Now available in time for the holidays for all music lovers in your life — you can purchase a gift certificate in any amount to be used by the receiver to buy any item from the Divine Art online store: CD, digital audio, sheet music, and more!
Better still as a thank you for introducing new customers to us, your gift certificate will automatically carry a 10% discount, so if you buy one for $20, it only costs you $18. And like any other product it can be priced in US dollars or British pounds, depending which ‘flag’ you click at the top of the page.
English composer Peter Hope reaches his 90th birthday on November 2nd, 2020. Famous for his very longrunning theme for BBC TV news, and of course his wonderful Divine Art album ‘Wind Blown’ (DDA 25137). We send our very best wishes and virtual cake to Peter on this special day.
High Romantic piano works and transcriptions make up the latest album from Turkish-American pianist Zeynep Ucbasaran, to be released early in 2021 by Divine Art Records. The year 1847 saw Franz Liszt arrive in Istanbul (then still called Constantinople) to spend six weeks in the Ottoman capital. Liszt created much interest with the public and in the Sultan of the Ottoman Court, Abdul Medjid, for whom he performed twice. The Erard company shipped over ‘ a beautiful piano with seven octaves’ for Liszt to play. One of the pieces that Liszt played in the Court was his brilliant paraphrase on a march by Giuseppe Donizetti for the Sultan. Donizetti was the Sultan’s Chef d’Orchestre and the brother of the more famous Gaetano.
Zeynep Ucbasaran celebrates this creative time in her home country’s capital with a program of Liszt works and pieces by Chopin and Weber, which Liszt performed during his visit. The pianist, who now lives and works in California, is making her debut solo album for Divine Art, having featured in both duos and trios recently: with Sergio Gallo in another program of mainly mainstream works (“Liszt to Milhaud”, Divine Art DDA 25208) and with Gallo and Miguel Chavaldas in “The Three-Piano Project” on Divine Art DDA 25207.
LISZT IN ISTANBUL (DDA 25213)
Franz Liszt :
Magyar Dalok (Hungarian Melodies), S. 242
Introduction et Polonaise de l’opéra I Puritani de Bellini, S. 391
Réminiscences de Lucia de Lammermoor de Donizetti, S. 397
Grande Paraphrase de la Marche de Giuseppe Donizetti, composé pour sa Majesté le Sultan Abdul Medjid-Khan, S. 403
Over the past few years, Divine Art Records and its new-music imprint Métier have developed an ongoing series of albums of music by composers from the Irish Republic, to quite considerable critical acclaim. The latest addition to this collection will be the first album celebrating the choral music of Rhona Clarke, a Dublin based composer who has created a wide range of work in which choral and vocal music play a significant part. The programme spans a period of almost thirty years from A Song for St Cecilia’s Day (1993) to the four-movement Requiem (2020), written during ‘lockdown’ due to the Covid pandemic; a work which is compact and does not follow the full traditional setting of Requiem Mass texts. The texts range from Catullus (c.55 BC) and anonymous medieval lyrics to the late Irish poet, writer and pugilist Ulick O’Connor. Besides the Requiem, there are a number of other settings of Christian sacred texts: O Vis Aeternatis (Hildegard), Veni Creator, Two Marian Anthems and Rorate Caeli, but also lyrics which look at death from very different perspectives: Ave Atque Vale, Catullus outpouring of grief on his brother’s death and the humorous children’s rhyme with its depiction of worms crawling in The Old Woman.
All of the works are composed for mixed a capella choir and vary in levels of complexity: some were commissioned by professional and others by amateur choirs. ‘Pie Jesu’ and DoNot Stand by my Grave are straightforward homophonic pieces each involving a solo soprano; ‘Lux Aeterna’ and Veni Creator are more dissonant, and more complex texturally while other works use extended techniques such as stamping, clapping and long glissandi.
Every piece seeks to define a mood, with plenty of contrast here from the joyous salute to ‘Musick’ in A Song for St Cecilia’s Day and the reverential O Vis Aeternitatis to the poignancy in the Introit of Requiem. On this recording, all performances are by the superlative, internationally acclaimed State Choir Latvija directed by Maris Sirmais. The recording is due to take place in Riga at St John’s Church from 5-9 July 2021 and should be released by Autumn 2021. Rhona Clarke is celebrated for her eclectic and varied approach which produces fascinating and often surprising work, from her fresh but relatively conservative Piano Trios to the incredible, avant-garde, Sprechstimme-with-rock-percussion piece “…smiling like that…” all available on Métier recordings.
