Métier Records announces two major duo-cycles by Edward Cowie

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