Minerva

SOMM Recordings is thrilled to announce Dance!, the debut recording by the Minerva Piano Trio, featuring seminal pieces by Stravinsky and Ravel alongside new works by two British composers, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Richard Birchall, and Pulitzer Prize-winning American, Caroline Shaw.

With their new CD "Hymne à l'amour" the Duo Minerva shows once again how exciting and multifaceted classical music can sound. The arrangements made with great artistry, their virtuosity and their exceptionally emotional musical style breathe fresh life into often heard works. With a lot of playfulness, the well-rehearsed duo moves between a wide variety of genres and combines classical masterpieces with contemporary avant-garde, folk music and a pinch of the yet unheard of on the subject of love - completely in Duo Minerva style.

Presented with a University of Oregon Faculty Excellence Award in 2016, saxophonist Idit Shner chose to invest that award in the creation of new compositions for saxophone. Participating in both individual and group commissioning efforts, this recording was programmed from that collection of ten new works by long established composers, such as Chicago's Stacy Garrop, to several more diverse and emerging voices, including Ziv Slama from Israel and the Oregon-based Andrea Reinkemeyer and Evan C. Paul. With pianist EunHye Choi, Shner performed several concerts with each of these pieces to enthusiastic response, forming the belief that while obvious audience favorites, they also represent a substantial contribution to current saxophone literature.