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AARON JAY KERNIS: DREAMSONGS
New Disc Features Cellist Joshua Roman,
Violist Paul Neubauer
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SNEAK PEEK:
Winner of the Pulitzer, Grawemeyer, and Nemmers Awards, Aaron Jay Kernis is one of America's most honored composers. His music appears prominently on concert programs worldwide, and he has been commissioned by America's preeminent performing organizations and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco, Toronto, and Melbourne (AU) Symphonies.
Written for violist Paul Neubauer, Kernis's long-time friend and colleague, the Viola Concerto follows up in some ways on the tone of the work that first brought them together - Still Movement with Hymn, commissioned by American Public Media. Kernis was also moved by Neubauer's recording of viola music by Robert Schumann, which led him on an in-depth re-exploration of Robert and Clara Schumann's music. The three-movement concerto's final movement takes the performer's own interest in folk music as inspiration. Based on the well-known Yiddish song Tumbalalaika, the final movement (A Song My Mother Taught Me) closes with the ghostly irony of a brief quote from Mahler, in a final blanket of opposing chords that reference Schumann one last time, and a pensive coda which completes the work.
The two-movement virtuosic cello concerto Dreamsongs was written for the cellist Joshua Roman and is Roman's debut concerto recording. This work also takes on folk influences, especially in the last movement, Kora Song. Inspired by the music of the African kora, a plucked gourd almost similar in sound to the harp and pizzicato cello, it follows inspiration from sources including aboriginal 'dreamsongs' and the West African djembe drum.
Conductor Rebecca Miller leads the Royal Northern Sinfonia in the disc's final work Concerto with Echoes, inspired by Bach's Sixth Brandenburg Concerto, and in the composer's own words "...comes from its very first measure - the opening passage with two spiraling solo violas, like identical twins following each other breathlessly through a hall of mirrors ... this concerto mirrors the Sixth by using only violas, celli and basses, while gradually adding reeds and horns into a loop back to the sound world of the First Brandenburg Concerto."
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One of today's most frequently performed composers, Pulitzer and Grawemeyer Award-winner Aaron Jay Kernis has been commissioned by America's foremost performing organizations and artists. He received Northwestern's Nemmers Prize and is a member of the Classical Music Hall of Fame and American Academy of Arts and Letters. The multiple Grammy nominee is the workshop director of the Nashville Symphony's Composer Lab; was new music adviser to the Minnesota Orchestra, with which he co-founded and directed its Composer Institute for 15 years; and serves on Yale's composition faculty. He has been commissioned by a who's who of the music world and has conducted in cities including Rome, Washington, and Portland. Leta Miller's book-length portrait of Kernis and his work was published in 2014 by University of Illinois Press. His music can be heard on the Nonesuch, Naxos, Signum, Koch, Argo labels, among others.
Hailed by
The New York Times as a "master musician, violist
Paul Neubauer has become known for his exceptional musicality and effortless playing. He appears across the globe in recital and as soloist with over 100 orchestras, including the New York, Los Angeles, and Helsinki philharmonics; Chicago, National, St. Louis, Detroit, Dallas, San Francisco, and Bournemouth symphonies; Santa Cecilia, English Chamber, and Beethovenhalle orchestras; and St. Paul and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestras. He recently premiered Aaron Jay Kernis's viola concerto, which was written for him, and has premiered works by Bartók (revised version of Viola Concerto), Glière, Picker, Tower Ott, and Penderecki. He has been featured on
CBS' Sunday Morning,
A Prairie Home Companion, and in
Strad,
Strings,
and People magazines. A two-time Grammy nominee, his recording of the Kernis viola concerto was recently released. His recordings appear on the Delos, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, and Sony Classical labels, along with a solo album of music recorded at Music@Menlo. Appointed principal violist of the New York Philharmonic at age 21, he was recently appointed artistic director of the Mostly Music series in New Jersey and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Mannes College.
Celebrated cellist Joshua Roman has also been recognized as an accomplished composer and curator, and was named a TED Senior Fellow in 2015. He regularly appears with orchestras worldwide in both traditional concerts and in an eclectic array of projects. As soloist this season, he makes his debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, performed his own Cello Concerto, Awakening, with the Princeton Symphony, returned to the San Francisco Symphony, and appeared with the Szczecin Philharmonic of Poland. Other orchestral appearances include performances with the Symphonies of Memphis, Seattle, Portland, Berkeley, and Toronto, and BBC Scottish Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mariinsky Orchestra and Moscow State Symphony among many others. A sought-after recitalist and chamber musician, he recently premiered his new work, Tornado, with the JACK quartet at the Music Academy of the West, and other performances of the work include Town Hall Seattle, San Francisco Performances, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. His collaborations have included projects with Cho-Liang Lin, Assad Brothers, Christian Zacharias, Yo-Yo Ma, the Enso Quartet, and the Talea Ensemble. His YouTube series Everyday Bach features Roman performing Bach's cello suites from beautiful settings around the world. The only guest artist invited to appear as "unaccompanied" soloist during the YouTube Symphony Orchestra's debut concert at Carnegie Hall, he has performed on the TED Main Stage many times, including opening TED 2017. Roman is grateful for the loan of an 1899 cello by Giulio Degani of Venice.
Recorded at Sage Gateshead, UK
Producer Tim Oldham
Recording Engineer Mike Hatch
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For more information and media inquiries, contact:
Signum Records Tel: +44(0)20 8997 4000, enquiries@signumrecords.com
www.signumrecords.com
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