Home » Stories » Angele Dubeau - Pulsations is the KUSC: Album of the Week

Stories for July 08, 2020

  •

    PBO's 'Saul' is a perfect fit for Nicholas McGegan / San Francisco Classical Voice
     
    Posted At : July 6, 2020 12:00 AM

    Nicholas McGegan may no longer be the artistic director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, but the record of McGegan's inimitable touch - unmistakable, in the case of Handel's Saul - remains to savor. Everything about his artistry, including the buoyant and sprightly tempos, sly humor, deep reverence for beauty, and capacity for sincere emotional expression come through on this, his final live recording with PBO. Although Saul's covers and liner notes shockingly fail to give him credit, the recording was superbly produced, recorded, edited, mixed,  and mastered by PBO's former recording engineer, David v.R. Bowles of Swineshead Productions, LLC. Set down in Berkeley's First Congregational Church in April, 2019, this digital-only release shows the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorale, under Bruce Lamott, in fine form. Auditioned in 24/192 high-resolution, Bowles's achievement captures all the nuance and color that were transmitted by First Congregational's uniquely live, resonant, and spacious acoustic, and leaves me deeply regretting both his departure and that of his husband, McGegan. The recording is available on various streaming/download services, including Qobuz, Amazon, and others. If you download or stream this recording and discover yourself without libretto, biographies, and Lamott's introduction, you can find them at philharmonia.org/saul., Make sure to access them because they'll help you understand just how wonderful this performance is. Having said that, there are many times when the sound and music are so captivating that you may find yourself closing your eyes as your relish their beauties.    PHOTO: Laura Barisonzi READ THE FULL San Francisco Classical Voice REVIEW

  • Movies will be a little quieter, and emptier, without Morricone / Pitchfork
     
    Posted At : July 6, 2020 12:00 AM

    Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Spike Lee and Terence Blanchard. Every visionary filmmaker needs a composer they can trust-someone they can call on to accentuate their work with music. And from 1964 until well into the 1980s, there was no greater director-composer partnership than Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, the Italian film composer who died on Monday in Rome at age 91. It was through his long-term collaboration with the late filmmaker that Morricone created his most iconic scores and helped define the sound of the Spaghetti Western, the Italian film movement spearheaded by Leone and his so-called "Dollars Trilogy" starring Clint Eastwood: 1964's A Fistful of Dollars, 1965's For a Few Dollars More, and 1966's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Leone was hardly the only director to take advantage of Morricone's talents over the last 60 years. In fact, hundreds of filmmakers, among them Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Terrence Malick, partnered with the composer in order to infuse their films with orchestral gravitas and vintage swagger. Morricone's prolific drive was astonishing: By the end of his career, he had scored more than 500 movies-an especially impressive number, considering how he refused to move to Hollywood and never learned to speak English. Some film composers consider it their duty to write music that blends into the scenery or prioritizes tasteful subtlety. Not Morricone. His scores are expressive, grandiose, and undeniably audacious in their oddball instrumental choices, from the pan pipes he used in 1989's Casualties of War to the Haitian drumming and children's choir he incorporated into 1977's Exorcist II: The Heretic. Such boldness was remarkably well-suited to the operatic scope and brooding emotional expanse of the Spaghetti Western. As Leone put it in an interview towards the end of his life, "I've always felt that music is more expressive than dialogue. I've always said that my best dialogue and screenwriter is Ennio Morricone." Fittingly, on Monday, everyone from Chance the Rapper to Bon Iver's Justin Vernon to El-P mourned the indispensable composer. As the director Edgar Wright put it, "He could make an average movie into a must-see, a good movie into art, and a great movie into legend." Movies will be a little quieter, and emptier, without Morricone. READ THE FULL Pitchfork ARTICLE

  • Ma, Thile, Meyer, Duncan - Not Our First Goat Rodeo is the WFMT: Featured New Release
     
    Posted At : July 6, 2020 12:00 AM

    Not Our First Goat Rodeo is the long-awaited follow-up album to the Grammy Award-winning Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Both albums combine the talents of the four solo artists to create a singular sound that's part composed, part improvised, and uniquely American. The music is so complex to pull off that the group likens it to a goat rodeo – an aviation term for a situation in which 100 things need to go right to avoid disaster. Both the first album and the new recording also feature the voice and artistry of singer-songwriter Aoife O'Donovan. For July 6, Ma, Thile, Meyer, Duncan - Not Our First Goat Rodeo is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release.'  SEE THE PAGE

  • Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi is a 'must have' / textura
     
    Posted At : July 6, 2020 12:00 AM

    To these ears, the soundtracks Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi created for Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli classics Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service are so indissolubly bound up in their reception, it's hard to think of the music as a separate entity. To that end, Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi does a superb job of enabling admirers to do precisely that by presenting his musical artistry sans visual accompaniment. In assembling a diverse selection of twenty-eight pieces spanning his nearly forty-year career, the release is a must-have for those already familiar with Hisaishi and those discovering him anew. READ THE FULL textura REVIEW