‘Sempiternam’ Choral music by Rhona Clarke (MSV 28614)
Composer: Rhona Clarke (b.1958) Artists: Latvia State Choir, conducted by Maris Sirmais
We were sad to learn of the passing of British composer Justin Connolly who died on September 29. Justin was born in 1933 and studied composition and conducting with Peter Racine Fricker at the Royal College of Music, earning prizes in both categories. His early music was very much influenced by serialism but was all withdrawn. He found his own voice after three years at Yale where he began his teaching career, later teaching back in England and the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy as well as being visiting lecturer in composition at the Universities of Melbourne and California (Santa Barbara). He was also a conspicuous figure at Dartington and Tanglewood. During the 1990s he produced a steady stream of works characterized by a strong and sensitive word setting technique in his vocal works, and powerful melodic phrasing within complex forms culminating in the masterpiece Scardanelli Dreams.
Lately, Connolly has been rather neglected due to the youth culture within some new music circles but his music remains testimony to a very individual and inspired composer. Scardanelli Dreams and other works were recorded for his Métier album ‘Night Thoughts’ (MSVCD92046).
Métier is the new-music label of the Divine Art Recordings Group, based in Vermont, USA, and in the UK. Its recent albums of new string quartets by English composers Robin Stevens and Edward Cowie has helped to kindle a new interest in the contemporary work in this genre and February will see the release of a new recording by the Amernet String Quartet of String Quartets 1-3 by Cuban composer Orlando Jacinto García, who has lived in the USA since 1961.
The three quartets presented here express in a variety of ways the overarching nature of García’s writing, originating in part from his association with Morton Feldman. In the pop world, perhaps ‘ambient’ would be the tag applied but would do a disservice to the complexity and depth of García’s writing; this is not music that clashes and bangs but invites one to float in the suspended, elongated tones which shimmer and evolve; using pauses, contrasts between dissonance and consonance, repeated rhythmical patterns, García creates a meditative soundworld where time is barely relevant.
Through more than 200 works composed for a wide range of performance genres including interdisciplinary, site specific, and works with and without electronics for orchestra, choir, soloists, and a variety of chamber ensembles, Orlando Jacinto García has established himself as an important figure in the new music world. The distinctive character of his music has often been described as “time suspended- haunting sonic explorations”: qualities he developed from his studies with Morton Feldman among others. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1954, García migrated to the United States in 1961. In demand as a guest composer, he is the recipient of numerous honours and awards from a variety of organisations and cultural institutions including the Rockefeller, Fulbright, Knight, Dutka, Civitella Ranieri, Bogliasco, and Cintas Foundations, the State of Florida, the MacDowell and Millay Colony, and the Ariel, Noise International, Matiz Rangel, Nuevas Resonancias, Salvatore Martirano, and Bloch International Competitions. Most recently he has been the recipient of 4 Latin Grammy nominations in the best Contemporary Classical Composition Category (2009-11, 2015). With performances around the world at important venues by distinguished performers, his works are recorded on New Albion, O.O. Discs, CRI /New World, Albany, North/South, CRS, Rugginenti, VDM, Capstone, Innova, CNMAS, Opus One, Telos, and Toccata Classics. García is the founder and director of the NODUS Ensemble, the Miami Chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music, the New Music Miami ISCM Festival, and is a resident composer for the Miami Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated educator, he is Professor of Music, Distinguished University Professor, and Composer in Residence for the School of Music at Florida International University.
The Amernet String Quartet is currently Ensemble-in-Residence at Florida International University; it is one of the most acclaimed ensembles of its generation and has been praised for its intelligence, expressivity, ravishing sound, and commitment to both new music and the classics since its inception. Its members are Misha Vitenson and Avi Nagin, violins; Michael Klotz, viola and Jason Calloway, cello.
