Due to a last minute need to travel, last week’s NEW IN MUSIC THIS WEEK had to be postponed. It is being combined here with this week’s into a deluxe New In Music This Week August 1st and August 8th.
This week I have 13 new releases for you to explore ranging from very early music to contemporary jazz.
My top picks for these two weeks are:
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: SHADES OF MOURNING – Tamar Sagiv – Sono Luminus
Grief is a powerful emotion. For centuries composers have channeled their grief into some of the most beloved music: Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and Mozart’s Lacrimosa from the Requiem are just two examples.
You can now add this incredible new album from cellist Tamar Sagiv.
Inspired by the death of her grandmother, Sagiv composed nine pieces that truly capture what it is to experience loss and the grief that accompanies it. That she plays the cello, one of the most emotive instruments, only enhances one’s appreciation of her journey.
Shades of Mourning offers more than a personal response to the loss of a grandparent here. There is so much going on in the world that is generating grief that what began as a personal reflection has become something much bigger and, as a result, more important. And more powerful.
Sagiv is joined by violist Ella Bukszpan and violinist Leerone Hakami for four of the pieces.
Shades of Mourning covers all the cycles of grief…including the first steps of coming out of it. I challenge anyone to listen to this music and not be moved.
JAZZ: SONIDOS – Lauren Henderson – Brontosaurus Records
What makes Henderson’s Sonidos so compelling is its diversity. Some of the songs are sung in Spanish. Some come straight out of the American Songbook and others are original songs she wrote.
None of this would matter if this wasn’t a great sounding record. Her vocals are terrific as are the musicians backing her up: Dezron Douglas on bass, Joe Dyson on drums, Sullivan Fortner on piano, and Joel Ross on vibraphone who form her core band. Luisito Quintero plays percussion on one track and Eric Wheeler plays bass on 5 of the 17 tracks.
Sonidos translates to sound and her sound is wonderful. Henderson has a wonderful way of making these songs feel like her own.
I’ve enjoyed this album several times already and is likely to remain there for quite some time. Be sure to listen to Sondios this week.
Here are the other fine recordings in New In Music This Week: August 1st and August 8th:
CLASSICAL: DISSIDENTS OF THE GILDED AGE – Duo FAE – Albany Records
Do you know French composer Cécile Chaminade? English composer Dame Ethel Smyth? American composer Amy Beach? They were all born within one ten-year period in the 1850s-1860s. Sadly their work isn’t terribly well known.
I was recently introduced to Chaminade at chamber music concert at the Steans Institute at Ravinia. I’m glad this album came my way to hear more of her work.
Duo FAE is violinist Charlene Kluegel and pianist Katherine Petersen. They chose these three women and their three works because they represented women speaking their minds about the suffrage movement through their music, at a time when society didn’t favor such outspokenness.
That music is Beach’s Violin Sonata in A minor op. 34; Chaminade’s Trois Morceaux op. 31 and Smyth’s Violin Sonata in A minor, op. 7. I very much enjoyed all three compositions.
Duo FAE give convincing performances of these works that will, hopefully, inspire other artists to explore their work. Their work deserves to be heard.
CLASSICAL: KING OF KINGS: BACH ORCHESTRAL TRANSCRIPTIONS – BBC Philharmonic/Sir Andrew Davis/Martyn Brabbins – Chandos
Anyone who has seen Fantasia is familiar with Leopold Stokowski’s performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
With this album you get more than just this one piece of Bach’s performed by an orchestra. Sir Andrew Davis has created new arrangements of 11 of Bach’s compositions. He, along with Martyn Brabbins, share conducting duties on King of Kings.
If an organ can create a full range of sounds, there’s no denying that an orchestra can more than do the same. That seems obvious, but when you hear this album, you might ask yourself at moments whether you are listening to an organ or an orchestra.
For those who will be streaming this album, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited have it available in Atmos Spatial Audio – which will sound amazing.
CLASSICAL: RADIANT DAWN – The Gesualdo Six with Matilda Lloyd – Hyperion Records
Six voices and a trumpet. That’s all it takes to make fabulous music. Matilda Lloyd plays the trumpet. Alasdair Austin, Josh Cooter, Michael Craddock, Guy James, Owain Parks and Joseph Wicks are the six singers who comprise The Gesualdo Six.
