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Windswept Vol. II

Modern Chamber Music For Winds

Loretta K. Notareschi composer
David Osbon composer
L Peter Deutsch composer
Kenneth A. Kuhn composer
Brian Field composer
Ferdinando Desena composer
Andrew Lewinter composer

New London Chamber Ensemble

Release Date: June 24, 2022
Catalog #: NV6415
Format: Digital
21st Century
Chamber
Clarinet
Flute
Oboe

Rigorous repertoire is at the ready on WINDSWEPT VOL. II from Navona Records, a sweeping sonic force of contemporary chamber works for woodwind quintet. Performed by the New London Chamber Ensemble, the works of seven composers soar with modern flair, making use of various instrumental textures and irregular meters with jazz-driven influences sprouting from classical roots. Dynamic displays of dexterity and luscious interplay between performers burst with refined energy in this recording, uplifting listeners into a satisfying and equally enticing atmosphere.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Moon Jazz: River on the Moon Loretta K. Notareschi New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 5:24
02 The Spirits of Sabate: Inundation and Prayer David Osbon New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 4:22
03 The Spirits of Sabate: Procession and Hymn David Osbon New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 3:06
04 The Spirits of Sabate: Celebration and Song David Osbon New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 3:27
05 Toward the Mountains L Peter Deutsch New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 3:51
06 Twilight Waltz L Peter Deutsch New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 3:32
07 Variations on a Commoner Theme, No. 1 Kenneth A. Kuhn New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 9:32
08 Five, Four by Four Brian Field New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 5:04
09 Midsummer Quintet Ferdinando DeSena New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 8:56
10 Woodwind Quintet: Allegro Andrew Lewinter New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 6:16
11 Woodwind Quintet: Dumka: Andante Andrew Lewinter New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 6:54
12 Woodwind Quintet: Rondo Andrew Lewinter New London Chamber Ensemble | Robert Manasse, flute; Peter Facer, oboe; Neyire Ashworth, clarinet; Stephen Stirling, horn in F; Meyrick Alexander, bassoon 6:45

Recorded November 9-12, 2021 at AIR Studios Studio 1 in London, United Kingdom

Session Producer Brad Michel
Session Engineers Chris Barrett, Brad Michel
Editing, Mixing & Mastering Brad Michel

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Chris Robinson, Danielle Lewis, Mike Juozokas

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Production Director Levi Brown
Production Assistant Martina Watzková
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming, Morgan Hauber
Publicity Patrick Niland, Brett Iannucci
Content Manager Sara Warner

Artist Information

Loretta K. Notareschi

Composer

Called a “bright wom[a]n with big ideas” (Souls in Action), Colorado-based composer Loretta K. Notareschi (b. 1977) seeks to create “compassion” (303 Magazine) and connection through her “powerful” (The Denver Post) and “deeply personal” (5280 Magazine) music. Whether writing for string quartet or symphony orchestra, church congregations or classical ukulele players, she seeks to “connec[t] with the audience” (303 Magazine) and move listeners with music of meaning.

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David Osbon

David Osbon

Composer

David Osbon is a composer, conductor, and academic whose music has been performed, broadcast, and recorded around the world. Most of this international recognition comes from the years he spent as a researcher and professor in cities as diverse as Philadelphia, The Hague, and Istanbul. Osbon’s compositions have received many awards including the Arts Council of Great Britain DIO Award, the RVW Trust electro-acoustic music award, Hilda K. Nietsche Prize, David A. Halstead Prize, Academy of Music (Vienna), and the New Symphony (Vienna Prize). Still Waiting for the Revolution… for piano trio was a prize winner in both the Franz Schubert and the Clements Memorial prizes for chamber music.

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L Peter Deutsch

Composer

L Peter Deutsch is a native of Massachusetts, now living in Sonoma County CA, and British Columbia, Canada. He writes primarily for small instrumental or a capella vocal ensembles, spanning styles from devotional to romantic to jazzy, and from Renaissance to early 20th century. Works to date include four choral commissions; releases through PARMA Recordings include music for chorus, string quartet, woodwind and brass quintets, piano trio (featuring work with Trio Casals), and full orchestra.

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Kenneth A. Kuhn

Composer

Kenneth A. Kuhn (Ken) (b. 1954) is a retired electrical engineer specializing in electronic circuit design who had the privilege of growing up with a great appreciation of classical music. Over the years classical music enhanced mental skills valuable for Kuhn’s engineering career. Composing music and designing electronic circuits are very interrelated as each enhances the other. He began composing music in his youth in the 1960s and learned how to compose by carefully listening to the many classical composers. His favorite composers include Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. Ken composes because, “There is music I want to hear but since no one has written it then I must write it myself.”

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Brian Field

Composer

Brian Field’s music is an eclectic fusion of lyricism and driving rhythm that brings together elements of post-romanticism, minimalism, and jazz. Field has received a host of awards, including the RMN Classical recording prize, the Benenti Foundation recording prize, Briar Cliff Choral Music Competition (first prize), the Victor Herbert ASCAP Young Composers’ Contest (first prize), among many others.

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Ferdinando DeSena

Composer

Ferdinando DeSena is a Miami-based composer who was born in Brooklyn NY. His earliest musical experiences were with neighborhood pop, rock, and doo-wopp groups. He worked as a musician in Ithaca NY for 13 years, playing in several regional bands as keyboard player and lead singer. His final group was Uptown Revue, which he led for seven years.