Ed Hughes and his work, “Cuckmere: A Portrait”, from his album, Time, Space & Change, was featured on BBC South East Today as it has been integrated into a new app called Echoes: Interactive Sound Walks. So the next time you’re visiting the Cuckmere Valley and Haven in East Sussex, you can listen to the work while you explore the footpaths down the river to the sea. The app uses GPS to trigger eight extracts from the score, giving you an immersive audio journey from the depths of winter to high summer while you walk! Watch the clip here:
Divine Art Edition is now live: having acquired a small catalog of titles from Brandon Music, the list will expand with plenty of scores of music appearing on our recordings.. Find ‘shop’ in the menu bar and click ‘scores’. PLEASE NOTE: we only sell PDF files to download and print ()or play from screen). Printed copy can be obtained from Naxos Sheet Music
Presto Classical interviews Peter Sheppard Skærved on three of his latest recordings across the Divine Art Recordings Group family of labels:
Violinist Peter Sheppard Skaerved has championed contemporary and lesser-known music for much of his career; recently a triple-bill of albums came out that underscored this interest.
In the first, Skaerved explores the Klagenfurt Manuscript, a collection of anonymous Baroque solo works uncovered in a convent; the second sees him reinvent some neglected Schubert by re-presenting it in a way more suited to its “chamber-like” nature; and the third brings us right up to the present day with works from the contemporary composer Edward Cowie (b.1943).
Such an eclectic spread of recordings was a fascinating prospect, so I spoke to Peter about all of them!
Divine Art Records is delighted to announce the signing of Canadian ensemble Trio de l’Île for its debut album with a mix of Argentinian and Armenian music. The CD will include Astor Piazzolla’s Four seasons, Gayané Chebotaryan’s Trio and Arno Babadjanian’s monumental Piano Trio, generally regarded as a masterpiece of the genre.
The album focuses on the fusion of different styles bringing forth colorful mosaics. On the one hand, Piazzolla revolutionized the Tango by blending it with jazz and traditional classical music – hence giving light to the Nuevo Tango; while Chebotaryan and Babadjanian harmoniously combine Armenian folk music with the Russian classical tradition.
With three established and classically trained musicians, Trio de l’Île (violinist Uliana Drugova, cellist Dominique Beauséjour-Ostiguy and pianist Patil Harboyan) is a Québe- based piano trio that advocates proximity with its audience and is known for its passionate and rigorous interpretations. Pianist Patil Harboyan has a previous successful album with Divine Art, of Armenian music for Cello and piano (with cellist Heather Tuach – DDA 25075)
The new album is scheduled for release in November 2020.
Piano Trios from Armenia and Argentina (DDA 25211)
Works :
Arno Babadjanian : Piano Trio in F sharp minor
Gayané Chebotaryan: Piano Trio
Astor Piazzolla: Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires)
Sad to hear of the death of Italian movie composer Ennio Morricone, whose music was possibly the best part of many Italian-made Westerns back in the 70s… He was 91. Probably his best known piece is ‘Gabriel’s Oboe’ and we were honoured to record Susanne beer’s version on cello for her album ‘Cello Diverse’ – Tragically Susanne is also no longer with us, having passed at the prime of her life.
Originally scheduled as part of the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, on 16 August 2020, Peter Seivewright will now be performing his Piano Music from the United States of America programme as an independent recital at St. Mark’s Unitarian Church, Edinburgh. The programme will include Edward MacDowell’s Piano Sonata No. 2 (‘Eroica’) which will be recorded on a future installment of his American Piano Sonatas recordings on Divine Art! On 3 August, Peter will also be live streaming a DVD recording he made of Charles Ives’s “Concord” Sonata from The Byre Recording Studio in Inverness, Scotland.
A posthuman fantasia about cities, virtual reality and the A.I. singularity: ROBE is an award-nominated opera inspired by fashion and machines. This new (world premiere) recording will be released by Métier Records in late 2020/early 2021. (MÉTIER MSV 28609). An audio recording which will be available on CD and Hi-Res digital download and streaming, it will be supported by promotional video shorts – the label hopes for a full staged video version in the future. An opera in form, it is also beautifully choreographed and is visually stunning.
Story
Descending into the mind of the superintelligence EDINBURGH, a young cartographer is tasked with mapping this creature so as to grant its desire: to become a living city, teeming with human life and activity. But they grow close, and she weaves into the map those things that cannot be known or spoken: the hidden histories of joy and longing each privately our own. As these rifts in the structure undo causality itself, she must answer the question: what exactly has she created?
