FLEETING REALMS
Chamber Works
Babcock
Tang
Morrow
Maki
Morris
Summer
OVERVIEW
FLEETING REALMS is an inviting compilation of chamber music featuring six composers. Though the album obviously mixes different compositional voices, the different pieces share many characteristics. FLEETING REALMS is defined by a pervasive uplifting quality. Many of the album’s works feature driving rhythms and a joyfully relaxed sensibility. Even dissonance is used playfully or as a counter weight to beautiful lyricism. Such consistency in manner across six pieces by six diverse composers is obviously remarkable, and it makes FLEETING REALMS a very special musical collection.
The album’s tone is set by three works: Bruce Babcock’s Irrational Exuberance, Joyce Tang’s Snowy Landscapes, and Nora Morrow’s Luca’s Dream. Each is powerful, yet gentle, and exudes a kind of musical warmth that draws the listener into the rest of the album. Irrational Exuberance, for alto saxophone, cello, and piano, is thematic and rhythmically active, and features conversational imitation between its three instruments. Although interior sections of Irrational Exuberance are more subdued, Babcock’s work is markedly hopeful and confident.
Tang’s Snowy Landscapes and Morrow’s Luca’s Dream perfectly embody the subject matter of their titles. Luca’s Dream is scored for solo vibraphone, and Morrow clearly exploits its bell-like sound to emphasize the work’s overall innocence. A fantasia of sorts, Luca’s Dream moves through a series of different melodic ideas, which are united by their rhythmic energy. Beginning in a very sweet, diatonic space, Luca’s Dream becomes increasingly chromatic until its final section, which returns to the gentleness that carries through most of the work. Snowy Landscapes is more texturally active than these other two works, but is nonetheless beautiful and welcoming. Scored for piano trio, Snow Landscapes begins and ends with sections of long violin and cello melodies accompanied by a resonant piano part. In between, we hear more contrapuntal and energetic textures, which, like Irrational Exuberance, feature playful imitation between the trio’s instruments.
David Maki’s Five Impromptus for Two and Craig Madden Morris’s Crosscurrents are also notable because they are the album’s most dissonant works. Nevertheless, they approach their dissonance with a warmth and playfulness that fits well with the character of the other works on FLEETING REALMS. Crosscurrents, for example, begins with dissonant solo piano, which eventually gives way to a stately and Romantic cello part whose lyricism comes to dominate the rest of the piece.
HIGHLIGHTS
Listen for connections across the album and consider these against the fact that the album features six different composers.
Among other similarities, many of the works on the album share an attraction to bubbly, rhythmically active textures, and, when scored for more than one instrument tend to feature melodic imitation across the given ensemble
CREDITS
Bruce Babcock
Irrational Exuberance
June 2006 at Salmon Recital Hall at Chapman University in Orange CA
Session Engineer Steve Barker
Joyce Wai-chung Tang
Snowy Landscape
Recorded September 14, 2016 at Reduta Hall Olomouc CZ
Session Producer Pavel Kuncar
Co-Producer Bob Lord
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák, Jan Košulič
Nora Morrow
Dawn
Recorded February 11, 2015 at WGBH Fraser Performance Studio in Boston MA
Session Producer East Coast Scoring
Session Engineer Antonio Oliart
Luca’s Dream
Recorded February 11, 2015 at WGBH Fraser Performance Studio in Boston MA
Session Producer East Coast Scoring
Session Engineer Antonio Oliart
David Maki
Five Impromptus for Two
Recorded march 8, 2017 at Reduta Hall in Olomouc CZ
Session Producer Vít Mužík
Co-Producer Bob Lord
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák, Jan Košulič
Craig Madden Morris
Crosscurrents
Recorded March 1, 2016 at Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall in New York NY
Joseph Summer
They Bore Him Barefaced on The Bier
Recorded March 12, 2016 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester MA
Session Producer Joseph Summer
Session Engineer Joseph Chilorio
Music Director Tim Ribchester
He Took Me by The Wrist
Recorded March 11, 2016 at Mechanics Hall in Worcester MA
Session Producer Joseph Summer
Session Engineer Joseph Chilorio
Music Director Tim Ribchester
Executive Producer Bob Lord
Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Alex Bourne, Brandon MacNeil, Chris Robinson
Audio Director Jeff LeRoy
Recording Session Mananger Levi Brown
Editing & Mixing Shaun Michaud, Joe Dobrowolski
Mastering Shaun Michaud, Lucas Paquette
Design & Marketing Director Brett Picknell
Design Emily Roulo
Release Date: September 8, 2017
Catalog #: NV6107
TRACK LISTING
Bruce Babcock
01 Irrational Exuberance
Doug Masek alto saxophone David Speltz cello Louise Thomas piano
Joyce Wai-chung Tang
02 Snowy Landscape
Lucie Kaucká piano Vít Mužík violin Jiří Fajkus cello
Nora Morrow
03 Dawn
Xiao'an Li conductor I Arielle Burke flute Michael Norsworthy clarinet in A
Daniel Beilman bassoon Kinga Bacik cello
04 Luca’s Dream
Matt Sharrock vibraphone
David Maki
Five Impromptus for Two
Solo Piano (Four-hands) Lucie Kaucká & Martin Smutný piano
05 I
06 II
07 III
08 IV
09 V
Craig Madden Morris
10 Crosscurrents
Nan-Cheng Chen cello Kelly Yu-Chieh Lin piano
Joseph Summer
11 They Bore Him Barefaced on The Bier
Kathryn Guthrie soprano Neal Ferreira tenor SangYoung Kim piano
12 He Took Me by The Wrist
Kathryn Guthrie soprano David Salsbery Fry bass SangYoung Kim piano
ALSO ON NAVONA
PERTTU
BAKKER
BLOCK
GREVE
WALCZYK
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