Pianist/composer Patrick Beckman’s celebration of the Mississippi basin, Big Muddy Suite for Clarinet & Piano, is as musically diverse as the region it depicts. Beckman’s last album Street Dance (2008, Produced by Bob Lord), was praised by Gramophone Magazine, stating “[His] craftsmanship is remarkable, and Beckman has the pianistic chops, as it were, to bring it all off.”
He is joined forces here by Grammy-award winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Big Muddy is a romping chamber suite that defies traditional genre classification, blending classical, jazz, rock, and R&B into a unique and blissful musical experience. Stoltzman and Beckman take the through-written piece to greater depths with their improvisational flourishes throughout. The multi-dimensional Big Muddy is rounded out by exclusive photo and video footage from the Boston studio sessions, plus PDF study scores of the music heard on this CD.
Posted: June 2nd, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Washington DC-based Michael J. Evans will bring his latest release, Bloom, to Navona Records. Bloom contains eight original chamber compositions performed by pianist Karolina Rojahn, flutist Lisa Hennessy and cellist Emmanuel Feldman. On his Navona debut, Evans’ streamlined orchestrations of his modern Romantic-era inspired compositions are consistently poignant and affecting. The CD comes with PDF study scores, session photos, and information about Evans and each of the performers as bonus enhanced CD content. Michael J. Evans’ Bloom will be available everywhere on June 30, 2009.
Posted: June 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
Swedish composer Orjan Sandred’s appropriately titled debut release, Cracks and Corrosion, is a thrilling collection of chamber music featuring classical instrumentation matched with Sandred’s skillful electronic sound manipulation. His ability to create highly vivid environments in his compositions make this a low lights, heightened sense excursion for the serious listener. Five original compositions will be featured on the album, each showcasing its own unique sonic palate. This release features conductor Hans Ek, violinist Daniel Möller, violist Ingegard Kierkengaard, cellists Åsa Åkerberg and Yuri Hooker, clarinetist Niklas Andersson, pianist Erik Lanninger, guitarist Mårten Falk, flutist Camila Hoitenga, and harpist Hèloїse Dautry. In-depth info on the sessions, composer, performers, and tracks are all included as bonus enhanced CD content. Cracks and Corrosion arrives in stores on June 30, 2009.
Posted: June 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
By Jeff LeRoy
Edited by Sean Joncas
Dust had settled on the Maya’s story, as sediment obscured many an ancient stone mask. Eleven centuries later, Lewis Spratlan puts pen to paper like ax to rock, and dedicates a career’s worth of expertise towards its unearthing.
Spratlan is a celebrated composer, conductor, and former professor at Amherst College. Though publicly he’s best recognized for his 2000 Pulitzer Prize win for the opera “Life is a Dream (Act II concert version)”, he admits his greatest dedication for 36 years has been his students. The Massachusetts-based composer’s works have been performed worldwide including London, Brussels, Milan and Moscow, not to mention numerous engagements across America. He has received awards and grants from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and many others.
“In Memoriam” is Spratlan’s most “political piece” and may very well be his grandest. Scored for large orchestra, double chorus, and five soloists, the work captures images of the Spanish Conquest through Mayan eyes. Thus, much of the story lays in context of prophecy and prayer. Presented through Mayan Prophecy text, the poetry of Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo, and the thunderous and dense sounds of an intricate orchestration, Spratlan’s vision of Mayan strength, bloodshed, and endurance seems rightfully told.
Q: What led to such a dramatic dedication?
A: “The Corliss Lamont Fund for World Peace at Amherst College was dedicated to artistic representations of world peace. It was, by coincidence, the 500th anniversary of the Columbian conquest of the West. I decided to make a statement from the under-represented point of view of the conquered – specifically the Mayans, whose genocide and subsequent enslavement was lost in all the anniversary fanfare.”
Q: Does this serve as your requiem for the Maya?
A: “It is surely that, even though descendants of the Mayans continue to live today in parts of Mexico and Central America. At the least it’s a requiem for their highly developed and sophisticated culture, but it’s also a celebration of their tenacity and survival strength as a people.”
Q: Would you elaborate on the contribution of Neruda’s poetry?
A: “I came across a trove of his politically trenchant and expansive works, many of which eerily continued the themes of the Mayan texts. Without being explicit about it, Neruda had clearly contemplated the outwash of the Columbian conquest, and its immediate and long-range implications. I was particularly taken by his notion of the hero-poet as both champion of the people and chronicler of their struggles, and by his sense that their brilliance could survive and flourish despite constant threat.”
Q: Can you cite specific musical inspiration?
A: “Formally, the great oratorios of Bach, with their narrative mixture of solos, ensembles, and choruses. Embedded here too are traces of the chorus from Greek Antiquity. A more modern counter-model might be the orchestral song cycle, such as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde or Strauss’s Four Last Songs. Also, the works of Ligeti, Berg, Dallapiccola, and Harbison.”
The album also features Streaming, a free form piano quartet that studies the inner workings of the awakening human mind. Such complex an inspiration seems right at home for Spratlan; allowing twentieth century liberations and beautiful motives to co-mingle in an enjoyable, ever-evolving experience.
Q: Describe the musical techniques used to make the streaming mind tangible?
A: “I tried to grab onto that moment when ideas, images, and impulses bump into one another in a disorderly and interruptive way, and to translate this mess into sound. The piece is full of interruptions and displacements, so that making sense of it requires letting go and allowing strands to connect in a largely unconscious way.”
Q: Would you touch upon the Pulitzer Prize experience?
A: “Winning the Pulitzer was the major watershed in my career. Here’s a funny thing, though. My winning opera [Life is a Dream] has yet to be staged. It was written for the New Haven Opera Theater, which ceased operations just as I was completing the third act.
Lewis Spratlan’s “In Memoriam” is in stores April 28, 2009 on Navona Records. For more info visit www.lewisspratlan.com or myspace.com/lewisspratlan.
Posted: June 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
Navona Records is pleased to announce the upcoming release of “The Melodic and Dramatic Howard Richards”.
The album features prolific American Composer Howard Richards at his greatest. Movements of “A Frenchman in New York” and others paint brilliant narratives; synonymous to Richards life works. His third full album is skillfully performed by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Vit Micka, and will be distributed internationally by industry leader NAXOS on April 28, 2009.
Howard Richards will also record a complete album of choral works with Navona Records in 2009. Please visit www.navonarecords.com for updates.
Posted: May 19th, 2009 | No Comments »
Acclaimed feature film composer/orchestrator and Navona Artist Jonathan Sacks is currently at work orchestrating two animated films; Walt Disney Picture’s The Princess and the Frog and Pixar Animation Studio’s Toy Story 3.
The projects reunite Sacks with Grammy Award winning composer and performer Randy Newman. Both worked side-by-side on the previous installment of Toy Story, which at the time became the second highest grossing animated film in history.
Jonathan Sacks’ other film credits include Seabiscuit, Monsters Inc., Mr. Holland’s Opus, Meet the Parents, and most recently X-Files: I Want to Believe. His recent Navona release 5th (S)eason presents Sacks’ original compositions which showcase an attention to melody and fluidity one would expect from a prestigious composer and orchestrator.
The Princess and the Frog is scheduled for international release on December 11, 2009, with Toy Story 3 releasing in Disney Digital 3D next summer.
Visit the Navona Records Shop to learn more about Jonathan Sacks’ 5th (S)eason.
Posted: May 19th, 2009 | No Comments »
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Posted: May 15th, 2009 | No Comments »
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