Gil Shaham - Violin Concertos / Octet - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Margaret Rizza sang professionally for twenty-five years before teaching at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has directed music groups making many recordings. She began composing in 1997 and has since earned huge admiration for her 'Classical Contemporary' sound world works of spiritual contemplation and great beauty. Hers is music of great spiritual depth and whether a cappella or for vocal and instrumental forces it generates a sense of lyricism and healing resolution.

Performing three concertos written specifically for him, renowned violinist Gil Shaham is joined by acclaimed conductor Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now (TON), Bard College's graduate orchestral masters. Scott Wheeler's InchBirds of AmericaInch (Violin Concerto No.2) was premiered by Shaham, Botstein, and TON at the Fisher Center at Bard and Carnegie Hall in 2021. The birds making appearances in the concerto include a hawk, a whippoorwill, loons, a mourning dove, and a downy woodpecker. Winner of the 2018 Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music, Avner Dorman's InchNigunimInch (Violin Concerto No.2) was originally commissioned as Sonata No.3 for violin and piano by New York's 92nd Street Y, Gil, and his sister, pianist Orli Shaham. Gil premiered the orchestrated version that appears on this album with CityMusic Cleveland, conducted by Dorman, in 2014. The main melodic gestures of the piece are drawn from common elements found in Jewish music from around the world. Chinese-American composer Bright Sheng's violin concerto InchLet FlyInch had it's premiere in 2013 with Shaham and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, led by legendary conductor Leonard Slatkin. The title of the work was inspired by an aural image of the violin melody flying off into the air.

This new recording brings together violinist Gil Shaham, conductor Eric Jacobsen, and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in a program exploring the violin concerto as a vehicle for cultural memory and continuity. The album pairs Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto in G minor, Op. 80, and Antonín Dvorák's Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53, with the world-premiere recording of InchF. Harper,Inch from The Famous People by Curtis Stewart. Coleridge-Taylor's concerto reveals a Romantic voice shaped by lyricism and rhythmic vitality, while Dvorák's work reflects folk influence and communal musical expression. Stewart's F. Harper responds through a contemporary lens, engaging questions of naming, lineage, and identity. Inspired by the layered meanings of InchSlavonic,Inch the work draws parallels between European histories of enslavement and the ways Black Americans continue to shape pride and cultural legacy today. Together, these works connect past and present through sound.