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 Fronting the album is Romanian violinist Sherban Lupu, who has been for almost ten years avidly researching the unpublished manuscripts left by Ysaÿe.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.
We are sorry to learn of the passing of the celebrated soprano Jane Manning on 31 March, at the age of 82. From her first appearances, Jane became one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary vocal music; her rendering of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire in 1965 is still regarded by many as definitive and she performed the work well over 100 times. She introduced new works by many composers and was also a highly regarded teacher, lecturer and writer. She made two recordings for Métier in the 1990s, introducing opera and vocal works by Edward Harper and Lyall Cresswell. Click here for a longer biography.
Writing for piano has been central to Graham Lynch’s composing for many years now. This new album is based mainly around recent works, and has been recorded by American pianists Paul Sánchez and Albert Kim. An ongoing series of pieces, the White Books, have been further developed here, with White Book 3 being commissioned and recorded by Sánchez. This set of five pieces was inspired by the paintings of leading British artist Christopher le Brun. White Book 2, performed by Albert Kim, is also on the programme, and its six pieces have varied and diverse starting points, including Matisse and Lorca. (note: White Book 1 was recorded by Mark Tanner for Priory Records some years ago).
The recording also includes a number of shorter single movement works. Absolute Inwardness, with its introspective mood that draws on German romanticism, contrasts with the French influence in The Couperin Sketchbooks. And the disc ends with Ay!, a slow and intense piece that absorbs elements of tango and flamenco. All of the works are melodically rich, with complex keyboard textures set against passages of beautiful simplicity.
Divine Art CEO Stephen Sutton remarked: “We are overjoyed to have this new album from Graham. He has the rare ability to write new and fresh sounding music which is highly tuneful and full of life, but never facile or simplistic. Knowing some of his works from harpsichord from a previous album we knew that he has a remarkable talent.”
Graham Lynch’s music has been commissioned and performed in over thirty countries, as well as being frequently recorded commercially and featured on radio and television. Performers of his music include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Singers, Orchestra of Opera North, The Eastman Sax Project, and Mahan Esfahani. His works have been played in venues as diverse as the South Bank, Wigmore Hall, Merkin Hall New York, Paris Conservatoire, Palace of Monaco, at the Venice Biennale, and from the Freiberg Jazz Club to a cake shop in Japan, and everything in between. Six works by Graham Lynch, including Ay!, were recorded by Finnish harpsichordist Assi Karttunen on the album Beyond the River God (Divine Art DDA 25120) together with music by François Couperin, a major influence on Lynch.
Album details:
Graham Lynch: Piano music (album title to be confirmed) Label: Divine Art Catalogue number: DDA 25221 Release date: to be confirmed, late 2021 Recorded in 2020 in the USA
The Fryderyk Award is the most important annual music award in Poland, and is awarded in 10 categories across classical music. The Huberman Duo & Trio (Barbara Karaśkiewicz, Magdalena Ziarkowska-Kołacka & Sergei Rysanov)’s recent 20th Century Polish Chamber Music album has been nominated in the “Best Polish Album Abroad” category!
About the Fryderyk Awards:
Fryderyki are prizes awarded by the Phonographic Academy, i.e. a jury appointed by the Audio Video Producers Association, which consists of over 1.5 thousand people. artists, creators, producers, journalists and representatives of the phonographic industry. Fryderyk nominees are selected by secret ballot of all members of the Academy, which is divided into three sections: popular, classical and jazz music. Members of the Academy may belong to only one section and only within that section have the right to vote. Thanks to this, everyone has the opportunity to express themselves in the field of music that is closest to them. It was members of the classical music section who voted for the nominees announced today in 10 categories.
Divine Art Records is delighted to announce the forthcoming release of an album of piano music by Scott Joplin and his collaborators. Largely avoiding the well-known rags which have been recorded so many times, on this new album American pianist Marilyn Nonken explores the music and influence of Scott Joplin, on a unique recording that features rags, concert waltzes, and novelties, as well as Joplin’s collaborations with Louis Chauvin, Joseph Lamb, Scott Hayden, and Arthur Marshall.
