# Contemporary Vocal Music



## jvardon (Apr 22, 2013)

Hey guys,
So I've been planning my senior recital (undergrad - baritone) and finding music has been a bit of a challenge. I've looked at hundreds of art songs (German, Italian, French, English), as well as many arias and now my voice teacher suggests looking at more contemporary stuff.
Do you guys know any modern/contemporary art songs, or baritone arias that are new age in style? I've looked into Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and John Adams - I have found that I am not really a fan of their minimalism and contemporary harmonic palettes.
If you guys know art songs or arias more like the music of Ludovico Einaudi I'd love to know what they are.


PS. minor keys, and broken chords always a big plus.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

My guess would be that Einaudi-style minimalism doesn't lend itself well to song; the absence of variety in the music could lead to a nursery-rhyme effect.
Have you tried Ned Rorem, Jake Heggie, or Jonathan Dove? They're the first names that come to my mind when thinking of "accessible" contemporary song - but my knowledge of the area is limited.


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## jvardon (Apr 22, 2013)

I ordered some of their stuff from my college library and a lot of it is still a little too contemporary for my tastes.

Interestingly, a week or two ago, I found this






I really like it, but I do get what you mean about it being a little dry - its a beautiful piece, but it doesn't do very much. I am looking into finding the sheet music for it, or I might try to transcribe it and create the score myself.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Holly Winter - Thirsty Hearts






performed by Projēkt Chamber Voices:
Chamber Choir (SATB), Sarah MacDonald (soprano)
Thirsty Hearts by Holly Winter (2020)


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

One of my favorite contemporary pieces for baritone is _The Seven Deadly Sins_ by Robert Beaser (long-time chairman of the composition department at Julliard). It is a wonderful piece. Beaser is a rare breed, in that he is one of a very few composers who have carried on/updated the Bernstein sound/tradition. So that is golden in my book. Below is a site where you can read the score and hear a little bit. It's probably not exactly what you are looking for, as it is quite operatic (but playfully jazzy at times as you'll see) and has some recitative here-and-there to get through the text (these are based on long poems; duration 24 minutes but you don't have to do all of them), but great music nonetheless. There is an excerpt to listen to at the site of a performance with the American Composers Orchestra (I own this CD, all tracks are marvelous). The score at the site is for piano and baritone.

https://www.eamdc.com/psny/composers/robert-beaser/works/the-seven-deadly-sins/


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

jvardon said:


> Hey guys,
> So I've been planning my senior recital (undergrad - baritone) and finding music has been a bit of a challenge. I've looked at hundreds of art songs (German, Italian, French, English), as well as many arias and now my voice teacher suggests looking at more contemporary stuff.
> Do you guys know any modern/contemporary art songs, or baritone arias that are new age in style? I've looked into Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, and John Adams - I have found that I am not really a fan of their minimalism and contemporary harmonic palettes.
> If you guys know art songs or arias more like the music of Ludovico Einaudi I'd love to know what they are.
> ...


If I were you I'd explore music by Laurence Crane and Antoine Beuger -- these are for female voice though






https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/chants-irene-kurka/






Also, and this is a bit of a longshot, Bogenstrich by Harrison Birtistle, which has a seriousness about it which reminds me of Brahms






Or another longshot -- Thomas Larcher's A Padmore Cycle


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Also Jurg Frey a possibility maybe

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/jurg-frey-24-worter/

I think the most important contemporary song composer is Wolfgang Rihm - but what he does is definitely in the lieder tradition. You should certainly check out something like the cycle _Das Rot_ if you don't already know it.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Since this is the closest thing to a thread for contemporary vocal music, I will be using it to post new works for voice, and not focussing on the OP.

If others have a problem with that, I will create a separate thread for new vocal music.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Caroline Shaw* & *Sō Percussion* - _To the Sky_






Their new album _Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part_ is excellent.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Nico Muhly*: _A Good Understanding_
Los Angeles Master Chorale & Grant Gershon















It's taken me a while to accept the music of *Nico Muhly*.

Early on I had this nagging sensation that it was gimmickry. BUt alowly, over the years, and with each new work I'd sample - usually by accident, i.e. one by an artists I was interested in for different reasons - I found myself enjoying the music.

Then last year I watched his opera at The Met, _Marnie_, and could find nothing objectionable with it.

This CD contains some of his choral music with organ accompaniment and it is wonderful.

