Cohen - Freya Waley-Cohen: Permutations - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In celebration of her 30th anniversary of coming to America, Boston based composer Alla Cohen presents a double album of new works for chamber orchestra and chamber ensembles. A graduate of highest honors of the famed Moscow Conservatory, Cohen emigrated to the United States in 1989, first teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music, and for the last 15 years- as a Professor at Berklee College of Music. Her works have been awarded multiple prizes, are raved about in stellar reviews, and have been performed by acclaimed musicians from around the world. Corresponding with Cohen's monumental milestone of three decades in the United States as a highly acclaimed composer and sought-after master composition teacher, QUAESTIONES ET RESPONSA is a monumental . This double album set, compiling Cohen's recent compositions, very likely will be met with the same acclaim as her previous releases. Cohen's music is strikingly unique by it's style, monumental in scale, yet delicately crafted in every detail. The music is moving and uplifting, emotionally and spiritually, and is visionary and highly imaginative. These are the works of a dedicated master composer whose work and teaching captures the spirit of 20th and 21st-century art music. Cohen's music is thought through, with painstaking care, yet retains a sense of being unbridled; often, the seemingly more traditional titles (like Partita) completely belie expectations - Cohen expands formal presumptions considerably and takes listeners on a journey to new lands of originality, discovery, and artistic freedom. Notably, Cohen prides herself on performing her own parts at the piano - and justly so, for who could understand and execute Cohen's thoughts better than the thinker herself? Hence, all the piano parts on QUAESTIONES ET RESPONSA are played by Cohen, who shines in this respect with empathetic sensitivity and impeccable

Zupko / Warner / Lee - Eclipse Chamber Music by Mischa Zupko [COMPACT DISCS] date 11/11/2016

Canadian folk duo Mama's Broke has spent the past seven years in a near-constant state of transience, pounding the transatlantic tour trail. They've brought their dark, fiery folk-without-borders sound to major festivals and DIY punk houses alike, absorbing traditions from their maritime home in Eastern Canada, all the way to Ireland and Indonesia along the way. Nowhere is the duo's art-in-motion approach more apparent than on their long-awaited sophomore record 'Narrow Line'; it's the sound of nowhere in particular, yet woven with a rich synthesis of influences that knows no borders. The eleven songs on 'Narrow Line' burrow deeply, with close harmony duets, commanding vocals, and poignant contemplations on cycles of life, including birth and death. Tinges of Americana stand side-by-side with the ghosts of Eastern European fiddle tunes and ancient a cappella ballad singing, melding into an unusually accessible dark-folk sound. A careful listen of 'Narrow Line' invokes an ephemeral sense of place-whether real or imagined-inviting us to take comfort in the infinite possibilities of life, whether or not we ever choose to settle down.