“Music is an ancient, powerful technology,” says composer-librettist Alastair White. “In ROBE we’re trying to explore the idea that virtual reality has existed since the dawn of time: in the way that books, theatres – even the clothes we wear – transform and augment our perception of the world. And, how music has this astonishing power to contain and combine its participants – audiences, performers, writers – into a type of artificial superintelligence. “
This first full studio recording features the original cast from the 2019 UU Studios production at Tête-à-Tête festival, where the opera was shortlisted for a Creative Edinburgh Award and won praise for the ways in which it “successfully evoked the strange abstract world of cyberspace, creating a real sense of non-reality…The performances from all concerned were excellent.” (Planet Hugill).
People
Alastair White is a Scottish composer and writer whose work is characterised by a lyrical complexity that draws influence from materialism, fashion, cosmology and computers. Previous work includes 2018’s WEAR, shortlisted for a Scottish Award for New Music: “an opera of rare imagination and success” (Mark Berry, Boulezian). Produced at Goldsmiths Music Studios by Henri Växby (French For Cartridge), this release features a cast of rising stars from the new music scene: virtuosic pianist and music director Ben Smith (ROH, Wigmore Hall, Barbican), experimental flautist Jenni Hogan (Barbican, Radio 3, Queen Elizabeth Hall), Clara Kanter (Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, BBC), the “theatrically and vocally excellent” (Opera Magazine) Kelly Poukens, “staggeringly good” (New Statesman) Rosie Middleton and Sarah Parkin, described as “a joy to watch” (The Times).
This recording has been supported by Help Musicians UK, the Hinrichsen Foundation and the Goldsmiths Graduate Fund and Music Research Committee.
In a society where difference between the real and the virtual is no longer meaningful, a powerful new being threatens the stability which holds these worlds together. Two elders, Neachneohain and Beira, convince the young cartographer Rowan to complete a terrible task: descend into the mind of the superintelligence EDINBURGH and map this creature so as to grant its desire – to become a living city, teeming with human life and activity. Witnessing visions of the awful realness of life beyond cyberspace, Rowan agrees – plunging into its depths: a strange, abstractworld of data and dream.
30 years later, Rowan and EDINBURGH have fallen in love, have lived their lives together. Though every morning she awakes with no memory of the past, Rowan has almost completed the map that EDINBURGH desires. But into this map Rowan has woven something else: something hidden, silent, unsaid. As these rifts in the structure undo causality itself, she must answer the question: what exactly has she created? And what does it have to do with this strange, otherworldly figure who sings the red song of a forgotten city – of an ancient, poisoned ROBE…
Songs for Sir John: Works by composers including Robin Stevens, Martin Bussey, Sally Beamish, David Matthews, Peter Dickinson, Lennox Berkeley, Robin Walker and many more
Divine Art Records is honoured to announce a new album for release later this year in tribute to one of Britain’s most influential figures in recent musical history – and yet one whose name is shamefully little known outside the music profession.
Sir John Manduell
Sir John Manduell, who died in 2017, was a consummate musician in many ways and held many posts of importance from being Director of Music at Lancaster University, to senior producing roles at BBC Radio 3, eventually (as composition was closest to his heart) taking up the post of Head of Composition and Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Indeed he was the founder of the college, incorporating the Royal Manchester College of Music and the Northern School of Music, thus building the foundation of what is now one of the UK’s most dynamic centres for ‘serious’ music. He was also the founder of the European Opera Centre.
Sir John’s own works are masterful and embody the best of the modern tonal tradition alongside composers such as William Alwyn and Lennox Berkeley (both of whom were his teachers), and most remain to be discovered by the worldwide audience. Two major orchestral works (the Double Concerto for Oboe and Cor Anglais, and the Flutes Concerto for flutes and harp) were recorded alongside works by Gordon Crosse for the album “Mixed Doubles” (Métier MSV 77201) released by Divine Art in 2013.
The new album is titled ‘Songs for Sir John’. Curated by Sir John’s erstwhile colleague and close friend John Turner, it is a garland of tributes by several composers, who have in some way found their professional careers guided and encouraged by the enthusiasm and ever-generous support of Sir John. Most of the pieces were originally composed for concerts celebrating Sir John’s life in 2018 and 2019 and are focused around the evocative poetry of William Butler Yeats. One set (works by Robin Walker) was recorded for a previous album and features as narrator the mellifluous voice of the late TV presenter and newsreader Richard Baker.