Acclaimed for her interpretations of works by early twentieth-century composers such as Arnold Schönberg and Charles Ives, Nonken turns her attention to their contemporary, Joplin, whose music – often mischaracterized as a simply American vernacular – reveals his close ties to opera and vocal genres. In Joplin’s works and those of his students and colleagues, one recognizes a heretofore underappreciated worldliness, elegance, and virtuosity. Taken together, these compositions celebrate the lively artistic community of which Joplin was the central figure, highlighting the underappreciated lyrical and dramatic range of ragtime itself.
Pianist and musicologist Marilyn Nonken has been heralded as “a determined protector of important music” (New York Times) and “one of the greatest interpreters of new music” (American Record Guide). Writes Fanfare: “Her virtuosity is equalled only by the insight and passion with which every piece is imbued.” Since 2006, she has been Director of Piano Studies at New York University’s Steinhardt School.
A student of David Burge at the Eastman School, she is the author of The Spectral Piano (Cambridge, 2015) and Identity and Diversity in New Music (Routledge, 2019). She has recorded more than 30 discs, and has published widely on various topics in 20th-century music. Her two albums of spectral piano music for Divine Art’s Métier label have received superb reviews and her recording of the piano music of Tristan Murail is Métier’s best-selling title.
A Steinway artist, Dr. Nonken lives on New York’s historic Lower East Side with her husband, two children, four cats, and a tortoise.
The new collection which is titled ‘Syncopated Musings’ is to be recorded in New York in April and is scheduled for release around October 2021.
Album Details
Title: Syncopated Musings Label: Divine Art Catalog number: DDA 25220 Artist: Marilyn Nonken (piano)
Works
Heliotrope Bouquet: A Slow Drag Two Step.( Scott Joplin/Louis Chauvin, 1907)
Hot on the heels of the latest album of organ music by Carson Cooman (DDA 25218, “Antiphonies”) played by Erik Simmons, Divine Art returns to Cooman the performer for a new disc of music by Polish composer Marian Sawa.
Carson Cooman is only 38 but has become one of the most important figures in American musical life, as a composer of over 1300 works, an active concert organist, writer, reviewer and an active consultant to musicians in many areas of business including estate management and publishing. This new album will be his fifth for Divine Art as performer of works by another composer. The organ used is the remarkable 2014 Fleiter of St. Ludgerus in Billerbeck Germany, recorded via the Hauptwerk system.
Marian Sawa (1937-2005) has become very well known in his native Poland, but his name and work has not yet been discovered by the international community although an album of his violin music was issued by Naxos a few years ago. His music is now being promoted by the Marian Sawa Society (Towarzystwo im. Mariana Sawy) to which Carson Cooman is a consultant. His organ works are powerful, distinctively modern yet essentially tonal and can compete with any of the major organ works of the 20th century. Stephen Sutton, CEO of Divine Art, remarked to Cooman on first hearing this album, that in his view this music is magnificent, and deserves to give Sawa a far greater reputation than he currently enjoys outside Poland.
Recorded between December 2020 and February 2021, this new recording will be released on CD and in all digital /streaming formats in July.
Album Details
TITLE: Marian Sawa: Music for Organ Catalogue Number: DDA 25219 Playing time: 76:12 PERFORMER : Carson Cooman
In the medieval Scottish Borders, a young boy is bewitched – into the form of an ape, an adder, a speck of dust. But is it his shape that twists and churns, or that of the world around him? WOAD is a fashion-opera about metamorphosis and parallel worlds – from the team behind the groundbreaking WEAR (“spellbinding…an opera of rare imagination” – Boulezian) and ROBE (“highly inventive…wonderfully original” – Artmuse London). Created with the award-winning soprano Kelly Poukens and international saxophonist Suzy Vanderheiden, Alastair White’s WOAD adapts the Scots myth of Tamlane to ask: in a multiverse of endless possibility, what becomes of our potential, our regret?
The work will have its world premiere stage performance in Belgium in March 2022 using Poukens’ experimental theatricality alongside the high fashion of designer Renli Su in a live digital event.
This world premiere recording will be released by Métier Records in late 2021 (MÉTIER MSV 28617) on CD and Hi-Res digital download and streaming.