Still, I can't help feeling I'm being conned. But like any mark, I simply don't care.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Arnulf Herrmann*: *Drei Gesänge am offenen Fenster *(2014) 
für Sopran und großes Orchester
nach Texten von Händl Klaus/Arnulf Herrmann
Anja Petersen (Sopran)/Sinfonieorchester des Bayrischen Rundfunks/Dir.: Stefan Asbury


__
https://soundcloud.com/arnulfherrmann%2Fstill-drei-gesange-am-offenen-fenster-2014-fur-sopran-und-groses-orchester


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Anna Thorvaldsdóttir -- Rain* (2010)






Tiffany DuMouchelle, voice
Berglind María Tómasdóttir, flute
Pablo Gómez Cano, guitar


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*MAIJA HYNNINEN* - _Mielen tasapainolajit _(2012) 
for male choir


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Hatis Noit* ~ _Aura_ (Erased Tapes)
Aura is an exultation of awe and wonder, produced with nothing but the human voice, not a lyric in sight. Hatis Noit’s debut album is reverent, playful and joyful, a cavalcade of emotions swirling into a revelation. (a closer listen)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Kate Soper* - _IPSA DIXIT_ (2016)
Kate Soper (soprano), Erin Lesser (flute), Josh Modney (violin), Ian Antonio (percussion)






I. Poetics (text by Aristotle (abr. Soper) and Sophocles)

Live at EMPAC December 9, 2016
Directed by Ashley Tata


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Kaija Saariaho | Passion de Simone *(2006/2013)






*From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia*
An oratorio (or opera) composed by Kaija Saariaho to a libretto in French by Amin Maalouf, first premiered in a staging by Peter Sellars. The work, subtitled "a musical journey in 15 stations", centers on the life and writings of Simone Weil and was conceived in the Passion Play tradition with episodes in her life linked to the Stations of the Cross. It is composed for SATB chorus, soprano soloist, spoken voice, orchestra and electronic instruments.

The composer created a chamber version of the piece. It is the same length as the original version and the soloist's vocal line and the spoken text are unchanged. The orchestration is for 19 musicians and uses no electronic elements. Four solo voices replace the SATB chorus.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Thierry Pécou - L'Homme Armé* (1996) 
pour 8 voix solistes - II. "... que la guerre est jolie..."


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Agata Zubel** — Cascando *(2007)
*for voice, flute, clarinet, violin and cello *






Performed by Agata Zubel and the Seattle Chamber Players
Text by Samuel Beckett
Commissioned by Seattle Chamber Players

Agata Zubel composer and vocalist. Known for her unique vocal range and the use of techniques that challenge stereotypes, Zubel gives concerts throughout the world and has premiered numerous new works.

Modern music takes pride of place in her repertoire. She has worked together with the world’s leading ensembles – Klangforum Wien, Ensemble InterContemporain, musikFabrik, London Sinfonietta, Ictus, Eighth Blackbird, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Seattle Chamber Players, Münchener Kammerorchester, Neue Vocalsolisten, Remix Ensemble, 2e2m Ensemble, as well as The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Staatsoper Hannover, Sinfonia Varsovia, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice and others.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Melissa Dunphy* : _I am the World_ (2022)
for SATB Choir
text by Dora Sigerson Shorter






Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and first performed by the BBC Singers, conducted by Grace Rossiter, on 8 March 2022 at Temple Church, London. The program marked International Women’s Day with a live broadcast of music by leading women composers of the 21st Century.

_I am the song, that rests upon the cloud;_
_I am the sun:
I am the dawn, the day, the hiding shroud,
When dusk is done.

I am the changing colours of the tree;
The flower uncurled:
I am the melancholy of the sea;
I am the world.

The other souls that, passing in their place,
Each in their groove;
Out-stretching hands that chain me and embrace,
Speak and reprove.

"O atom of that law, by which the earth
Is poised and whirled;
Behold! you hurrying with the crowd assert
You are the world."

Am I not one with all the things that be
Warm in the sun?
All that my ears can hear, or eyes can see,
Till all be done.

Of song and shine, of changing leaf apart,
Of bud uncurled:
With all the senses pulsing at my heart,
I am the world.

One day the song that drifts upon the wind,
I shall not hear;
Nor shall the rosy shoots to eyes grown blind
Again appear.

Deaf, in the dark, I shall arise and throw
From off my soul,
The withered world with all its joy and woe,
That was my goal.

