True Concord’s newest album, A Dream So Bright, features two world premiere recordings of works by Jake Runestad. His EMMY®-winning choral/orchestral work, Earth Symphony, with poetry of Todd Boss, was commissioned and premiered by True Concord in 2022. Dreams of the Fallen, Runestad’s prize-winning work for solo piano, chorus & orchestra, features pianist Jeffrey Biegel and includes texts of the poet Brian Turner, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Turner states: When the music lifts to its peak, when the choir sings into the high cathedral of the human experience—the hairs on the back of my neck take notice, my own heart takes notice, and I am moved once again by the fusion of sound and story. “Dreams of the Fallen” is a compassionate, emotionally layered, elegant, and poignant work of art that I am proud to be a part of.
DG presents the third physical release from Max Richter's Retrospective catalog, Infra. Written for piano, electronics and string quartet, Infra is an expansion on Richter's score for Wayne McGregor's ballet of the same name that was created as a response to the London bombings on 7/7. Infra follows Richter's latest album, Three Worlds: music from Woolf Works, an album featuring his score for another McGregor ballet, Woolf Works. This CD version of Infra features the bonus track, "Sub Piano."
Individually, Rosemary Clooney’s albums giving tribute to the great American song-writers of approximately the middle of the twentieth century seemed interesting, and even illuminating, as she subtly evoked the intentions of those writers by her straightforward delivery of their tunes. Little did the listeners of the six CD’s in Rosemary Clooney: The Songbook Collection realize at the time of their release in 1979 and throughout the 1980’s that a larger perspective enveloped the incremental growth of Clooney’s discography focused on a single theme.