Welcome visitor, please log in or create an account (optional)

Archive for organ music

New organ recording by Robert Sholl from Métier

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

11 August, 2022

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

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

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

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

Album Details

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

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

Performers:

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

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

Coming Soon News

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

Two New Carson Cooman Albums Coming in 2019

Posted by Divine Art Recording Group on

2 April, 2019

Divine Art Records will be releasing two more volumes this year in its continuing series Carson Cooman Organ Music. The extraordinarily talented and prolific writer, organist, composer and teacher, who among many activities is composer in residence at the Memorial Church at Harvard, was recently the subject of an extended feature in the Organ (UK). His writing encompasses many styles – a great deal of liturgical and other works suitable for church performance but also symphonies (for orchestra and for organ), and pieces in all the baroque and classical forms in his own accessible yet modern language. Volume 11 of the series is titled ‘Portals’ after Cooman’s Third organ Symphony of that name, the principal work on the album. This Symphony in itself is specifically religious in concept. This will be released in July 2019. The second album is one that Cooman has prepared especially for Christmas with variations and fantasies on many popular seasonal melodies. Highly recommended for any church Christmas fellowship – give the organist a night off! The Christmas disc will be available by October. (Note: Volume 13 is already recorded and will be scheduled for release early in 2020)

Both albums are beautifully performed by Cooman’s regular collaborator Erik Simmons. Recordings are made via the Hauptwerk system from the Sonnenorgel (Sun Organ) of Stadtkirche St. Peter & Paul, Gorlitz, Germany, a gorgeous instrument constructed 1997-2006 with a large, rich specification.

Portals: Carson Cooman Organ Music, volume 11

Recorded December 2017-April 2018
Divine Art (DDA 25195)
Erik Simmons, organ

Works

Carillon after the Bells of Ulm Cathedral
Legends: Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4
Tiento de falsas
Prehiera pastorale
Praeludium in festo S. Thomae apostolic
Praeambulum festivum
Organ Symphony No. 3 ‘Portals’ (5 movements)

How Great Our Joy: Carson Cooman Organ Music, volume 12 (The Christmas Collection)

Recorded November 2018-January 2019
Divine Art (DDA 25196)
Erik Simmons, organ

Works

Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’
Fantasy on ‘Veni Emmanuel’
Little Partita on a Polish Carol
Variations on a Basque Noel
Little Fantasia on ‘In dulci jubilo’
Carol Paraphrase on a Motive of Wilhelm Wiesmann
Voluntary on ‘O du frohliche’
Meditation on ‘Es ist ein Ros’
Rhapsody on a German Carol
O Sleep, Dear holy Babe
Rondino for St Joseph
All My Heart this Night Rejoices
Triptych on a Sorbian Carol
Three Pastorales on a German Carol
Fantasy on ‘Adeste Fideles’

Coming Soon

Tags : Carson Cooman, Christmas, Erik Simmons, organ music

More organ albums from Divine Art

Posted by Divine Art Recording Group on

24 January, 2018

Divine Art has announced the latest in the new series of organ recordings made by American organist Carson Cooman, following his two recent albums of music by Andreas Willscher. The new disc features more works by Willscher and also major pieces by Raimund Schächer (b. 1960). Schächer is an expert on early, Renaissance and baroque music which is reflected in his often very traditional style, seen here most obviously in his Sonata Antiqua. The recording features the breathtaking sounds of the Sonnenorgel (Sun Organ) at Pfarrkirche, Görlitz, Germany which Divine Art CEO Stephen Sutton considers one of the most beautifully voiced organs he has heard in fifty years.

As an active concert organist, Cooman specializes in the performance of contemporary music. Over 130 new works have been composed for him by composers from around the world, and his organ performances can be heard on a number of CD recordings. Cooman is also a writer on musical subjects, producing articles and reviews frequently for a number of international publications. He is organist of the Memorial Church at Harvard University.

Cooman is also well known as a prolific composer and Divine Art has three more albums of his organ music, performed by Erik Simmons, in the can for release later this year; these will be volumes 8-10 of the Cooman Organ Music series. The seventh in the series, ‘Owl Night’, will be officially released in March of this year.

The Schächer/Willscher organ works album is scheduled for release on May 18, 2018 on Divine Art (DDA 25168).

News

Tags : Andreas Willscher, Carson Cooman, organ music, Raimund Schächer

November Releases

Posted by Divine Art Recording Group on

9 August, 2017

Look out for three new albums in November (our last issues of 2017). We are delighted to present Volume 6 of the Carson Cooman organ music series (“The Cloak with the Stars”). Cooman also appears, this time as performer, in Andreas Willscher’s Organ Symphonies 19 & 20 and a suite ‘The Beatitudes’; and from Métier we focus on works for solo violin and violin/viola duo by Michael Alec Rose, currently teaching at Vanderbilt University, Nashville.

News

Tags : Carson Cooman, Métier, Michael Alec Rose, Nashville, organ, organ music, symphonies, Vanderbilt, violin