Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Volume 2
with Blue Heron
This CD is the companion to Blue Heron’s 2019 release, Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Volume 1. The CD booklet contains complete texts and translations, and notes by music historian Sean Gallagher and Blue Heron’s artistic director, Scott Metcalfe.
More information here
with Blue Heron
This CD is the companion to Blue Heron’s 2019 release, Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, Volume 1. The CD booklet contains complete texts and translations, and notes by music historian Sean Gallagher and Blue Heron’s artistic director, Scott Metcalfe.
More information here
Cherry Street
With Culomba
Culomba is a vocal ensemble based in Massachusetts, specializing in close harmony singing from around the world. Our name means “dove” in the Corsican language, and our repertoire spans many traditions from the United States, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean, as well as renaissance polyphony and original compositions. Our singers have studied with masters of these traditions, bringing their eclectic specialities to the table. Usually this table is the kitchen table, where we spend rehearsals listening to crackly old recordings, tuning chords slowly, laughing, riffing, and philosophizing late into the night.
Cherry Street celebrates the many dazzling forms harmony can take, the longtime friendships and singing communities that fuel us, and the creative inspiration of our mentors and friends. If it has a theme, then contrast itself is the theme, and a big part of the experience. Whether you have loved harmony singing for years or are just beginning to explore it, we welcome you to pull up a chair and experience something new.
More information here
With Culomba
Culomba is a vocal ensemble based in Massachusetts, specializing in close harmony singing from around the world. Our name means “dove” in the Corsican language, and our repertoire spans many traditions from the United States, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean, as well as renaissance polyphony and original compositions. Our singers have studied with masters of these traditions, bringing their eclectic specialities to the table. Usually this table is the kitchen table, where we spend rehearsals listening to crackly old recordings, tuning chords slowly, laughing, riffing, and philosophizing late into the night.
Cherry Street celebrates the many dazzling forms harmony can take, the longtime friendships and singing communities that fuel us, and the creative inspiration of our mentors and friends. If it has a theme, then contrast itself is the theme, and a big part of the experience. Whether you have loved harmony singing for years or are just beginning to explore it, we welcome you to pull up a chair and experience something new.
More information here
Palaver Strings
Ready or not
Solo Track: 5
On Friday, April 15, 2022, musician-led ensemble Palaver Strings released its new album of music by diverse female composers, Ready or Not, on Azica Records. Works on the album include Grażyna Bacewicz's Concerto for String Orchestra; Non può il mio cuore by Venetian singer, lutenist, and composer Maddalena Casulana; composer Barbara Strozzi's madrigal Lagrime mie featuring a performance by mezzo-soprano Sophie Michaux; Chicago-based multi-genre composer, vocalist, pianist, and producer Akenya Seymour's Fear the Lamb; and a set of fiddle tunes by two Portland-based fiddlers, Liz Knowles and Palaver's own Elizabeth Moore.
More information here
Ready or not
Solo Track: 5
On Friday, April 15, 2022, musician-led ensemble Palaver Strings released its new album of music by diverse female composers, Ready or Not, on Azica Records. Works on the album include Grażyna Bacewicz's Concerto for String Orchestra; Non può il mio cuore by Venetian singer, lutenist, and composer Maddalena Casulana; composer Barbara Strozzi's madrigal Lagrime mie featuring a performance by mezzo-soprano Sophie Michaux; Chicago-based multi-genre composer, vocalist, pianist, and producer Akenya Seymour's Fear the Lamb; and a set of fiddle tunes by two Portland-based fiddlers, Liz Knowles and Palaver's own Elizabeth Moore.
More information here
|
Boston Early Music Festival
Lalande’s Les Fontaines de Versailles & Le Concert d’Esculape Solo Track: 5 The Boston Early Music Festival’s eleventh Baroque opera recording features a chamber opera and other entertainment from the court of Versailles by Michel-Richard de Lalande, on the German label CPO (Classic Produktion Osnabrück). GRAMMY Award–winning Musical Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs and Concertmaster Robert Mealy lead the all-star Boston Early Music Festival Vocal and Chamber Ensembles in Lalande’s chamber opera Les Fontaines de Versailles and his secular cantata Le Concert d’Esculape. This release is the follow-up to the Boston Early Music Festival’s 2019 GRAMMY-nominated recording of Charpentier’s Les Plaisirs de Versailles and Les Arts Florissants. More information here |
Blue Heron
Johannes Ockeghem: Complete songs vol.1
Solo track: 9
The first complete recording of Ockeghem’s songs since the early 1980s will be released in two volumes. This first disc also includes works of Barbingant and an anonymous work recently rediscovered in the Leuven Chansonnier. The second disc will be released in circa 2022.