I shall arise, and like a shooting star
Slip from my place;
So lingering see the old world from afar
Revolve in space.

And know more things than all the wise may know
Till all be done;
Till One shall come who, breathing on the stars,_
_Blows out the sun._


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Jennifer Walshe | XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!! / NO HAY BANDA* (2003)
performed by NO HAY BANDA






Sarah Albu, voice
Elizabeth Lima, voice
Lori Freedman, clarinet
Felix Del Tredici, trombone
Rémy Bélanger de Beauport, cello
Mabel Kwan, accordion
Andrea Young, puppeteer
Noam Bierstone, puppeteer
Daniel Áñez, video camera operator
Vergil Sharkya’, video camera operator

Ruby Kato Attwood, stage director, props and sets
Christos Darlasis, makeup

La Sala Rossa, Montreal
January 20, 2020


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*John Luther Adams : Canticles of the Holy Wind* (2017)
The Crossing






Bandcamp description
Lauded by the New York Times as a “...hypnotic and ethereally beautiful invocation of wind, sky and birdsong,” John Luther Adams’ Canticles of the Holy Wind, performed by the renowned chamber choir The Crossing, is his most technically challenging choral work, and yet the music’s mesmerizing aura of stillness encourages listening at its most elemental. The piece is composed for four choirs of eight singers each, and moves through spaces that are as fantastical (“Sky with Four Suns”) as they are serene (“The Hour of the Doves”), always with a connection to our inner world, as well as the world around us.

“John allows us to interrupt our otherwise endlessly forward-tumbling lives,” notes Donald Nally, The Crossing’s conductor, “and experience these sounds as if we were sitting in the woods for an hour. An hour of wind and of sky and of birds. We are drawn to this music, not just for the beauty of its shimmering harmonies and the overwhelming climactic moments, but also for way it inspires a ‘hearing’ of nature, in real time, as we sing it.”

released May 12, 2017

Donald Nally, conductor
John Grecia, accompanist
Amy Garapic, percussion

The Crossing is:
Katy Avery, Julie Bishop, Steven Bradshaw, Sharon Byrne, Malcolm Cooper, Micah Dingler, Hannah Dixon- McConnell, Robert Eisentrout, Ryan Fleming, Joanna Gates, Dimitri German, Barbara Hill, Steven Hyder, Michael Jones, Nickolas Karageorgiou, Heather Kayan, Heidi Kurtz, Chelsea Lyons, Frank Mitchell, Maren Montalbano, Rebecca Myers, Daniel O’Dea, Becky Oehlers, Christine Papania, Wilbur Pauley, Alexandra Porter, James Reese, Kyle Sackett, Daniel Schwartz, Rebecca Siler, Daniel Spratlan, Elisa Sutherland, Daniel Taylor, Jackson Williams


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*The Crossing* is an American professional chamber choir, conducted by Donald Nally and based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. *It focuses on new music, commission and premiere works*, and collaborates with various venues and instrumental ensembles.

The Crossing collaborates with some of the world’s most accomplished ensembles and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Network for New Music, Lyric Fest, Piffaro, Tempesta di Mare Baroque Chamber Orchestra, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Toshimaru Nakamura, Beth Morrison Projects, Dolce Suono, Allora & Calzadilla, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Klockriketeatern, The Rolling Stones, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, with whom they have appeared at Miller Theatre of Columbia University in the American premiere of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, Peak Performances at Montclair State University, The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. The Crossing joined Bang on a Can for its first Philadelphia Marathon. (*choir website*)

*Michael Gilbertson : Returning*


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Eunbi Kim : It Feels Like (2022)*
Composers: Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Sophia Jani, Pauchi Sasaki, and Angélica Negrón






As listeners, we’re familiar with the combination of spoken word and music in popular genres such as R&B and hip hop, but this creative medium is also finding its way into classical music. For instrumental works, spoken word has the power to advance a more literal narrative by embedding context into the music itself. Historically, contemporary piano compositions that have included spoken word (like Frederic Rzewski’s De Profundis) relegate the music to an accompaniment role. But on pianist Eunbi Kim’s second album, _It Feels Like_, she achieves an egalitarian balance of speech, acoustic instruments, and electronics while probing existential questions of family and identity.