Alastair White explains, “Tamlane is a traditional myth of metamorphosis which, through its imagery, can be read as an exploration of the mutable, transformative nature of the body: how, in adolescence, for example, our bodies are recast and divided through time as a series of separate versions of ourselves. In WOAD, these ideas are used to aestheticise the social implications of the multiverse: where versions of events coexist in different areas and types of space. The work contextualises this against the backdrop of the social change foregrounded by the current health crisis, relating the themes of metamorphoses and quantum ‘flickering’ to socio-historical revolution and the possibility of a break with the horrors of multinational capitalism.
“The piece engages these themes by further developing the compositional methodology devised in the creation of WEAR and ROBE. For this particular piece, we attempted to create a sense of material objectivity in the phenomenological apprehensions of the listener. This is achieved through the overlay of different compositional methodologies that each imply mutually exclusive approaches of listening. It is hoped that this interpretive complexity allows the listener a series of different paths and perspectives: a constantly changing experience that is marked by the collapse of other possibilities. This was expanded throughout the process in collaboration with Kelly and Suzy, where we attempted to radically incorporate contingency into every aspect of the work. We are trying to find a way of dramatising absolute change, and the potential this implies, without it being neutralised to mere indeterminacy or simply another referent within the work’s limits.”
Kelly Poukens is an international artist whose recent highlights include Regan in King Lear (Holland Opera) and solo recitals at the Henry Le Boeuf Hall. Saxophonist Suzy Vanderheiden’s distinguished career sees her tour worldwide, currently as a soloist with her saxophone quartet and in the Royal Harmonie Tessenderlo. Shortlisted for several Scottish art awards, composer-librettist Alastair White’s work is characterised by a lyrical complexity described as “virtuosic” (Winnipeg Free Press), “passionately atonal” (Gramophone) and “deftly manic” (American Record Guide). Renli Su is a globally-recognised fashion designer whose collections are characterised by her sense of nostalgia: where a love for old craftsman’s techniques is balanced with innovative, modern methods. Fashion curator Gemma A. Williams is author of Fashion China (Thames & Hudson). WOAD is produced by UU Studios, a fashion-opera collective co-founded by Williams and White.
Organist Erik Simmons’ ongoing recording series of the organ music of American composer Carson Cooman continues with Vol. 14, a collection of diverse pieces from 2013–20. Two suites, Three Autumn Sketches after a Watercolor by Maria Willscher and Suite circulaire, are joined with a series of varied single movement piece—ranging from the intense, monolithic memorial of Preludio del ricordo, to the calm stasis of Desert Marigold, to the ebullient energy of Fantasia canonica. The new album follows a year-long break after 13 instalments in this series which has produced glowing reviews for Cooman’s seemingly endless inspiration and ability to produce a vast output (he has reached Op. 1365 by the age of 39) of fresh and imaginative works. The album features the wonderful voices of the Orgel Fleiter instrument (2014) at the Propsteikirche St. Ludgerus in Billerbeck, Germany, recorded with the awesome Hauptwerk system. The instrument has 72 speaking stops across four manuals and pedals and has been designed predominantly in the grand French symphonic style.
Erik Simmons started playing the organ at age 10 when he was a chorister at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Glendale, California. His primary organ teacher was Richard Slater. Erik has furthered his studies by working with Lanny Collins, Barbara Baird, and Lee Garrett, and through master classes with various clinicians, including Harald Vogel. Erik holds a BA in applied mathematics and MS in mathematical modeling from Humboldt State University. He has recorded many CDs, including one of the organ music of American composer James Woodman, and this ongoing critically-acclaimed series of albums of the music of Carson Cooman for Divine Art.
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 substantial number of commercial recordings and more than 3,000 recordings available online. Cooman is also a writer on musical subjects, producing articles and reviews frequently for several 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.
Album details:
Release date: May 15, 2021 Title: ‘Antiphonies’ (Carson Cooman Organ Music Vol. 14) Recorded between August 2020 and January 2021 Label: Divine Art Catalog number: DDA 25218 Performer: Erik Simmons (organ)
Works:
Fantasia canonica
Two from the British Isles:
Prelude on ‘Kingsfold’
Postlude on ‘Hyfrydol’
Three Autumn Sketches after a watercolor by Maria Willscher
Divine Art Recordings Group announces the forthcoming release on its Métier label of an album of music for solo violin by Hafliði Hallgrímsson, performed by the outstanding soloist Peter Sheppard Skærved. The great Icelandic composer Hafliði Hallgrímsson began his professional life as a virtuoso cellist. His deep understanding of the limitless potential of string instruments underpins the poetry and lyricism of his musical language, resulting in music which is instantly recognisable. Hafliði is also an extraordinary artist: there’s a subtle interweave between his work in both media. His scores themselves are visually beautiful, a joy to work with, and to read.