More information here
Listen to the full album here
Johannes Ockeghem: Complete songs vol.1
Solo track: 9
The first complete recording of Ockeghem’s songs since the early 1980s will be released in two volumes. This first disc also includes works of Barbingant and an anonymous work recently rediscovered in the Leuven Chansonnier. The second disc will be released in circa 2022.
More information here
Listen to the full album here
Lorelei Ensemble
Impermanence
with Sono Luminus
Solo track: 5
Migration of peoples across borders has shaped the human experience for millennia. Whether physical or metaphysical, humanity survives by way of continuous movement—our culture, beliefs, and histories are marked by impermanence. This album is an exploration of that concept—traveling between early and contemporary repertoires, based in texts, melodies, and timelines that refuse to be conveniently pinned down by norms.
Order your copy here.
Impermanence
with Sono Luminus
Solo track: 5
Migration of peoples across borders has shaped the human experience for millennia. Whether physical or metaphysical, humanity survives by way of continuous movement—our culture, beliefs, and histories are marked by impermanence. This album is an exploration of that concept—traveling between early and contemporary repertoires, based in texts, melodies, and timelines that refuse to be conveniently pinned down by norms.
Order your copy here.
Boston Early Music Festival presents
Charpentier’s Les Plaisirs de Versailles & Les Arts Florissants
2020 GRAMMY nominee for Best Opera Recording!
The GRAMMY-winning BEMF Chamber Opera Series returns to the music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier with an all-new disc featuring two chamber operas by the French Baroque master. Les Plaisirs de Versailles—first presented by BEMF in November 2016—depicts a rousing and satirical argument among personifications of the many delight’s found in Louis XIV’s great palace. Les Arts Florissants also exalts the Sun King, showing the forces of Art and Peace triumphant over the agents of war and discord, thanks to peaceful leadership of Louis XIV.
This CD will be released in conjunction with the June 2019 encore performances of
VERSAILLES: Portrait of a Royal Domain at the 2019 Festival Festival.
More information here
Lorelei Ensemble
Antigone
The Writings of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement
A note from the composer:
Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were both active in the White Rose resistance during WWII: a nonviolent resistance group of several students and a professor from the University of Munich that wrote and distributed pamphlets denouncing the Nazi government. The White Rose began its activities in 1942. Sophie and Hans Scholl were sentenced to death and executed by guillotine in 1943. Their courageous resolve and persistence in their anti-Nazi views during trial and execution are well documented.
When I began working on this piece, I chose the writings of Sophie Scholl as a starting point in consultation with Beth Willer, the Artistic Director of Lorelei Ensemble. I then chose Sophocles’ Antigone as a dramatic framework to give structure to the piece. In crafting the libretto, Scholl’s writing seemed to meld directly into the words of Antigone, while the anti-Nazi pamphlets distributed by the White Rose movement served as ideal Greek choruses, delivering the Antigone narrative in short, suggestive vignettes.
For me, this ancient play serves to honor and extol the words of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement in their timeless, transcendent qualities. The clash between what we hold to be undeniably just and the decrees of those in power was important two thousand years ago in the public spectacle of Greek drama, it was important during WWII, it is important now and it always will be. —James Kallembach, 2022
More information here
Antigone
The Writings of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement
A note from the composer:
Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were both active in the White Rose resistance during WWII: a nonviolent resistance group of several students and a professor from the University of Munich that wrote and distributed pamphlets denouncing the Nazi government. The White Rose began its activities in 1942. Sophie and Hans Scholl were sentenced to death and executed by guillotine in 1943. Their courageous resolve and persistence in their anti-Nazi views during trial and execution are well documented.
When I began working on this piece, I chose the writings of Sophie Scholl as a starting point in consultation with Beth Willer, the Artistic Director of Lorelei Ensemble. I then chose Sophocles’ Antigone as a dramatic framework to give structure to the piece. In crafting the libretto, Scholl’s writing seemed to meld directly into the words of Antigone, while the anti-Nazi pamphlets distributed by the White Rose movement served as ideal Greek choruses, delivering the Antigone narrative in short, suggestive vignettes.
