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Archive for Roderick Chadwick

Roderick Chadwick & Peter Sheppard Skaerved

Announcing Spanish Meditations and Dances from Composer Gregory Fritze

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

27 June, 2022

Divine Art Records, which itself has offices in both the USA and UK, is proud to announce a new album, recorded in London, of the ‘Spanish Meditations and Dances’ by the most excellent American composer Gregory Fritze. The works are performed by two of England’s most celebrated soloists and regulars in the catalogs of Divine Art and its sibling labels Athene and Métier: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano).

“Spanish Meditations and Dances” for violin and piano was composed and arranged especially for Peter Sheppard Skærved in 2021. It is a set of seventeen pieces that showcase the violinist in both expressive and exciting technical playing. The titles of the movements are from the many towns and regions of Spain that have been a great inspiration in the composer’s music over the years.

The six exciting dances – Tenerife Dance, Madrid ; Variations on a Theme by Luigi Boccherini, Bilbao; at the Guggenheim; Lliria Dance, Barcelona; Gaudi Dance; and Carcaixent Dance – are interspersed with eleven expressive meditations.

Gregory Fritze is a prize-winning composer and Fulbright Scholar. His compositions have been performed more than one thousand times in twenty-six countries. He has written over one hundred compositions for orchestra, band, chamber ensembles and soloists. He won over sixty composition awards including Menzione d’Onore (highest award given) of the Mario Bernardo Angelo-Comneno International Music Competition by the Accademia Angelica Costantiniana Arti E Scienze (Rome, Italy) for “String Quartet”, First Prize Winner of Reneé Fisher Composition Prize for “Piano Sonata” and others.

His music is published by several publishers in the US, South America and Europe and has been recorded on Albany Records, MSR Classics and others. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities and music festivals in the United States, Canada, Japan, South America and Europe. He taught at Berklee College of Music as Professor and Chair of Composition. He attained a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Composition from the Boston Conservatory and Indiana University respectively.

Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano) are both highly popular, talented and critically acclaimed musicians. Both have extensive concert and recording careers and have appeared together and separately on a number of recordings. More detailed biographies can be supplied on request.

The recording was made in London in the early part of 2022 and the album which will be issued on CD and all digital formats worldwide is scheduled for release between November 2022 and February 2023 (date to be confirmed).

“Spanish Meditations and Dances” (DDA 25239)

Composer: Gregory Fritze
Performers: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin) and Roderick Chadwick (piano).
Label: Divine Art
ALBUM RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 22 – FEBRUARY 2023 TBC

Peter Sheppard Skærved & Roderick Chadwick Recordings on Divine Art

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Mihailo Trandafilovski’s ‘Polychromy’ to be released in November 2022

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

24 May, 2022

Divine Art’s new-music label, Métier, is to release a new album of solos, duos and a trio by the Macedonian-born composer, violinist and educator Mihailo Trandafilovski — all written for close friends and long-term collaborators: Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin), Neil Heyde (cello), Roger Heaton and Linda Merrick (clarinets), Hugh Millington and Saki Kato (guitars), Roderick Chadwick (piano), and Mihailo himself. The recording will be issued on CD and in all digital formats in November 2022.

This album explores idiomatic and uncompromising techniques which, like other aspects of the musical language, stretch in different but complementary directions: spectral / elemental sonorities and more traditional approaches to virtuosity are bound by both harmonic / formal systems and physical directness. “These are pieces”, Mihailo says, “which can only come to life through deeply dedicated performances, in which such techniques become integrated and natural; such are those by the maverick musicians on this recording”.

Peter Sheppard Skærved, Mihailo’s violin-partner in the Kreutzer Quartet, wrote: “Mihailo is a performer-composer in the mould of Telemann, Bartók, Joachim and Liszt. Like them, it is quite impossible to separate his compositional and instrumental imaginations. His contribution to the violin [repertoire] is extraordinary – his works are gifts for audiences and players alike.”