  • John Scofield and Steve Swallow... tell tales
     
    Posted At : July 6, 2020 12:00 AM

    Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his friend and mentor Steve Swallow in an outgoing and spirited recording, made in an afternoon in New York City in March 2019 - "old school" style as Scofield says, acknowledging that more than forty years of preparation led up to it. John was a 20-year-old student at Berklee when he first met and played with bassist Swallow, and they have continued ever since, in many different contexts.  Listen to the podcast "I love these songs", says Scofield of the selection of Swallow compositions explored here – a broad range including tunes that have become standards, as well as some lesser-known works. The rapport between Scofield and Swallow is evident in every moment. John: "Sometimes when we play it's like one big guitar, the bass part and my part together."  Behind the drum kit, Bill Stewart is alert to all the implications of the interaction. "What Bill does is more than ‘playing the drums,'" Scofield says. "He's a melodic voice in the music, playing counterpoint, and comping, while also swinging really hard." The guitarist himself plays with fire and invention throughout: "These two giants bring out the best in me." Swallow's compositions, John notes, "make perfect vehicles for improvisation. The changes are always interesting – but not too interesting! They're grounded in reality with cadences that make sense. They're never just intellectual exercises, and they're so melodic. They're all songs, rather than ‘pieces'. They could all be sung."  Swallow Tales opens with "She Was Young", a tune introduced on Steve Swallow's ECM album Home, in 1979, where it was indeed sung, by Sheila Jordan. A number of the tunes addressed here – including "Falling Grace", "Portsmouth Figurations", and "Eiderdown" – belonged to the 1960s repertoire of Gary Burton's groups. Scofield, who had admired them from the outset, studied them with Burton and the composer in the early 1970s, by which point Swallow had made the transition from double bass to bass guitar, creating a new voice for himself on the electric instrument. When Scofield launched his own recording career, Swallow was in his trio (with Adam Nussbaum on drums). Touring widely the guitarist and the bassist fine-tuned their musical understanding, a process continued in many other configurations over the years. Scofield appeared on Steve's XtraWatt album Swallow in 1991, for instance, and Swallow is on numerous Scofield recordings - including the recent Country For Old Men, which also featured Bill Stewart. A close associate since the early 1990s, drummer Stewart had played in John's quartet with Joe Lovano, and gone on to join the guitarist in many journeys over varied musical terrain. John Scofield has recorded for jazz labels including Impulse, Blue Note, Verve, Emarcy and Gramavision. ECM appearances to date have been infrequent but distinguished; they include two albums with Marc Johnson's Bass Desires group – Bass Desires (recorded 1985) and Second Sight (1987) - in which the guitarist shared frontline duties with Bill Frisell. On Shades of Jade (2004), a third Marc Johnson album, Scofield is heard alongside frequent colleague Joe Lovano. The live double album Saudades (recorded in 2004), meanwhile, features Scofield as a member of Trio Beyond, alongside Jack DeJohnette and Larry Goldings, reassessing the songbook of Tony Williams' Lifetime. Swallow Tales is the first of his ECM recordings to feature the guitarist as bandleader. Produced by Max Horowitz - Crossover Media, This content, as well as the related podcast, are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) for redistribution and adaptation.

  • Sharon Isbin's 'Affinity' has textural clarity and a perfect balance / musical america
     
    Posted At : July 6, 2020 12:00 AM

    Sharon Isbin has been a tireless commissioner of new work and her latest album Affinity is no exception with several recent compositions set alongside some old friends. It's Chris Brubeck's 18-minute Guitar Concerto-the longest and most colorful work here-that gives the album its title and opens proceedings. The concerto's name alludes to a shared "affinity" between composer and soloist, two musicians who thrive on exploring different styles. Like his father jazz legend Dave Brubeck, Chris Brubeck has his roots in jazz, but despite its plentiful toe-tapping syncopation, Affinity is most definitely a classical work. At its atmospheric heart the composer manages to incorporate one of his father's loveliest tunes-"Autumn in Our Town"-before a lilting Renaissance dance section ups the tempo to end with something akin to a wriggling Brazilian samba. Highly energetic, melodically infectious, and colorfully scored, Affinity is a real crowd pleaser, and with her immaculate and fleet-footed technique Isbin does it proud. The Maryland Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Elizabeth Schulze has just the right feel for this music and the excellent engineering ensures both textural clarity and a perfect balance. It's 40 years since Leo Brouwer wrote his solo guitar work El Decameron Negro for Isbin, and although she's recorded it previously, her interpretation has only deepened with time. The three evocative instrumental "ballads" are inspired by African love stories infused with the musical sensibilities of Brouwer's native Cuba. Isbin is a natural storyteller and is in her element here, putting on a virtuoso display full of light, shade, and manual dexterity. Ditto Tan Dun's Seven Desires, an intriguing solo work that straddles-and fuses-the seemingly disparate worlds of the Chinese pipa and Spanish flamenco guitar. Antonio Lauro's charming Waltz No. 3 is here arranged for two guitars by former Isbin student and now regular duet partner Colin Davin. The disc concludes with Richard Danielpour's Of Love and Longing, three contrasting settings for voice and guitar of the Persian poet Rumi. Performed here with great warmth and sensitivity by Isabel Leonard, it crowns an album that should please fans of Isbin and of contemporary guitar music in general.