‘Songs for Sir John’ will be released on September 11, 2020.
Songs for Sir John (DDA 25210)
Works:
Men Improve with the Years (Robin Stevens) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Sonnet (Elis Pehkonen) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
The Cold Heaven (Martin Bussey) for soprano, recorder, violin and cello *
Reflection (Geoffrey Poole) for soprano, bass recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Yeats Interlude (Sally Beamish) for recorder, oboe, violin and cello
Be Still (Michael Ball) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Those Images (David Horne) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Two Yeats Songs, Op. 23b (David Matthews) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Zuzu’s Petals (Kevin Malone) for recorder, oboe, violin and cello
This Great Purple Butterfly (Gary Carpenter) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Strings in the Earth and Air (Peter Dickinson) for soprano, recorder, violin and cello (text by James Joyce)
Three Duets (Lennox Berkeley) for two recorders
Four Nursery Rhymes (Robin Walker) for narrator, recorder and piano (texts by Thomas Pitfield)
The Cat and the Moon (Jeremy Pike) for soprano, recorder, oboe, violin and cello *
Into the Twilight (Nicholas Marshall) for soprano, tenor recorder, viola and cello *
The Cloths of Heaven (Naji Hakim) for soprano, recorder, oboe, viola and cello *
* Indicates setting of a Yeats poem
Artists
Lesley-Jane Rogers (soprano)
Richard Baker (narrator)
John Turner (recorder)
Laura Robinson (recorder)
Richard Simpson (oboe)
Benedict Holland (violin
Susie Mészáros (viola)
Nicholas Trygstad (cello)
Keith Swallow (piano)
Apart from the Walker work (2005), the album was recorded on 18 and 19 December 2019 at St Paul’s Church, Stockport.
Producer: Paul Hindmarsh. Engineer: Philip Hardman
Divine Art Recordings is delighted to announce a new album of piano music from English pianist Roderick Chadwick. Alongside the first book from Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux are works by Karol Szymanowski and David Gorton.
Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux for solo piano evokes the sights and sounds of the French landscape, exploring time and memory across its two and a half-hour span. The diversity of Messiaen’s imagination can be heard in the progression from the sharp, solitary cries of the alpine chough to the fanfares of the golden oriole and harmonious, sapphire-blue sea along the Roussillon coast, where the headlands (in the composer’s words) ‘stretch into the sea like crocodiles’.
Each of the cycle’s seven livres suggests a variety of contexts, and on this new recording the first book is presented as an echo of the programming of the Parisian Domaine Musical, where it was first heard: old music, modern classic, and contemporary. The theme is Mediterraneanisation, journeys to and from water: the elusive moods of David Gorton’s Ondine point from the Messiaen towards the more human drama of Szymanowski’s Third Sonata, a pinnacle of the heady series of works that followed transformational trips to Italy and North Africa.
Roderick Chadwick can also be heard on the Métier and Divine Art labels in music by Michael Finnissy, Mihailo Trandafilovski, David Gorton, Mozart and Ole Bull, in partnership with Peter Sheppard Skaerved and the Kreutzer Quartet. He is the co-author, with Peter Hill, of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux: from Conception to Performance (CUP).
Divine Art DDA 25209
Works:
Olivier Messiaen: Catalogue d’Oiseaux, Book 1 (Le Chocard des Alpes ; Le Loriot ; Le Merle bleu)
David Gorton: Ondine
Karol Szymanowski: Piano Sonata No. 3
Details
Recorded 17 and 18 December 2019 in Angela Burgess Recital Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London.
Prospective release date: October 2020 (exact date to be confirmed)
Divine Art Recordings are to release an album of orchestral music by Edward Cowie, which as with their recent and highly praised disc by John McCabe will be a remastered re-release of classic Hyperion vinyl LPs. The two works on this album have a coincidental close relationship with each other. The connection between them is WATER and its ceaseless and constantly changing character and ‘mood’. The intended release date will be this autumn.