The addition of the trumpet to their vocals is inspired. Lloyd isn’t always playing. She isn’t even on every track. But when she’s there…wow! The emotionality gets ratcheted up immeasurably.
On this deeply moving album they perform works from the 12th century (Saint Hildegard of Bingen’s O gloriosissimi) and the 14th century (two works by Thomas Tallis) straight on through to music from the 21stcentury (works by Deborah Pritchard, Richard Barnard and even founder/director and bass Owain Park.)
The cumulative effect of hearing Radiant Dawn is your mind has become silent, your soul has been stirred and you’ve become one with this record. It felt to me that I was hearing a private concert of this music.
CLASSICAL: SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR – National Philharmonic/Curtis Stewart/Michael Repper – AVIE Records
The discoveries of music composed by Coleridge-Taylor continue with this album that features two world-premiere studio recordings of his Ballade Op. 4 for Violin and Orchestra and Toussaint L’Ouverture, a tone poem.
There are also 3 Selections from “24 Negro Melodies” which feature a revised arrangement that is new to this recording. Coleridge-Taylor also composed a suite of the 24 melodies and that suite is heard here that closely mirrors the piano originals.
Violinist Stewart, the National Philharmonic and conductor Repper have brought this music to full life. One hopes that any further discoveries of music by Coleridge-Taylor will be handled just as well as they are in this convincing album.
CLASSICAL: SHOSTAKOVICH: Cello Sonata/Impromptu/Viola Sonata – Paul Neubauer and Anne-Marie McDermott – First Hand Records
Tomorrow, August 9th, marks the 50th anniversary of composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s death. Fittingly, this album features Shostakovich’s final work, the Viola Sonata, Op. 147. That work closes out this fine album.
The album opens with the Cello Sonata, Op. 40 which has been arranged for viola and piano. No attribution is available for who did the arrangement. That is followed by a very brief work, Impromptu, which was only discovered in 2017. I’d never heard the Impromptu before. Though it runs less than two minutes, it covers a lot of ground. I liked it.
Then we get to the main attraction, the Viola Sonata, about which much has been written. Neubauer and McDermott are perfect partners for this work. It truly sounds like a man with little time left composed it.
If you want to hear three impressive works by Shostakovich performed beautifully, this album is for you. It is haunting when it needs to be, melancholy as required and playful in moments. The musicianship and the recording itself serve as a great way of honoring Shostakovich and likely to please fans of his music.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: JOE HISAISHI CONDUCTS – Joe Hisaishi/Futures Orchestra Classics/The Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo – Deutsche Grammophon
Hisaishi is best known as a composer of films scores – many of them for director Hayao Miyazaki’s films. He’s also been composing and releasing albums for over 40 years.
This week’s release comes from a July 2024 concert in Tokyo. The album opens with Steve Reich’s The Desert Music. This is a work composed in 1983 by Reich and features a chorus along with the orchestra.
The other work is Hisaishi’s The End of the World which was composed in response to 9/11 and the disruption of the world as we knew it. Originally a three-movement work, he expanded it into a 5-movement work and that’s the version heard here. Soprano Ella Taylor sings on this recording.
The Desert Music has the appropriate energy and tension. The End of the World is a beautiful piece that skillfully combines compositional mayhem with the beauty one expects from Hisaishi.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: TORRENTIAL RAINDANCE – April Clayton/Miguel del Aguila – Urtext
Another discovery in composer Miguel del Aguila. He’s a Uruguayan American pianist and composer. All seven tracks on Torrential Raindance were composed by him and specifically written for flute (Clayton) and piano (del Aguila).
Though he’s a prolific composer, this is the first time I’ve heard his work. Rest assured I have already been looking into other recordings.
Torrential Raindance takes you on a journey through nature, loss and out to the plains of South America with gauchos. My favorite track is Silencio which was composed in honor of del Aguila’s brother, Nelson, who passed away in 2012.
Clayton (long an advocate of del Aguila’s music) and the composer make for a beautifully-paired couple of musicians.
JAZZ: A TIME ONCE FORGOTTEN – Kai Craig – Whirlwind Recordings
One of the first things that impressed me about drummer Craig’s debut album is that his originals aren’t the first songs you hear. He lets the musicianship of this album be front and center in songs composed by Fred Hersch, Kenny Kirkland, John Taylor and Wayne Shorter.