Peter Sheppard Skærved has worked with Hallgrímsson since 1995. He regards this composer’s unique voice, emotional clarity, and uncompromising approach to sound and colour as a profound influence on the development of his work on the violin. Peter has played the music all over the world, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. He premiered the first version of ‘Klee Sketches’ in Mexico City in 2005, and the final version of the full cycle in a performance of all of Hallgrímsson’s solo violin music in Reykjavík in 2019.
The album will be scheduled for release in the early summer of 2021.
Album details
TITLE: Hafliði Hallgrímsson: “Offerto”: Music for solo violin LABEL: Métier CATALOG NUMBER: MSV 28616 PERFORMER: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) WORKS:
Klee Sketches Op 32 (2005-2019)-Book One
Klee practising an accompaniment for a popular song
And now for the art of string crossing
Klee experimenting with a new scale
Klee takes a legato – line for a walk (version B)
Do not neglect your pizzicato Herr Klee
Frau Klee is sleeping (version B)
Klee entertaining Kandinsky
Offerto (1991) (in memorium Karl Kvaran) to Guðný Guðmundsdóttir
Written in sand
Lines without words
The Flight of Time
Almost a Hymn
Klee Sketches Op 32 (2005-2019) Book Two
Klee the artist plays his violin
Klee ‘sounds out’ an etching he is contemplating
Frau Klee is sleeping (Version A)
Klee sketching a tree
Klee performing at the grave of his father
Klee observing a large butterfly
Klee takes a legato – line for a walk (Version A)
Klee notates birdsong in the aviary
Recorded on May 15th and July 3rd 2019. St Michael’s Highgate, London Musical Supervision by the composer Produced by Peter Sheppard Skærved Engineered by Jonathan Haskell of Astounding Sounds
British composer Robin Stevens (b. 1958) is embarking on a recording of his music for cello and piano, to be recorded in the first three months of 2021. The performers are Nicholas Trygstad, lead cellist of the Manchester-based Hallé Orchestra (with whom he recently played the Elgar Cello Concerto), and David Jones, Head of Keyboard Accompaniment at the Royal Northern College of Music, also in Manchester, who made a superb pianistic contribution to Robin’s 2020 CD of wind music, Prevailing Winds. The largest piece on the album will be the expansive, single-movement Sonata Romantica, a predominantly lyrical composition which also incorporates expressive use of microtones, including in particular, and rather unusually, thirds of a tone. Most of the remainder of the disc comprises shorter pieces in Robin’s personal brand of accessible Modernism: here the composer’s intimate knowledge of the cello (he is himself a music-college-trained cellist) comes to the fore in miniatures of considerable power and originality. By way of contrast, the set will also showcase the lighter side of Robin’s output in his tuneful Balmoral Suite, five movements portraying different members of the royal family, including an affectionate depiction of Prince Philip in his centenary year. The album is due to be released in the Autumn of 2021.
Robin Stevens: Music for Cello and Piano (DDA 25217)
Label: Divine Art
Recording Date: Jan – Mar 2021
Album Release Date: Autumn 2021
Performers:
Nicholas Trygstad, cello
David Jones, piano
Works for cello and piano:
Sonata Romantica
Balmoral Suite
Say Yes to Life
On the Wild Side
3 Character Pieces
3 Epigrams
A Birthday Trifle
Works for solo cello:
Unfailing Stream
Sospiri
Sound and Fury
Much Ado about …
Carried on a Whimsy
This collection follows two previous releases by Divine Art of Stevens’s works, both of which received very high critical praise:
A new mini-album or ‘EP’ is to be launched later this year by Métier, the new-music division of Divine Art Recordings. The sole work on the new recording is the 25-minute ‘Great Women’, for voice and electronics, by Irish composer Gráinne Mulvey, performed by Elizabeth Hilliard.
This work was commissioned by the Great Music in Irish Houses Festivalto mark its 50th anniversary in 2020 with funds from the Arts Council / An Comhairle Ealaíon, which also gave financial support to the recording project. The recording is to be made in Dublin in February and will be released to coincide with the Great Music in Irish Houses Festival 2021 in June.