The SECOND CLARINET CONCERTO is inspired by a man and his changing and often tempestuous relationship with a great deep lake, Coniston in The Lake District of England. John Ruskin, a famous and brilliant Victorian Arts Scholar, was prone to severe bouts of depression including hallucinations. He bought a large house overlooking and close to Coniston, thinking and hoping it would ‘heal’ his suffering. On good clear days, he felt euphoric, peaceful and uplifted, but when mists, wind, rain and black/grey storms raged, he was hurled into a tempest of fear, Illusions and delusions of overwhelming horror. Ruskin (the solo clarinet) is pitted against and within the forces of nature: fluxes between limpid calm and tortuous turmoil. Only the emergence of a glorious Lakeland sunset at the end of the piece rescues the great man from the black hell of madness.
The CONCERTO for ORCHESTRA (“Studies in the Movement of Water”), is named after the many and astounding drawings of water made by Leonardo da Vinci. Composer Edward Cowie made a celebrated BBC 2 TV film about Leonardo in which this massive work features. Da Vinci’s drawings abound in turbulence, complex wave-forms, pulsations, folding sand, weaving of water between extremes of mirror-calm and maximum fracture and fragmentation. Also inspired by often storm-bound sailing amongst Scotland’s western Isles, this is a tour de force of unchained orchestral energy- unremitting- unforgiving and unfathomable. It is as visual as it is sonic- bursting with acoustic spray, waves and winds……
EDWARD COWIE has been described as ‘the greatest living composer directly inspired by the Natural World’ – high praise indeed. His first BBC Proms commission was in 1975 for the massive orchestral work Leviathan. Since then he has produced a stream of works inspired by wild (and some not so wild) places on our planet; however his undergraduate studies on physics (and a continuing fascination with particle physics) and studies in painting have also strongly shaped his musical voice. Today he is a skilled composer, conductor, pianist, and visual artist. Following the imminent release of a recording of three of his string quartets in April (Métier MSV 28603) he is delighted to form a lasting partnership with Divine Art and its new-music imprint Métier and future projects already in hand include a disc of choral works (BBC Singers) and a programme of solo guitar music.
As this new recording is taken from a vinyl LP and no additional works are suitable as ‘fillers’ the 44-minute album will be issued at low-mid price. The great clarinettist Alan Hacker is soloist in the Clarinet Concerto, both works with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, for whom Edward Cowie was the first Granada Composer/Conductor appointee (1982-84). The conductor on this album is Howard Williams.
Edward Cowie: Orchestral Works
Concerto for Orchestra Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Howard Williams
Clarinet Concerto No. 2 Alan Hacker (clarinet) Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Howard Williams
Métier MSV 92108 (Originally released as Hyperion A 66120 issued in 1984)
Original LP Reviews:
‘Scintillating! Powered by a relentless elemental force- what a triumph!’ – The Times (William Mann)
‘An absolute tour de force of orchestral colour and energy! The work pulsates with the ocean’s mood changes. Cowie is a true sonic poet of Nature’ – The Observer (David Cairns)
‘This is a ravishing and deeply moving testament to the forces of nature and the human mind’ – The Guardian (Gerald Larner)
‘This is Cowie in richly lyrical mood- music saturated with emotional ordeals and the ever-changing light and colour of Coniston. Loved it!’ – The Financial Times (Max Loppart)
New Recordings from Zeynep Ucbasaran, Miguel Ortega Chavaldas, and Sergio Gallo
Divine Art has announced two linked but very different new albums of piano music. The first comprises recordings of recent works for three pianos by an international group of composers from the USA, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Turkey. Though modernist, the works are also accessible and generally tonal with a rich and deep textured sound from the combined voices of the three grand pianos. The program includes the award –winning “Inni” (Hymn) by Luigi Dallapiccola together with works by Ince and Saygun, and pieces by other composers which have been commissioned by the trio and which are thus receiving their first recordings. The performers are Zeynep Ucbasaran, Miguel Ortega Chavaldas and Sergio Gallo, together ‘The 3-Piano Project’. Ucbasaran, based in California, is the ‘leader among equals’ in the group. She has made several highly-praised recordings previously for Naxos and Eroica.
As a counterpoint to this pioneering program, Ucbasaran and Gallo have recorded a second album – this time for four hands at one piano – of popular and well-loved works in splendid dynamic performances. The major work is Milhaud’s homage to Brazilian music with touches of jazz, ‘Le boeuf sur le toit’ and operatic themes and folk-inspired dances. Both recordings were completed at the Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara, California, in the latter half of 2019 and are scheduled for release in the summer of 2020.