Yes, the opening track was written by his saxophonist Sean Payne, but in this era of self-promotion above all, I was impressed that Craig waited to play some of his own work.
The musicianship is what stands out on this album. In addition to Payne, the other musicians on this album are Rainer Böhm on piano, James Copus on trumpet and Geraud Portal on bass. The playing is solid throughout and by five guys who aren’t unaware of what came before them and are equally unafraid to venture into different territory.
Lest you think I wasn’t going to be dealin’ with the chieftain’s originals and that they’d be nothing more than an afterthought, you’ll want to check them out. Just as you’ll want to listen to A Time Once Forgotten. Great first album!
JAZZ/SOUL: UNDERGROUND – Geoff Mann – Color Red
Flutist Herbie Mann’s 1969 album Memphis Underground was a best-selling album when it was released. It offered R&B influenced jazz versions of such songs as Hold On, I’m Coming, Chain of Fools and the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
His son, Geoff, a drummer and multi-instrumentalist who may be best known for his band Here Lies Man, has created his own version of Memphis Underground for this album.
Some of the soul aspects are replaced with more of a rock approach. The songs themselves aren’t as immediately recognizable as they are on his father’s album. Think of this as variations on Memphis Underground. Herbie Mann’s album sounded very much of its time. Geoff Mann’s does, too.
Mann is joined by pianist Victor Axelrod, Domenica Fossati on flute, guitarist Marcos Garcia and bassist J.P. Marmaba.
This is a fun album to listen to. It’s also fun, and I recommend, you listen track by track to both Memphis Underground followed by Underground. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the family tree, but it falls just far enough to make Underground an album that is completely Geoff Mann’s.
MUSICALS: FLOYD COLLINS – Original Broadway Cast Recording – Center Stage Records
I first experienced this Adam Guettel musical when I heard the 1996 cast recording. Then I saw a small production in Los Angeles in 2005. My appreciation of this wonderful musical just grew and grew.
Floyd Collins is based on the media circus the surrounded an explorer in Kentucky in 1925 who got trapped underground. That man, Floyd Collins, struggles to keep his spirits and hopes alive below the surface, while the media (such as it was in 1925), indulges every morbid curiosity of the public that is hanging on their every report.
Sadly, I couldn’t get to Lincoln Center to see this season’s first-ever Broadway production of Floyd Collins. Though it received six Tony Award nominations, it didn’t win any and was a victim of economics.
None of this should dissuade you from listening to this wonderfully performed and exceedingly well-produced recording. Guettel’s amazing music is thoroughly brought to life by a cast that includes Jeremy Jordan, Jason Gotay, Marc Kudisch, Lizzy McAlpine, Taylor Trensch, Jessica Molaskey and more.
Plus, it is Adam Guettel. That alone is reason enough to hear Floyd Collins. If you’ve never heard Floyd Collins, there’s no time like the present to hear it now.
OPERA: ADORATION – Mary Kouyoumdjian/Royce Vavrek/Alan Pierson/The Choir of Trinity Wall Street/Silvana Quartet – Bright Shiny Things
In January of 2024 I interviewed composer Mary Kouyoumdjian on the cusp of her world premiere of her first opera, Adoration.
The opera is an adaptation of Atom Egoyan’s 2009 film about a high school student who wrote in a high school assignment that his parents were the victims of a terrorist attack, even though their deaths were part of an unrelated car accident. The story takes on a life of its own and what the community’s response to his writing reveals about them are part of the drama.
The libretto, by Royce Vavrek, reveals as much about our present-day society as it does about the characters in Adoration.
This recording comes from the performances in January of 2024 as part of the PROTOTYPE Festival.
The cast included Sammy Ivany, Miriam Khalil, Marc Kudisch, David Adam Moore, Omar Najmi, Naomi Louisa O’Connell and Karim Sulayman.
The music is at times beautiful and at other moments challenging, as would be appropriate for the material. Adoration is a powerful work and one that, I hope, will find audiences through this recording and through continued performances.
That’s all for New In Music This Week: August 1st and August 8th.
Enjoy your weekend.
Enjoy the music!
Main Photo: Part of the album art of Adoration (Courtesy Bright Shiny Things)