The piece is a celebration of the strong, remarkable Irish women who have helped shape the social and political landscape through their striving for equality and liberation. Among those whose words are set are pioneering patriots such as Countess Markievicz and Rosie Hackett, alongside such equally inspiring contemporary figures as Ireland’s former Presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, extracts from whose inaugural speeches are embedded in the textures of the live and tape parts.
The tape part includes readings from Markievicz’ letters and excerpts from Rosie Hackett’s account of events leading up to the 1916 Rising. The readings were recorded by renowned soprano, Elizabeth Hilliard, for whom this work was written and to whom it is gratefully dedicated.
Almost all sounds on the tape derive from those recordings treated in the manner of musique concrète (with just a very few “atmospheric” field recordings added), while the live part uses many extended vocal techniques such as overtone singing, fragmentation of text, vocalise, etc. The aim is to integrate the recorded sounds and live voice into a single continuum, giving the work a sense of unity reflecting the shared vision, aspiration—and, above all, struggle—of generations of Irish women through the last century.
Both composer and performer have earned recognition for their fine work in the contemporary music field, whether in concerts, recordings, teaching or adjudication. Gráinne Mulvey was born in Dublin, studied under Nicola LeFanu at the University of York and in Belfast with Agustin Fernández. She was appointed Professor of Composition at Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama in 2018. Her music has been performed and broadcast across the globe, she has received numerous commissions and several of her works have been recorded by both Métier and other labels. Elizabeth Hilliard is an exceptional singer based in Dublin, widely regarded as an able, imaginative and dramatic interpreter of new music. She has worked in close collaboration with several composers and champions Irish art music and composers and is beginning to achieve recognition in the UK and USA as well as her native country.
Great Women (MDS 29007)
Work: Great Women
Composer: Gráinne Mulvey
Performer: Elizabeth Hilliard (soprano) with electronics
Divine Art Records is delighted to announce the forthcoming re-issue of a stunning recording by Riverside Symphony of orchestral works by the Romanian-French composer Marius Constant (1925-2004). Best known in the classical world for his ballet scores, his most widely known work is the original theme to the TV Series ‘The Twilight Zone’. His “pure” orchestral music displays remarkable expressive depth, unbounded imagination and sheer sonic beauty, exemplified in the works on this album which show why this great composer’s name should be much more widely known. Turner is a suite of three movements, each inspired by a J.M.W. Turner painting; Brevissima is a four-movement symphonic argument compressed into ten gripping minutes, and 103 regards dans l’eau is a wonderful and extensive violin concerto of over 30 minutes, made up of 103 vignettes in four movements, inspired by poetic and philosophical observations of water.
The album is due to be released in early April 2021. It was first issued by Riverside Symphony in 2014 and while attracting great acclaim, was not at the time distributed globally.
Marius Constant emigrated to Paris from Bucharest in 1945 and became an important fixture in that city’s musical life. He served as Roland Petit’s Music Director at the Ballets de Paris for over 10 years and was in constant demand as a composer, conductor and teacher for the following 50+ years. Not unlike his close friend Henri Dutilleux, Constant, though by no means a reactionary, was over-shadowed internationally by the ascent of the avant-garde, as exemplified by Pierre Boulez. In an 11-minute video feature (included on the CD), Riverside Symphony directors George Rothman and Anthony Korf explain their discovery of Constant’s music and make a case for the composer’s renewed legacy.
Olivier Charlier is internationally recognized as an important representative of the French school of violin playing, joining such artists as Jacques Thibaud, Ginette Neveu, and Christian Ferras. Showing precocious talent, he graduated with a Premier Prix from the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM) at the age of fourteen, then won acclaim at international competitions, including Munich, Montreal, Helsinki, Paris, Indianapolis, and New York. Nadia Boulanger, Yehudi Menuhin and Henryk Szeryng are among the musical figures who encouraged the young musician early in his career. Mr. Charlier has performed with nearly fifty different French orchestras, as well as with major orchestras around the world. His active recording career reflects his eclecticism; it includes violin concertos by Dutilleux, Lalo, Gregson, and Gerard Schurmann, as well as Mendelssohn and Saint-Saëns.
