Métier to Release String Quartets by Cuban Composer Orlando Jacinto García

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

28 September, 2020

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.

Orlando Jacinto García — Orlando Jacingo García © Orlando Jacingo García | CARTA

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.

Orlando Jacinto García: String Quartets 1-3 (MSV 28613)

Performed by Amernet String Quartet

String Quartet #1 (“rendering counterpoint”)
String Quartet #2 (“cuatro”)
String Quartet #3 (“I never saw another butterfly”)

Album duration: c.65’

Worldwide release date: February 12, 2020

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Tags : Amernet String Quartet, Metier, Orlando Jacinto García, String Quartets

Métier Records to release fashion-opera, ROBE, by Alastair White

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

20 May, 2020

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?

About

Alastair White © Alastair White

“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.

RECORDED IN JANUARY 2020.

ROBE Synopsis (duration c. 80 minutes)

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…

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Tags : Alastair White, Coming Soon, Metier, opera

Music for Clarinet and Strings from Gemini

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

3 April, 2020

Divine Art is delighted to announce its latest project for the Métier label with leading chamber ensemble Gemini and its clarinettist leader, Ian Mitchell. The album, to be recorded this autumn, will be titled “for clarinet and strings” and contains works by several prominent composers, with a number of premiere recordings.

From its very beginning in 1974 Gemini has commissioned composers in a variety of styles, and programmed works and composers that have been overlooked sometimes for many years.

This album presents works by Cyril Scott and Rebecca Clarke that have been championed by the ensemble. The Scott quintet was premiered by the Melos Ensemble in 1953 and possibly given only its second performance (his widow thought this was the case) – at London’s South Bank Centre in 1995. The Clarke duo, like much of her music, was unfamiliar to most people, and (performing from manuscript copies) Gemini has given a number of airings including a live BBC Radio 3 broadcast. A central plank of Gemini’s programming has always been to promote contemporary composers including music by women – 32 of whom have been commissioned, with over 70 performances of works by women. The ensemble has developed long-standing relationships with many composers: commissioning, performing and recording with the aim of giving their music a wider audience. Gemini has had a long and close musical relationship with Nicola LeFanu (eventually inviting her to be the ensemble’s Honorary President); supported Sadie Harrison from very early in her career and commissioned a number of works from Howard Skempton.

The work by Sadie Harrison will have been written in 2020 and is due to be premiered this year subject to the position with regard to social restrictions. The Coe quintet grew out of a commission for a clarinet and piano piece by Ian Mitchell, Gemini’s director, and the Skempton Lullaby was also written for him.

The recording is booked to be held on 6^th October 2020 at St Michael’s Church, South Grove, Highgate, London N6 6BJ. Again this is subject to possible alteration given current circumstances. The Clarke and Scott works were recorded several years ago when Gemini was a winner in the Prudential Award for the Arts .

The new album marks the continuation of an established and successful relationship between Gemini, Mitchell and Métier Records. Given current difficulties in the world at large release is likely to be in the very early part of 2021.