Zeynep Ucbasaran made her Wigmore Hall debut in November 2004. She has recorded many albums, including music of Liszt, Schubert, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Bernstein and Muczynsjki. Most recently she recorded the piano music of Saygun (Naxos) and the complete piano sonatas of Mozart (Eroica Classical).
Dr. Sergio Gallo has won the piano concerto competitions of both the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra (Brazil) and the University Symphony, Santa Barbara (USA). He has performed with orchestras throughout the Americas and in Turkey, as well as broadcasting on Radio France and Radio Cultura. He now lives in the USA where he teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta and Rocky Ridge Music Academy in Estes Park, Colorado.
Miguel A. Ortega Chavaldas was born in Las Palmas on the Canary Islands and studied in Spain under Almudena Cano. He was awarded a first-class diploma in Piano and the highest prize in Chamber Music. Mr Ortega Chavaldas is currently Professor of Piano at the Conservatorio Superior de Aragón in Zaragoza, Spain, and also a collaborating pianist at Reina Sofia Academy in Madrid.
Saturday, 7 March, 2020 at 7.30pm at All Saints Center, Lewes will be a special screening of Emmy award-winning film-maker Cesca Eaton’s beautiful portrait of the Cuckmere river and Cuckmere Haven through the seasons, with a lush, evocative score by Lewes-based composer Ed Hughes, to mark the release of Ed Hughes’s CD “Time, Space and Change” on Métier.
‘Cuckmere: A Portrait’ was originally commissioned by the Brighton Festival and premiered by the Orchestra of Sound and Light playing live at the Attenborough Centre at the University of Sussex, where Ed Hughes is Professor of Composition in Music, as part of the 2018 Brighton Festival.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Ed Hughes, Cesca Eaton, Tony Whitbread (President, Sussex Wildlife Trust) and Trevor Beattie (Chief Executive, South Downs National Park Authority) chaired by local writer and musician Eleanor Knight.
Details
Saturday 7 March 2020 at 7.30pm All Saints Centre, Friars Walk, Lewes BN7 2LE Tickets £10 (under 16s free) or at the door. Entry includes CD.
Organist Philip Hartmann to record an album of music by Carson Cooman recorded on the organ of Pauluskirche, Ulm, Germany.
Divine Art Records has for some time championed the music of prolific American composer Carson Cooman, and as well as two orchestral and one chamber albums has reached Volume 13 in the Cooman Organ Music series, performed by Erik Simmons. While that series takes a short break, Divine Art has welcomed the acclaimed German organist Philip Hartmann to its artist roster for a new album of organ works by Cooman recorded on the magnificent organ of Pauluskirche, Ulm, Germany, an instrument constructed by Thomas Gaida in 2013 after Gebrüder Link (1910).
While some of the works have appeared in the Simmons series, Hartmann provides a different interpretation on a different instrument which makes comparisons interesting as each player makes individual interpretative and stop-combination choices.
The new recording will be released worldwide (CD and digital/streaming) on 12 June 2020.
Invocazione brillante
Recorded in Ulm, Germany on June 19-21, 2019 – Coming June 2020
Performer: Philip Hartmann Works (all composed by Carson Cooman):
Musica da processione (2018)
Arioso (2013)
Cortege, Intermezzo and Litany on the Joseph-Hymnus (2017)
Romanza (2000)
Praeludium in festo S. Philippi apostoli (2017)
Diptych for New Life (2017)
Arioso Cantabile (2018)
Suite in F (2017)
Prelude on ‘Das ist köstlich’ (2018)
Invocazione brillante (2017)
Two Nantucket Sketches (2018)
Lullaby (2018)
Sonatina No. 4 (2017)
Album playing time 76:14
Philip Hartmann
Philip Hartmann
German organist Philip Hartmann studied musicology at the universities of Berlin and Hamburg followed by studies in church music at the Musikhochschule in Bremen. He also participated in organ masterclasses with Daniel Roth (Paris) and Ben van Oosten (The Hague). From 1986 to 1991, Hartmann was cantor and organist at the Protestant town church in Ehingen (Donau). Since 1991, he has worked as a church musician in Ulm at the Pauluskirche, and since 1999 also as a cathedral organist at Ulm Cathedral (Ulmer Münster). In 2004, he became the director of the Martin-Luther-Kantorei, and in 2005 he was appointed district cantor (Bezirkskantor) for the Ulm deanery.