Divine Art CEO Stephen Sutton says that he is delighted to have this new recording in the quickly-growing catalog of contemporary music on Métier, adding “We saw from Mihailo’s previous album ‘Diptych’ (Metier MSV 28582) that within what we might call ‘mainstream contemporary’, that he has a style which is individual, gripping and rather special. That he collaborates closely with his chosen performers means that we have definitive performances from the start.”

Mihailo Trandafilovski studied at Michigan State University (BMus) and the Royal College of Music in London (MMus, DMus). His studies and research have been supported by the Open Society Institute, the Macedonian Ministries of Science and Culture and the British Government (with a Chevening scholarship); among other awards are the United Music Publishers Prize for composition at the RCM and the Panče Pešev Award for best new work at the contemporary music festival Days of Macedonian Music. His music has been issued on several labels and both performed and broadcast widely.

He is a violinist in the Kreutzer Quartet, with whom he has performed and recorded extensively (with many premiere CD and DVD recordings on Métier) and held residencies at Tate St Ives, University of York and Goldsmiths College, among others; he has an avid interest in the application of new music to pedagogy, for which he was awarded his doctorate; and has led a number of shared projects among the arts promoting contemporary artistic creativity to a wider audience.

Polychromy (MSV 29629)

Mihailo Trandafilovski

Chaconne (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Grain-Song (violin solo – Peter Sheppard Skærved)
Šarenilo (violin duo) – Peter Sheppard Skærved & Mihailo Trandafilovski
Polychromy (cello solo – Neil Heyde)
Weaxan (clarinet trio – Linda Merrick, Peter Sheppard Skærved & Roderick Chadwick)
Sandglass (clarinet solo – Roger Heaton)
String Dune(s) (guitar duo – Saki Kato & Hugh Millington)

Recorded in London in April 2022 (recording engineer Adaq Khan)
Release date: November 11, 2022

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Divine Art announces Part 2 of the Messiaen Catalogue d’Oiseaux series

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

7 December, 2021

English pianist Roderick Chadwick is having an incredibly busy time in various recording locations and in January he will be recording the second volume of a series which presents Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux coupled with works which are linked either in style or subject matter. This follows the well-received issue in October 2020 of the first volume, entitled ‘La Mer Bleue’ which included Book 1 of the Catalogue.

This double album is a continuation of Chadwick’s journey through Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux, programming it alongside an array of solo piano works that share its themes, atmospheres and inspirations. The latest issue features Books 2 through 5, including the cycle’s great centrepiece ‘La rousserolle effarvatte’ (The Reed Warbler), which evokes the sights and sounds of the Sologne region across a full day’s span.

The theme of the release is “night and day”, explored further by Messiaen in the atmospheric nocturnes of Book 3 (Tawny Owl and Woodlark), and the intense heat of a Provencal afternoon in The Short-toed Lark. Also featured is the first recording of Julian Anderson’s Sensation, a six-movement suite first heard at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2016 – with movements such as ‘Nuits’, ‘Alba’ and ‘She Hears’, a touching opener dedicated to Imogen Holst. Betsy Jolas’ Chanson d’Approche brings together Messiaen-like melodies with chant-style material in a typically fluid tapestry.

Roderick Chadwick has already recorded solo works by Sadie Harrison, and here he gives us a new account of her Lunae (4 Nocturnes), pieces that encompass love, starscapes, nightingales and medieval psalmody in her distinctively wide-ranging style. Well-loved miniatures by Grieg and Debussy complete the offering.

Originally the album was due to be recorded in August but noisy building works forced a delay and relocation and recording will now take place at City University, London in January 2022 with a prospective release date around July.

Roderick Chadwick is a pianist, teacher and writer on music. He has performed some of the most challenging works for the instrument, including Lachenmann’s Serynade at the inaugural London Contemporary Music Festival, and the first complete performance of Jeremy Dale Roberts’ Tombeau since its 1969 premiere at the hands of Stephen Kovacevich. He collaborates with some of the UK’s most adventurous musicians, with previous recordings for Divine Art/Métier including music by Michael Finnissy and David Gorton with members of the Kreutzer Quartet, and Mihailo Trandafilovski, Mozart and Ole Bull with violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved. Other recordings to date include Stockhausen’s Mantra with Mark Knoop and Newton Armstrong – which was described as ‘a real contender’ by Gramophone magazine – and works by Gloria Coates, Sadie Harrison and Alex Hills. Most recently he recorded the first two of Edward Cowie’s superb sets of birdsong-inspired music: “Bird Portraits” (with violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved) and “Where Song was Born” (with flautist Sara Minelli).