George Rothman, Music Director of Riverside Symphony since its inception, has guest conducted throughout the Far East, Europe, South America, and the United States. He has led world and New York premieres of major American and European contemporary composers at Lincoln Center while championing emerging composers on an international scale through readings, workshops, and recordings. In addition to the standard repertory, he has focused on lesser-known works by noted composers from all periods, ranging from the Baroque era to 20th century masters, and has presented New York premiere performances of works by Prokofiev, Ravel and others.
A native New Yorker, Rothman trained at the Manhattan School of Music, The Juilliard School, Queens College’s Aaron Copland School of Music, and, as a scholarship student, at Tanglewood Music Center, where he studied with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. Currently a member of Brooklyn College’s Conservatory of Music faculty where he serves as Music Director and Conductor of the Conservatory Orchestra, his prior academic affiliations include Columbia and Yale Universities.
Riverside Symphony, co-founded in 1981 by George Rothman and Anthony Korf, has been widely noted for its unique focus on discovery — discovery of young artists, unfamiliar works by the great masters, and important new pieces by living composers from around the world, for which it provides a rare forum at its annual Lincoln Center concert series at Alice Tully Hall. Critically acclaimed for its vibrant performances of music from all periods, the orchestra counts New York’s finest instrumentalists among its membership.
Riverside Symphony recordings have brought international acclaim, including a Grammy nomination and Editor’s Pick from Gramophone and The New York Times. The orchestra can be heard on Bridge Records (9057 Ruders; 9091 Imbrie; 9112 Davidovsky; 9294 Korf) and New World Records (383 Davidovsky, Korf, Wright).
Marius Constant: Orchestral works (DDA 25216)
Release date (worldwide, CD, digital and streaming): April 9, 2021*
Riverside Symphony, directed by George Rothman
Works:
Turner (1961) 12:45
Brevissima (1992) 10:11
103 Regards dans l’eau (1981) 30:40 (violinist: Olivier Charlier)
“The title alludes to England and its music. Cuckmere: A Portrait is the transformed score for a film about a river, the idiom a cheerily naturalised minimalism.”
Our latest release from our Vyacheslav Artyomov Retrospective, Album XI, featuring a selection of live and studio performances of Artyomov’s chamber works performed by top Russian musicians has been nominated for the 2021 International Classical Music Awards for Contemporary Music!
Album XI
Vyacheslav Artyomov is considered by many to be Russia’s greatest living composer. His music is deep, ultimately spiritual and brilliantly crafted, with influences from the Russian symphonic tradition colored by Mahler, Scriabin, Honegger and Messiaen to name a few – but melded into a unique voice.
The Divine Art Artyomov Retrospective (which to date has received wonderful reviews internationally) is a mix of new recordings and former Melodiya releases. This is the eleventh album, containing a selection of studio and live concert performances of chamber works for slightly unusual combinations: flute quartet, and saxophones much to the fore. Apart from ‘Hymns of Sudden Wafts’ and Clarinet Sonata these are all premiere releases. The works are performed by some of the best of Moscow’s orchestral and chamber musicians and represent a somewhat lighter (though the term is relative) side to Artyomov’s work than his massive, granitic symphonies. It includes a touching set of songs on poems by Ashot Grashi.
![🙌 The debut single from soprano Esther Rayo and pianist Peter Grünberg is officially out now! Listen to “Al amor” from Fernando Obradors’ Canciones Clásicas Españolas, Vol. 1 on all top digital platforms today: listn.fm/estrellita [in bio]](https://scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.71878-15/553359447_639721268980221_8264629150304005839_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=101&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&efg=eyJlZmdfdGFnIjoiQ0xJUFMuYmVzdF9pbWFnZV91cmxnZW4uQzMifQ%3D%3D&_nc_ohc=ZAu1izCyJ6EQ7kNvwGVnNzt&_nc_oc=AdmJ-wI-But3Crni1b5xt8WOw_0HIPyIvAfTHgWuwoSCrDL-0JCUa2U0Tt9ondPwlvU&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw5-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=UwNRc82w_7SFNQsQ82AD5w&oh=00_Aff67UnAnk7Aa_JI8oHrSMmih3VwEfsbK9SbSiEE8Hk5GQ&oe=68E4FAB9)