For me, this ancient play serves to honor and extol the words of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose movement in their timeless, transcendent qualities. The clash between what we hold to be undeniably just and the decrees of those in power was important two thousand years ago in the public spectacle of Greek drama, it was important during WWII, it is important now and it always will be. —James Kallembach, 2022
More information here
Jessica Meyer: I long and seek after
with the Lorelei Ensemble: Tracks 12-17
In 2019, Jessica Meyer’s first composer/performer portrait album Ring Out highlighted her lyrical, expressive works that celebrate the arts of interpretation and performance. In her sophomore effort, I long and seek after, she focuses solely on vocal music that features poetry by female and underrepresented writers who tackle universal themes such as loneliness, desire, love, heartbreak, justice, and the courage to embark on a journey of discovering oneself.
More information here
with the Lorelei Ensemble: Tracks 12-17
In 2019, Jessica Meyer’s first composer/performer portrait album Ring Out highlighted her lyrical, expressive works that celebrate the arts of interpretation and performance. In her sophomore effort, I long and seek after, she focuses solely on vocal music that features poetry by female and underrepresented writers who tackle universal themes such as loneliness, desire, love, heartbreak, justice, and the courage to embark on a journey of discovering oneself.
More information here
Advent press presents
O Lord, Open Thou Our Lips
A recording featuring the a capella choral music of Richard Webster
More information here
Joseph Summer's The Shakespeare Concerts
Summer's Distillation
With SUMMER'S DISTILLATION, Joseph Summer, as composer, offers a new look at the timeless texts credited to William Shakespeare. As artistic director, Summer presents settings by Brahms, R. Schumann, and Benjamin Pesetsky, curating an overall impressive collection of works for voice, harp, and horns.
Release date January 10th 2020
Revels Presents
Tutta Bella! A Venitian Christmas Revels
Megan Henderson and her fine band of singers and instrumentalists whisk us back to Renaissance Venice for Christmas festivities. Alongside the work of Venetian-born composers, there's music y musicians who visited or settled in the city. Various types of early guitar are joined by a host of wind and brass instruments to make for some lovely sounds and textures. The Revels Children's Chorus sings with an abandon, fervor and infectious enthusiasm that brings a smile to our faces.
Solo tracks: 8, 12, 13, 14, 21
Order your copy here
Tutta Bella! A Venitian Christmas Revels
Megan Henderson and her fine band of singers and instrumentalists whisk us back to Renaissance Venice for Christmas festivities. Alongside the work of Venetian-born composers, there's music y musicians who visited or settled in the city. Various types of early guitar are joined by a host of wind and brass instruments to make for some lovely sounds and textures. The Revels Children's Chorus sings with an abandon, fervor and infectious enthusiasm that brings a smile to our faces.
Solo tracks: 8, 12, 13, 14, 21
Order your copy here
Joseph Summer's The Shakespeare Concerts
The Tempest by Joseph Summer
Composer Joseph Summer, who has been fascinated with Shakespeare for most of his life, has composed The Tempest, using a libretto written by his daughter, Eve Summer. Summer is founder and executive director of The Shakespeare Concerts, which presents recitals and recordings of music inspired by the immortal bard. Summer comments that “Everything that Shakespeare limned in The Tempest is about the life of my family, in fine detail. It’s not as if incidents of The Tempest make brief appearances, or indeed, happen only once. The plot elements embrace us repeatedly.”
Solo track: 8
Order your copy here
The Tempest by Joseph Summer
Composer Joseph Summer, who has been fascinated with Shakespeare for most of his life, has composed The Tempest, using a libretto written by his daughter, Eve Summer. Summer is founder and executive director of The Shakespeare Concerts, which presents recitals and recordings of music inspired by the immortal bard. Summer comments that “Everything that Shakespeare limned in The Tempest is about the life of my family, in fine detail. It’s not as if incidents of The Tempest make brief appearances, or indeed, happen only once. The plot elements embrace us repeatedly.”
Solo track: 8
Order your copy here
Leonardo Garcia Alarcòn's Cappella Mediterranea
Dido & Aeneas by Henry Purcell
Dido & Æneas. The poetry of the voice, the emotion of the verb set exquisitely to music Purcell's masterwork. Leonardo García Alarcón and a rising new generation of 'baroque' performers bring intensity, passion and innocent freshness to Dido's eternal tragedy.
Order your copy here