Released August 12, 2022, on Bright Shiny Things, _It Feels Like_ is greater than the sum of its parts. Kim’s sensitive creative approach and thoughtful collaboration with her commissioned composers Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Sophia Jani, Pauchi Sasaki, and Angélica Negrón results in a narrative arc of her own introspective journey through her Saturn years: the time in which Saturn returns to the same position it occupied at one’s birth. (I
Care If You Listen)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Roomful of Teeth perform Caroline Shaw's 'Partita for 8 Voices'*






I. Allemande at 0:12
II. Sarabande at 5:56
III. Courante at 10:18
IV. Passacaglia at 18:35

_"We are_ _a Grammy® winning vocal band dedicated to reimagining the expressive potential of the human voice. By engaging collaboratively with artists, thinkers, and community leaders from around the world, we seek to uplift and amplify voices old and new while creating and performing meaningful and adventurous music. "

"Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, our band was incubated at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, where we studied with some of the world’s top performers and teachers and commissioned composers who were known for breaking molds. We have learned that the boundaries of the human voice are never what they seem, that rules can be bent, and broken, and perhaps they should be. " _(artist website)

Caroline Adelaide Shaw (born 1 August 1982) is an American composer, violinist, and singer. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for her a cappella piece _Partita for 8 Voices_ and the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her _Narrow Sea_. (Wikipedia)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Lucy Fitz Gibbon/Ryan MacEvoy McCullough : the labor of forgetting*

*







*

The program so sincerely produced on the labor of forgetting, the debut release from False Azure Records, reminds me of Pauline Oliveros, who once said, “Listening is selecting and interpreting and acting and making decisions.” 

Indeed, the music of *Katherine Balch* (b. 1991) and *Dante De Silva* (b. 1978), in the handling of soprano *Lucy Fitz Gibbon* and pianist *Ryan MacEvoy McCullough*, underscores the agency of listening as a process in physical flux, even when its subjects are fixed in time and space. The aural objects herein, as grandly interpreted as they are intimately assembled (if not the reverse), bend details into hooks on which we are invited to hang the keys of our distractions while not forgetting the darkness nipping at our heels. (Sequenza21)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Jeffrey Derus : From Wilderness *
– A Meditation on the Pacific Coast Trail

Choral Arts Initiative, Brandon Elliott, conductor; Kevin Mills, cello
Navona CD/DL






With From Wilderness, Jeffrey Derus has written a soaring and eclectic full length work for Choral Arts Initiative, an ensemble committed to new music with nearly twenty commissions and seventy premieres under their belts. Their previous recording, music of Dale Trumbore, supplied significant exposure for her laudable choral works. One imagines that From the Wilderness will do the same for Derus.

Derus has an intimate connection with the environs of the Pacific Coast Trail. He takes the listener on a musical journey that includes choral movements with cluster chord modal harmonies, meditative crystal singing bowl interludes associated with the chakras, solo turns as spirit animals by soprano Anna Kietzman, alto Genie Hossain, tenor Taylor Jacobs, baritone Kirk Averitt, and bass Timothy Cervenka, and powerful cello solos from Kevin Mills. Many composers juggling this many elements might make a less than compelling mashup of them. Derus instead highlights the pathway along his spiritual journey in a keen synthesis of these various elements. (Christian Carey, (Sequenza21)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Vlad Burlea : Song "Vecernie regală (Royal vespers)" *(2022)






performed by *Claudia Codreanu* & *Diana Dembinski Vodă *(aka *Vodă-Nuţeanu*)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Courtney Bryan : Yet Unheard*

Composer *Courtney Bryan*’s 2016 work _Yet Unheard_ sets an original text by *Sharan Strange* about the death of Sandra Bland, who died in police custody after being arrested during a traffic stop in 2015. In this work, the inimitable *Helga Davis* gives voice to Bland’s experiences as she reflects on her life, attempts to reconcile the rage exhibited by the arresting officer, and implores the audience to “sing my name.” (explore classical music)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

_The Lamentations of David_
Text: II Samuel, 17-27
*Composed by Elam Rotem*






*Profeti della Quinta*
Doron Schleifer, Roman Melish - countertenor
Lior Leibovici, Jacob Lawrence - tenor
Elam Rotem - bass, harpsichord & musical direction
Ori Harmelin - theorbo

Eva Saladin, Coline Ormond - violin
Anna Danilevskaia, Filipa Meneses - viol
Giovanna Baviera - violone
Aki Noda - organ


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

This is a really cool piece, in my opinion – just the way the voice and the ensemble interact is amazing!


