Ann Quigley

Seraphic Fire celebrates the release of its newest recording, Hildegard von Bingen: Ordo virtutum, with a performance of the work in a new production by lauded opera and Broadway stage director Francesca Zambello. The women of Seraphic Fire portray the struggle of the sweet-voiced Virtues against the songless, shouting Devil. Written in 1141, the Ordo virtutum has survived nearly 900 years through plagues, wars, schisms, reformations, and the dissolution of Hildegard’s convent. Celebrate as the women of Seraphic Fire bring this nearly millennia-old masterpiece back to life.

Pianist, David Quigley, performs a selection of traditional airs and dances from his native Ireland in imaginative arrangements by a diverse group of composers, from John Field to Amy Beach. Also included is a newly commissioned work by Irish composer, Philip Martin. Many of the tracks appear on disc for the first time while others are re-introduced to the catalogue after an absence of several years. The release will appeal to a broad range of listeners including those interested in the music of the British Isles and piano aficionados alike.

Lee Ann Womack began recording a sequel for MCA Nashville after 2008's Call Me Crazy, but none of its advance singles stuck, leading the singer to shift direction for her seventh studio album. This album didn't appear until 2014, not on Universal but on Sugar Hill/Welk, who picked up The Way I'm Livin', an album that effectively reboots her career. Produced by Frank Liddell – Womack's husband but more notably the producer behind recent hit records by Miranda Lambert, Pistol Annies, David Nail, and the Eli Young Band – The Way I'm Livin' finds the veteran singer intentionally abandoning the chart race for deeply felt intimacy. Womack didn't write any of the songs on The Way I'm Livin' – a collection of writers ranging from Bruce Robison, Kenny Price, Julie Miller, and Mindy Smith to Hayes Carll and Neil Young bear credits – but the material is so carefully selected, the album plays personally.

The connection between Wales and the harp is a long-standing one, and Mathias's part in it began 12 years before his Harp Concerto was written, with Improvisations for harp solo; even a Welshman has to learn how to cope with such an idiosyncratic instrument. He learned his lessons well—even using semitone pedal glissandos in the second movement, and he keeps the harp audible by alternating its solo passages with orchestral ones or, when the two are working together treating the orchestra with a light touch (the celesta is used as a particularly effective companion to the harp), at other times resorting to the more familiar across-the-strings sweep. Two movements have declared Welsh associations: the first juxtaposes but does not develop three themes the second is a 'bardic' elegy; the last is simply ''joyful and rhythmic''. The whole makes pleasing listening appealing to the emotions and imagination rather than the intellect.