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Fantasy: Oppens Plays Kaminsky
Ursula Oppens presents a new album celebrating her decades-long personal and musical friendship with composer Laura Kaminsky. Releasing April 9.
Pianist Ursula Oppens, stalwart champion of 20th- and 21st-century American music and recipient of multiple Grammy nominations and other honors, celebrates her decades-long friendship and professional association with composer Laura Kaminsky on an album of world-premiere recordings.
The program includes two recent works written for the pianist: Kaminsky’s Piano Quintet, performed with the Cassatt String Quartet, “a concise work of considerable substance and atmosphere” (New York Classical Review) and the turbulent Reckoning: Five Miniatures for America for piano four-hands, with pianist Jerome Lowenthal, created expressly for this recording.
A large-scale Fantasy for solo piano explores sonorities from French Impressionism to jazz.
Kaminsky’s Piano Concerto was inspired by visual images of sunlit rivers in New York City and St. Petersburg, Russia, where Oppens gave the world premiere with the St. Petersburg Chamber Philharmonic led by its artistic director Jeffery Meyer. On this world-premiere recording, Meyer, who is also director of orchestras at Arizona State University, conducts the ASU Symphony Orchestra.
Fantasy: Oppens Plays Kaminsky releases April 9.
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In anticipation of the Earth Day (April 22) release of Stacy Garrop‘s oratorio Terra Nostra, a playlist of pieces about our planet, its scenic places, creatures, natural resources, seasons, etc. Tracks from Terra Nostra will be added upon its 4/22 release.
Enjoy 25% off of Cedille’s Featured Release.
On this episode of Classical Chicago, Cedille President Jim Ginsburg talks with celebrated composer Stacy Garrop about her experience composing and recording Cedille’s latest release, Terra Nostra. The multifarious text weaves together creation myths from India, North America, and Egypt, excerpts from the Bible’s Old Testament, classic poetry from Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and contemporary writings by Esther Iverem and Wendell Berry, among others.