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Andrew Lewinter

Composer

​Before turning his attention to composition, Andrew Lewinter had a long and varied career as an orchestral horn player and soloist. As a composer, Lewinter has a decidedly tonal and neo-romantic style that is often very contrapuntal and always emotionally gripping. His works include sonatas for each of the brass instruments and piano, a quartet for trumpet, horn, trombone and piano, quintets for both horn and string quartet and oboe and string quartet, a woodwind quintet, a string quartet, and a trio for oboe, horn, and piano, among other works scored for a variety of chamber ensembles. Lewinter’s compositions have been widely performed and recorded, and are available on Navona Records and Ablaze records.

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New London Chamber Ensemble

New London Chamber Ensemble

Ensemble

The New London Chamber Ensemble is a wind quintet with a difference. For over two decades the NLCE has challenged traditional ideas of chamber music with their innovative programs combining classic repertoire with semi-staged works incorporating drama, speech, and action.

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Notes

Windswept-Vol-2_Notes-1

New London Chamber Ensemble

Brad Michel at AIR Studios London

Windswept-Vol-2_Notes-2

Brad Michel at AIR Studios London

Moon Jazz: River on the Moon is a post-minimalist romp in which fragments of jazzy materials are juxtaposed, layered, and interposed. With both rhythmic groove and metric displacement, each player contributes equally to a playful texture.

— Loretta K. Notareschi

The Spirits of Sabate are three imagined scenes in the Etruscan city of Sabate which lies beneath the waters of Lake Bracciano, one of the volcanic lakes surrounding Rome.

“Inundation and Prayer” imagines the flood waters as they cover the city and the memories of a prayer offered up to ancient gods for the salvation of the lost spirits of Sabate. “Procession and Hymn” imagines a rather macabre parade through the sunken city streets by the lost souls as they sing a hymn seeking resolution for their spirits. Finally “Celebration and Song” imagines those same lost souls many thousands of years later now reconciled to their fate singing in celebration of the spirits of Sabate and animating the streets of the ancient city.

Originally commissioned in 2012 for the Music on Volcanic Lakes festival, the Spirits of Sabate was premiered in its original form by the Scuola Orchestra di Anguilara Sabazia and premiered in the Cjiesa San Francisco on the shores of Lake Bracciano.

This wind quintet version is published by Forton Music.

— David Osbon

The waltz is a relative newcomer to the rich tradition of dance forms for instrumental music. Twilight Waltz combines the form’s flowing 3/4 meter with the rhythmic, harmonic, and textural variety that makes pieces interesting: it is a ritornello, with different treatment for each verse, and also departs from the traditional waltz by adding a short coda. But even with the added musical complexity, I like to think it is still very danceable.

– L Peter Deutsch

This piece is the first of the 3-movement Mountain Journey suite, inspired by a short poem of Stephen Crane (1871–1900). Like much of my best work, it was written with a complete text underlay (except for the short opening and closing sections). In this case, this was the first line of the poem, “There was set before me a mighty hill.” The steady quarter note rhythm is meant to evoke a long journey across a plain, with polyphony and changes of instrumental texture providing variety to keep it interesting.

— L Peter Deutsch

Variations on a Commoner Theme, No. 1 is a comic work for wind quintet. The opening main theme is obviously one of low stature or even laughable in music hierarchy — thus the title. The theme has high aspirations and the variations are the theme’s quest to achieve nobility. The variations build through minor, major, fast, slow, and even beautiful. In some cases, several variations are heard simultaneously in counterpoint. After many attempts, nobility is not achieved and the next variation is despondent as the theme gives up all hope. But then in the depths of despair, the theme sees the way and the concluding rousing variation is joyous, triumphant, and most importantly, noble. One feature of the work is that every instrument has multiple solo parts. It is meant to be a fun piece for both the performers and the audience.

— Kenneth Kuhn

Five, Four by Four is a work for wind quintet that is built on driving jazz-influenced rhythms and rapid shifts in dynamics. The “five” of the title refers to the configuration on the wind quintet, while the “four by four” refers to the meter of the work on one hand, and the ongoing quasi-variation nature of the piece that occurs every four bars of the piece on the other.

— Brian Field

Midsummer Quintet is a piece for woodwind quintet, composed during the summer of 2004. It is not a programmatic work, however some summertime sensibilities may have crept into the piece. It uses a unison refrain, which is additively treated on successive iterations.

— Ferdinando DeSena

Lewinter’s Woodwind Quintet (2019) is written in a decidedly tonal idiom and romantic idiom. The first few notes of the first movement are a lively allegro that form the kernel out of which the rest of the work grows. The second movement is titled “Dumka” (the word ‘dumka’ means ‘thought’), a Czech form that begins with an introspective melody, which is followed by several sections that contrast in mood. The movement closes with a return to the pensive melody with which it began. The third and final movement begins with a bassoon cadenza, after which the quintet launches into a spirited rondo.

— Andrew Lewinter

Scores

Moon Jazz: River on the Moon (excerpt)

Loretta K. Notareschi

Five, Four by Four (excerpt)

Brian Field

Woodwind Quintet (excerpt)

Andrew Lewinter