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

^^^wow I'd like to hear that with a DolbyAtmos mix for headphones. I see what you mean about the interaction and what great invention.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

mikeh375 said:


> ^^^wow I'd like to hear that with a DolbyAtmos mix for headphones. I see what you mean about the interaction and what great invention.


I’ve heard this particular one live, and can confirm, it was an amazing experience. I’ve also heard his more recent large orchestral song cycle, “Where are you?”, live – that was with Rattle conducting the LSO. All around an amazing experience (and I’d recommend listening to that piece too). It’s amazing how the various vocal sounds such as consonants, swishes, breaths, etc, get translated into orchestral textures. 

Also worth noting: I’m friends with a few people in the orchestra, and they said that it’s really clearly notated. Sometimes with this type of a sound world, the notation can become really hard to deal with, but apparently this wasn’t the case for “Where Are You?”.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Nico Muhly – Alice Goodman | *_The Street_

Parker Ramsay, harp; Rosie Hilal, narration;

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Daniel Hyde, Director of Music

King’s College, Cambridge, 2xCD

_The Street_, Nico Muhly’s first collaboration with Alice Goodman, a librettist best known for her work with John Adams, presents a modern retelling of the Stations of the Cross. The first CD sets the mood for the drama to come, with performances of the Bach C-minor Partita No. 2 and the instrumental version of The Street by harpist Parker Ramsay. Ramsay is a gifted performer – his recordings include a fluent rendition of the Goldberg Variations. His interpretation of the partita revels in glissandos and ornaments, both befitting the harp. The Sinfonia displays luxurious rubato, while the Allemande, Courante, and Rondeau jubilantly dance. The isolation of polyphony is particularly clear in the Sarabande, and the Capriccio provides a virtuosic conclusion. (review)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Jóhann* *Jóhannsson ~ Drone Mass *(Deutsche Grammophon)
A fundamental effect of drone music is its defamiliarization of sounds – their immateriality is dispelled, their stability questioned, their singularity demolished. This _Mass _begins with religious allusions, choral styles that might remind listeners of sacred genres, but when “To Fold & Remain Dormant” starts playing, all those elements fall into an estranged shape that parallels the texts upon which the work is based: it is Christianity at a distance, a reliquary of ancient difference. No longer familiar, we can engage with its spiritual qualities as the result of aural effects strange to the Westernized vision of Christian music – throat singing, sustained tones, overarching repetitiveness, melodies tinged with solemn sadness. Don’t let the orchestra lead you astray – this is great _drone _music. *(David Murrieta* *Flores)





*


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Scott Ordway: The Outer Edge of Youth*
Acis

Scott Ordway's _The Outer Edge of Youth_ (2020 is described as “a response to the toxic masculinity in our culture,” yet while it is that it's many other things too. A moving and thoughtful meditation on the loss of childhood innocence, the self-awakening that immersion in the natural world can bring, and the pain of discovering thesuffering that exists in the world, the work explores these and other themes on this world premiere recording. The American composer calls it a choral opera, a piece that can be performed in concert by a chamber choir or as a fully developed stage work by an opera company. It's “more dramatic and character-driven than a traditional oratorio, but more poetic, contemplative, and abstract than most contemporary opera,” in his words. Regardless of the label attached to it, _The Outer Edge of Youth_ is an expression of great power, imagination, and originality. (source)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL IV*
WORKS FOR CHORUS
Heidi Jacob - composer
Lydia Jane Pugh - composer
Ray Fahrner - composer
Denice Rippentrop - composer
Sheila Bristow - composer
John Robertson - composer
Marty Regan - composer

Kühn Choir of Prague | Lenka Navrátilová - conductor






Release Date: September 9, 2022
Catalog #: NV6465
Format: Digital

Navona Records presents VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL IV, a choral celebration of the human commonality we find within music. Featuring the works of six seasoned composers, each piece tells a sentimental story unique to each composer, fitting together like puzzle pieces and demonstrating the connective qualities of the human voice. Brought to life by Prague’s Kühn Choir, these choral works are sure to entrance and entice listeners with flowing tonality and artful text settings that demonstrate the powerful storytelling capabilities that vocal music wields.

