this album share the process of hybridisation, i.e. they start from existing music and combine it and then transform it in a new manner. Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni is mixed with themes from Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem Don Juan, Rouget de Lisle’s French hymn La Marseillaise is filtered through Stravinsky’s arrangement for solo violin, and snippets cut from across the history of music paradoxically join together to sound like hybrid mythological beasts. Dediu revisits the music of the past with great refinement, masterfully combining subtle hints and effective hooks from this colossal reservoir. The sonic result is an attractive one, at once vernacular and ecumenical.
Instrumental virtuosity is another common feature of the tracks on the recording. From the pizzicati and spicy effects of the mottled and piquant Griffin to the fiery cascades of sound and telluric rhythms of the Dragon (both from ‘A Mythological Bestiary’), from the spiralling melody and eerie harmonies of the Sonata Op. 7 to the harmonics in the variations that compress the form towards the end of La Marseillaise, the whole musical development is permeated by the trepidations of virtuosity.
Finally, modularity is a third common stylistic feature. The narrative trajectory of Dan Dediu’s music is built from imaginary characters strung together through miniatures in a modular, puzzle-like design. These imaginary or livresque characters form the expressive basis of the various dramatic situations staged by the composer’s overflowing imagination.
This manner of composition can be called metastilism, for it starts from one or more historical styles and then comments on them, illuminating uncharted nooks and dusty and forgotten niches, from which musical ore is extracted and transformed into a new, creative language, like philosophers commenting on ancient texts, extracting new meanings and forging new concepts.
The two cycles for violin and piano – Don Giovanni/Juan and A Mythological Bestiary – were specially composed for the performers on this album, the charming and charismatic duo Irina Muresanu and Valentina Sandu-Dediu.
Dan Dediu (b.1967) has composed orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal and piano works as well as music for stage, that have been widely performed throughout Europe. He has won numerous competitions, and prizes, and leads the composition department at the National University of Music in Bucharest, as well as being the rector of the University.
Irina Muresanu is an internationally renowned violinist who has performed in solo and chamber music throughout the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and South Africa. She has also developed a reputation as a compelling and elegant interpreter of contemporary music and her concerts have more than once been cited by the Boston Globe as among ‘The Best Classical Performances’. Her recordings include the complete violin sonatas of William Bolcom, and works by T.O. Lee, Guillaume Lekeu, Alberic Magnard, and Marion Bauer. She has won numerous top prizes, and obtained her Doctorate in Musical Arts from the New England Conservatory. A dedicated educationalist, she has taught at Boston Conservatory, Harvard and M.I.T. and is currently Associate Professor at the University of Maryland.
Valentina Sandu-Dediu is an acclaimed musicologist, author of ten books, 30 studies and over 300 articles and has also produced several books of university lectures. She is currently a professor at the Department of Musicology and Education at the National University of Music in Bucharest and also the University’s Doctoral Adviser. She has also been a Fellow of the New Europe College since 2010 and is now its Rector. Also a highly praised pianist, she has made recordings of Dan Dediu’s solo piano works and an album of Romanian music for clarinet and piano.
ALBUM DETAILS:
Label: Métier Catalog number: MSV 28621 Title (tentative): ‘Hybrids, Hints & Hooks: The Age of H’
Works (all composed by Dan Dediu:
Don Giovanni/Juan, Op. 53 (violin & piano)
Sonata for solo violin, Op. 7
À la recherché de La Marseillaise de Stravinsky, Op., 134 (solo violin)
Métier Records is delighted to announce two related albums to be recorded this year featuring the music of esteemed British composer Edward Cowie. Since linking up with Métier (part of the Divine Art group) Cowie has seen two albums of string quartet and orchestral music respectively issued to enormous critical acclaim. Métier’s CEO Stephen Sutton is now working with Cowie on no less than ten new projects, to culminate in a 5-album festival to mark the composer’s 80th birthday in 2023.
The composer, who has a sizeable and diverse output, has told Sutton that he is composing better than ever and Sutton believes this will be proved by the forthcoming recordings of orchestral, chamber and vocal music all planned for 2021.
Cowie’s music is almost always inspired by or descriptive of the natural world, its workings and inhabitants (and accompanied by marvellous pictorial art, of which Cowie is also a master). This is borne out by the two albums in preparation which are inspired (like, but very much unlike Messiaen) by birds and their song, “Bird Portraits” and “Where Song was Born”.
NOTE: both albums are due to be recorded in London in the summer, exact dates remain a little uncertain as UK lockdown eases; release dates to be confirmed, between October 2021/February 2022
Bird Portraits (MSV 28618)
24 STUDIES FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin); Roderick Chadwick (piano) Edward Cowie is no stranger to the inspirational attractions of the forces of Nature. For more than four decades now, he has frequently musically responded to many kinds of habitats all over the world and to many different types of sounding creatures. It is this lifelong study and experiencing of wild nature with his own unique and powerful sonic translations of those experiences that have earned for him the just accolade ‘considered by many to be the greatest living composer directly inspired by the natural world’. In this brand new cycle of 24 ‘sonic portraits’ of different British birds from 4 distinctive habitats, Cowie has drawn even closer to composing music that not so much imitates nature, but that -through many forms of study and extensive field-work- has led to new music with highly original treatments of the relationships between singers and where and how they sing. Comparisons with Messiaen might be expected but Cowie’s music is in a world and sonic habitat of its very own. Virtuosic, brilliantly coloured and magnificently diverse, this is music for all of the senses, and from a composer who uses all of his own senses under the spells of Nature.
WHERE SONG WAS BORN 24 STUDIES FOR FLUTE(S) AND PIANO Sara Minelli (flute); Roderick Chadwick (piano) Once, it was thought that the great bird-songsters evolved in the Northern hemisphere. Elaborate and sophisticated ornithological study has revealed a total reversal of that view. The greatest birdsongs first appeared in the Southern hemisphere actually- Australia especially. In recognition of that discovery and in an act of remembering Cowie’s extraordinary 12-year residence in Australia, here we have an incredible cycle of ‘bird-portraits-in-sound’ drawn, (literally in Cowie’s case, since a great deal of his music is primed and prepared through acts of drawing and painting), from some of Australia’s most individual and brilliant bird-songsters. Like its succeeding and ‘sister’ duo-cycle Bird Portraits, a singing bird is placed within its own distinctive habitat and in its own temporal dimensions and forms. This, like the British Bird cycle, is a journey and a sonic tapestry inspired by both place and events occurring in both space and time. Intriguingly, Cowie likens sonic gems like these to ‘a kind of collection of sonic icons where each bird symbolises the ‘saint or angels’ of those great religious miniatures’. Cowie has one simple imperative that drives music like this; he seeks to ‘charm and charge both mind and senses.’
We were saddened to hear of the death on January 11 of British composer John G. Ramsay. John was a professor of geology by profession, but a very fine composer of both chamber and orchestral works. His style was basically tonal but also thoroughly inclusive, making use where appropriate of modernist and serial techniques. His inspiration was sometimes programmatic, such as in the ‘Charles Darwin’ string quartet and his music can also be described as neo-Romantic. Individual and deeply thought-out, his music deserves a wider audience. His four string quartets were recorded by the Fitzwillam String Quartet for Métier and published by Divine Art Edition. More information in his biography.
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