  • Smartly played and engineered, Mark Abel's 'The Cave of Wondrous Voice' is music of expressive directness and charm / the arts fuse
     
    Posted At : July 1, 2020 12:00 AM

    One would find it hard to beat the all-star line-up featured in The Cave of Wondrous Voice, a new, hour-long survey of vocal and chamber music by the California-based composer Mark Abel. David Shifrin, Carol Rosenberger, Hila Plitmann, and Fred Sherry headline the album but they're not its only stars. On the whole, The Cave of Wonderous Voice is smartly played and engineered. Abel's writing throughout is fluent and often genial. While certain spots in the Trio, particularly, might benefit from grittier moments to offset the diatonic ones, this is music of considerable expressive directness as well as charm. SEE ALL the arts fuse Classical CD Reviews

Top 10 for Jul

  • Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile :

    Not Our First Goat Rodeo

     Sony Music Masterworks today releases Not Our First Goat Rodeo, the long-awaited follow-up album to the GRAMMY Award-winning The Goat Rodeo Sessions, with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile.
  • Thelonious Monk :

    Palo Alto

     In the fall of 1968, a sixteen-year old high school student named Danny Scher had a dream to invite legendary jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and his all-star quartet to perform a concert at his local high school in Palo Alto, CA.
  • Harry Connick Jr :

    Stars Still Shine

     GRAMMY and Emmy Award-winning singer and actor Harry Connick, Jr.
  • Bettye LaVette :

    Blackbirds

     Blues Hall of Famer Bettye LaVette has decided to release her stirring rendition of "Strange Fruit" ahead of schedule as it says as much about the history of American racism and the state of the country today.
  • Terence Blanchard :

    DA 5 BLOODS OMPS

     Milan Records today releases DA 5 BLOODS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SCORE) with music composed by six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning trumpeter and composer TERENCE BLANCHARD.
  • Jimmy Heath :

    Love Letter

     Verve Records announces the release of Love Letter, a parting masterpiece and the first all-ballads album from magisterial tenor saxophonist-composer Jimmy Heath.
  • Ludovico Einaudi :

    12 Songs From Home

     Ludovico Einaudi today releases a special 12-track digital collection, ‘12 Songs From Home', out digitally on Decca Records on 8thMay 2020 with artwork drawn by the composer.
  • Soundtracks :

    Animal Crackers

     Soon to be released on Netflix July 24th - Owen Huntington's life is one continuous loop of work, eat, and sleep.
  • John Scofield :

    Swallow Tales

     Guitarist John Scofield celebrates the music of his friend and mentor Steve Swallow in an outgoing and spirited recording, made in an afternoon in New York City in March 2019 - "old school" style as Scofield says, acknowledging that more than forty years of preparation led up to it.
  • El-P :

    Capone OMPS

     Milan Records Today Releases Capone (Original Motion Picture Score) With Music By The Grammy-Nominated Run The Jewels' Producer And Rapper El-P.

Angele Dubeau - Pulsations is the KUSC: Album of the Week

Posted: November 18, 2019 12:00 AM | By: Admin
Bookmark and Share

Pulsations is the latest from violinist Angele Dubeau and her all-female string ensemble, La Pieta. Dubeau explains the concept of this album: "A pulsation marks time, it infuses its rhythm in it and also evokes the heart. Just like those composers whose music calls out to me and who, with their unique signatures, mark time, our time." Composers represented include Olafur Arnalds, Ludovico Einaudi, Craig Armstrong, and Max Richter.

For the week of November 18, Angele Dubeau - Pulsations is the KUSC: Los Angeles 'Album of the Week'

Crossover Media Projects with Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

  • Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

    Pulsations

    With a career spanning over four decades and an impressive discography of more than forty albums, Angèle Dubeau continues to leave her mark in today's music world. Her virtuosity brings her on the most prestigious stages and she continues to be awarded international prizes for her recordings and to receive honors for her career. 

    Pulsations, the violinist's new album, brings together works that evoke strong images and possess a profound emotional intensity. In addition to the excellence of her playing, she has a flair for finding and recording the works of remarkable composers, thus placing her at the center of the post-minimalist movement, one of the most relevant musical genres of our time. The public's increasing interest for some of these composers whose works are featured on Pulsations tells us that we are witnessing the emergence of a golden age for this contemporary music. 

  • Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

    Ovation

    In December 2017, with two sold-out concerts at the Maison symphonique de Montréal, the tour celebrating Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà's 20th anniversary came to an end. This tour of thirty-three concerts was, for the violinist, an opportunity to thank her Quebec fans for the support they had given her throughout her career.

    It was on that tour, during the concerts at Palais Montcalm in Quebec City, that Ovation was recorded. This new album features a retrospective program composed of works by the likes of Einaudi, Richter, Glass, Enescu and Saint-Saens and which have been landmarks of the first 20 years of La Pietà's career. The album also showcases a violinist at the top of her form and a concert where magic and perfection are in symbiosis.

  • Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

    Max Richter - Portrait

    Angèle Dubeau has always stood out for the quality of her playing, her adventurous musical undertakings and her irreproachable artistic journey. An artist very much her own and a musician of her time, the violinist has often found a source of inspiration and an important influence in contemporary works. The new album Max Richter: Portrait by Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà is a striking addition to the Portrait series, music of great depth and acute sensitivity.

    13 NEW  58 TOTAL
    SYND:     C24, CBC
    Direct: Music Choice, MOOD, SpaFax
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Minneapolis, Portland, Detroit, Denver, Santa Fe, MN(Statewide), CO(Statewide), WV(Statewide), AL(Statewide), WI(Statewide)
    INTER: Canada, UK
    Online: allmusic, AccuRadio

  • Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

    Silence On Joue - Prise 2


    Having personally done the research for this directory, choosing a variety of film music extracts, I had in mind to revisit their original version are bringing another dimension of sound with my violin and these wonderful musicians that I lead and around me. I also worked closely with various composers and arrangers that I thank and congratulate.  Thank you to all the team for Analekta trust over the years the support and expertise worthy of the greatest. My reason for being as a musician is my audience and that is that I realized that 40th, oops, double I said, 41st album. - Angele Dubeau

    22 NEW  50 TOTAL
    SYND:     Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: MOOD
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Cleveland, Houston, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Hartford, Madison WI, Honolulu, AL(Network)
    Online: AccuRadio

  • Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

    Ludovico Einaudi - Portrait

    Portrait is a string of recordings presenting contemporary composers with a unique musical signature. Ludovico Einaudi is one of them. A music that captivates the listener, a sonic landscape to discover"says Angèle Dubeau. Driven by the works of this grand and prolific Italian composer, the internationally renowned violinist shares once again her passion with the excellent musicians of her string orchestra, La Pietà. For her 39th album in career, Angèle Dubeau offers a unique revisit to Ludovico Einaudi's music, "changing its texture, rethinking its character, while bringing a new sonic dimension."

    25 NEW  61 TOTAL
    SYND:     PRI/Classical 24, CBC
    Direct: Music Choice, Spafax
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Cleveland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Portland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Austin, New Orleans, Memphis, Albuquerque, Columbus OH, Canada
    Online: Taintradio, ClassicallyHip

  • Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

    Blanc

    "BLANC like purity and serenity. BLANC for luminous music that can bring interior peace through its strength and powerful evocation. Fully charged emotions that reflect the strange solitude found in illness. After months of battle against cancer, music has been my focal point, it has brought me comfort, tranquillity and sometimes, an essential escape. This music is of Brubeck, Dompierre, Golijov, Hisaishi, Morricone, Mozetich, Munsey, O'Connor, Phillips, Sakamoto, Schyman and Stevens. A music without artifice, real and filled with hope. This album tells my story, the story of a woman like many others who had to fight against illness and, serenely, came out of it stronger." The Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation Thanks You Thank you. By buying this album, you will be helping the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation to finance research and innovation, to support women affected by breast cancer and make breast cancer health a priority thanks to initiatives in education and awareness. 

    8 New 'ON'  134 TOTAL
    SYND:     PRI/Classical 24
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Wash DC, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Detroit, Austin, Memphis, Buffalo
    Online: Taintradio, allmusic, Le Huffington Post, The WholeNote

  • Angele Dubeau & La Pieta

    Philip Glass Portrait

    Canada's internationally acclaimed and best selling violinist, Angele Dubeau, along with her chamber ensemble La Pieta, turn in a resolutely contemporary direction for their new album on Analekta: a musical portrait of Philip Glass. The prolific American composer has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times. Here, Dubeau paints a dramatic portrait of Glass with some of his most significant works for strings.

    4 New ON this week / 62 Total
    Synd:     APM/Performance Today, PRI/Classical 24
    Networks: MN, TX, OR, WV, CT
    Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, New Orleans
    Direct: Spafax/Air Canada
    Online: RadioIO, Taintradio