Hartmann has played more than 600 organ recitals throughout Germany and Europe and has also appeared as organist and choirmaster in various TV and radio productions as well as on a solo CD of the organ music of Andreas Willscher, recorded on the 2013 Link-Gaida organ in the Pauluskirche. Hartmann has a particular interest in American and British organ music as well as contemporary compositions. He has given numerous world premieres, and about 40 works by contemporary composers have been dedicated to him.
Carson Cooman, composer
Carson Cooman
Carson Cooman (b. 1982) is an American composer with a catalogue of hundreds of works in many forms—ranging from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. His music has been performed on all six inhabited continents in venues that range from the stage of Carnegie Hall to the basket of a hot air balloon. Cooman’s work appears on over forty recordings, including more than twenty complete CDs on the Naxos, Albany, Artek, Gothic, Divine Art, Métier, Diversions Altarus, Convivium, MSR Classics, Raven, and Zimbel labels. Cooman’s primary composition studies were with Bernard Rands, Judith Weir, Alan Fletcher, and James Willey. As an active concert organist, Cooman specializes in the performance of contemporary music. Over 300 new compositions by more than 100 international composers have been written for him, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of CD releases and more than 2,000 recordings available online. Cooman is also a writer on musical subjects, producing articles and reviews frequently for a number of international publications. He serves as an active consultant on music business matters to composers and performing organizations, specializing particularly in the area of composer estates and archives
In January 2020 pianist Tom Hicks began recording with the composer Camden Reeves for their new record for Metier, Blue Sounds for Piano. Since 2013, Camden has been working on a series of blues-inspired works for Tom – Tangle-Beat Blues (2013), Nine Preludes (2016) and Blue Sounds (2019) – which Tom has performed across the USA and UK. Blue Sounds was premiered in October 2019 in Chicago, alongside the other two works. All three works were all recorded in January 2020, followed by their performance in a recital at St Pancras. London on 9 January.
Reeves is currently working on a new piano piece, Blue Times, especially for this album, its energetic shuffle rhythms providing a counterpoint to the harmonic stillness of Blue Sounds. The final piece in the program(me) will see Tom Hicks joined by cellist Jennifer Langridge for Still Above Ground, a work written in memory of Camden’s grandfather (a jazz musician and the composer’s life-long mentor).
Guernsey-born pianist Tom Hicks has been hailed as ‘an artist of magnificent pianism’; he has established himself as a brilliant soloist, has won multiple awards and is also very sought after for accompaniment and chamber recitals in the UK and USA and around Europe. This will be his first album for Metier.
Camden Reeves
Meticulous in detail, dramatic in structure and with a touch of the bizarre, the music of Camden Reeves ranges from chamber, to vocal, to orchestral. His name has also become particularly associated with the piano.
Reeves was born in Oxford in 1974. At the age of four he began learning music with his grandfather, a Jazz musician. Reeves read music at the University of Exeter, studying composition with Philip Grange, and at the age of just 22 was appointed Composer Fellow with the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester. Further Composition studies followed with Roger Marsh and David Blake at the University of York. In 2000-2001, Reeves was awarded a CIMO Scholarship to study with Paavo Heininen on a CIMO Fellowship at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and he still cites his engagement with the music of Sibelius during this period as one of the most important influences underlying the organic and dramatic structure of his music.
Reeves’s catalogue includes five string quartets, two piano trios, music for voice/s, solo pieces (with and without piano), orchestral music and a large amount of solo piano music. Reeves’s music is available from Edition Peters and Composers Edition. A good number of works are available in the form of commercial recordings. Visit camdenreeves.com for more information. Reeves is currently Professor of Music at the University of Manchester, where he has taught since 2002.
Metier Records was established in 1992 and quickly gained a reputation as one of the foremost labels for contemporary music. It became part of the Divine Art Recordings Group in 2005.
Album Details
Title: Blue Sounds for Piano (MSV 28604) Works (all composed by Camden Reeves):
Tangle-Beat Blues
Nine Preludes
Blue Sounds for Piano
Blue Times
Still Above Ground (with Jennifer Langridge, cello)