This recent volume in the_ Voices of Earth and Air_ series by the Kühn Choir of Prague and conductor Lenka Navrátilová has much to recommend it. There's the glorious sound of the vocal ensemble itself, of course, but as appealing is the selection of composers whose works appear on the release. Instead of opting for familiar names, the Czech choir elected to go with six living composers who are established yet whose profiles have the potential to benefit from being included on the recording. It's heartening that the company is as committed to performing the work of contemporary composers as pieces by those who bodily left us long ago.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Silvestrov: Requiem für Larissa*






In May 1996, the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov was informed that his wife, the musicologist Larissa Bondarenko, had died suddenly and unexpectedly in a hospital in Kyiv. The shock silenced him for several months. After a long while he began writing a Requiem in her memory, jumbling the traditional Catholic order of movements familiar from so many classical works and occasionally breaking off in mid-phrase, as if too distracted to continue. (NORMAN LEBRECHT ON 25 NOVEMBER 2022)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*THE BLUE HOUR (NEW AMSTERDAM/NONESUCH) – RACHEL GRIMES, SARAH KIRKLAND SNIDER, ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN, SHARA NOVA, CAROLINE SHAW, AND A FAR CRY*






I have personally been anticipating a recording of The Blue Hour since it premiered in 2017. Collaboratively composed by Rachel Grimes, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, and Caroline Shaw, the evening-length song cycle for voice and chamber orchestra sets excerpts from Carolyn Forché’s abecedarian poem “On Earth.” Through an alphabetical listing of images, the piece shares the fleeting thoughts of the last hour of a person’s life. (continue)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*SUGAR VENDIL : MAY WE KNOW OUR OWN STRENGTH* 






Composer, pianist, and interdisciplinary artist Sugar Vendil is a force of nature, and May We Know Our Own Strength (Gold Bolus Recordings) marks her emotionally raw and cathartic debut album. Featuring Vendil on vocals, piano, keyboards, and electronics, the album also includes guest performances by violinist Hajnal Pivnick and The Nouveau Classical Project. Despite its ultimate bent toward acceptance and healing, May We Know Our Own Strength is a heavy listening experience at times. But every anxious moment is ultimately soothed and brought to a place of calm inner fortitude.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Kate Soper & Sam Pluta : The Understanding of All Things*






Composer/vocalist/pianist *Kate Soper* teams up with longtime Wet Ink Ensemble colleague composer/electronic musician *Sam Pluta* in this bracing collection that explores the ever shifting hierarchy between text driven and music dominated vocal work. Soper's distinct musical voice and characteristically clever approach to setting text in three original works is balanced by Pluta's ever inventive and sensitive marshaling of his unique arsenal of electronic textures as he joins Soper in two improvisations.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Ian Venables : Requiem*
Choir of Merton College, Oxford, Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia, conductor Benjamin Nicholas






Ian Venables' _Requiem_ debuted in 2019 and I heard the first London performance with the first recording, from Adrian Partington and the choir of Gloucester Cathedral on SOMM coming in 2020. That work was for choir and organ, but Venables has now orchestrated the work and the resulting orchestral _Requiem_ has been recorded by the choir of Merton College, Oxford and Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia, conductor Benjamin Nicholas on DELPHIAN.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Anne Sofie von Otter & Brooklyn Rider : So Many Things (2016)*










Featuring the eminent and fearless Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, this eclectic collaboration presents a program of contemporary art song, with music by iconic artists from both the classical and pop tradition, including Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, John Adams, Bjork, Sting, Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, and Kate Bush. The album, released on Naive Classique in 2016, garnered critical acclaim and culminated in worldwide touring across North America, Europe, and Asia.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Katharina Rosenberger : Tempi Agitati*






On April 6, 1327, a 22-year-old Italian poet named Francesco Petrarca caught a glimpse of a young woman, Laura, in a church in Avignon. He later reported that “living sparks issued from two lovely eyes”. Those sparks enflamed Petrarch such that he spent the rest of his illustrious career coming to terms with them.

Madrigals were developed in the 16th century by Adrian Willaert and Cipriano de Rore, which took Petrarch’s agonized images as justification for violating the rules that had guided musicians since before the beginnings of notated music.

Those living sparks have leapt ahead seven more centuries to inspire Katharina Rosenberger. Her “tempi agitate” embeds Petrarch’s texts (especially fragments from his “Ascent of Mount Ventoso”) and settings of sonnets by Willaert and Rore within her own responses to those materials. (Mode Records)


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Live recording of Per Nørgård's "Jeg hører regnen" with text by Danish poet Michael Strunge.


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