Roderick is a member of ensembles CHROMA and Plus-Minus, performing with them at festivals such as Huddersfield, ltima (Oslo) and the 2019 Warsaw Autumn Festival. His first performance on BBC Radio 3 was at the age of 14 (the Britten Gemini Variations live from the Aldeburgh Festival), and broadcasts since have included solo works by Laurence Crane, Richard Barrett and Will Gregory. In 2018 Roderick published Messiaen’s ‘Catalogue d’oiseaux’, from Conception to Performance, co-authored with Peter Hill. He is a regular performer of Messiaen’s works, including the entire Catalogue d’oiseaux and La Fauvette des jardins in a single concert event. In 2008 he was artistic advisor to the Royal Academy of Music for their part in the Southbank Centre’s Messiaen centenary festival.

He attended Chetham’s School in Manchester in the 1980s, studying with Heather Slade-Lipkin, and later moved to London to learn with Hamish Milne. He lives in South London and is Reader in Music at the Royal Academy of Music.

What pictures tell… (DDA 21240)

Works

Catalogue d’oiseaux (Olivier Messiaen):

Livre II – Le Traquet stapazin
Livre III – La Chouette hulotte
Livre III – L’Alouette lulu
Livre IV – La rousserolle effervatte
Livre V – L’Alouette calandrelle
Livre V – La Bouscarle

Lunae: Four Nocturnes (Sadie Harrison)
Sensation (Julian Anderson)
Préludes, Book 1 – Nos IV, V & XII (Claude Debussy)
Chanson d’approche (Betsy Jolas)

Lyric Pieces (Edvard Grieg):

Book III, Op. 43 – No. 4 Little Bird
Book V, Op. 54 – No. 4 Nocturne
Book VIII, Op. 65 – No. 6 Wedding-day at Troldhaugen

Roderick Chadwick on Divine Art/Métier

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Edward Cowie working on score and study drawing for Bird Portraits

Métier Records announces two major duo-cycles by Edward Cowie

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

19 April, 2021

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.

TRACK TITLES
1. Mute Swan | 2. Kingfisher | 3. Great Crested Grebe | 4. Dipper | 5. Bittern | 6. Coot | 7. Barn Owl |
8. Pheasant | 9. Rook | 10. Magpie | 11. Starling | 12. Skylark | 13. Tawny Owl | 14. Green Woodpecker | 15. Song Thrush | 16. Wren | 17. Bullfinch | 18. Wood Warbler | 19. Curlew | 20. Cormorant | 21. Osprey | 22. Arctic Tern(s) | 23. Puffin(s) | 24. Great Northern Diver

Where Song Was Born (MSV 28620)

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.’

TRACK TITLES
1. Australian Raven | 2. Australian Wood Duck | 3. Australian Masked Plover | 4. Eastern Whip bird | 5. Willy Wagtail | 6. Golden Whistler | 7. Superb Fairy Wren | 8. Brolg Crane | 9. Pied Butcher Bird | 10. Bush Stone Curlew | 11. Wedge-tailed Eagle | 12. Australian Magpie | 13. Bell Bird(s) | 14. Wampoo Pigeon |
15. Golden-headed Cisticola | 16. Tawny Frogmouth | 17. Pied Currawong | 18. Kookaburra |
19. Mangrove Kingfisher | 20. Helmeted Friarbird | 21. White-breasted Sea Eagle | 22. Green Cat Bird | 23. Sooty Owl | 24. Lyrebird(s)

Edward Cowie Divine Art Records Group Catalogue

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Roderick Chadwick Presents a New Recording of Piano Music by Messiaen, Szymanowski, and David Gorton

Posted by Divine Art Recordings Group on

28 April, 2020

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)

Roderick Chadwick Recordings

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