RR on American Public Media's "Composers Datebook"

An older Reference Recordings release with the Minnesota Orchestra was featured on American Public Radio's program "Composers Datebook."

Here is the audio with A Ring of Time by Dominick Argento (b. 1927) from the album Valentino Dances (performed by the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by Eiji Oue) in the background of the program.



Here is the full transcript from the show:

At the dawn of the 20th century Teddy Roosevelt was president and America was in an upbeat, prosperous mood. Cultural affairs were not forgotten, either. To the already established American symphony orchestras in cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati and San Francisco, new ensembles would spring up in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Seattle.


On today's date in 1903, it was Minneapolis' turn. On November 5th that year, a German-born musician named Emil Oberhoffer led the first concert of the newly formed Minneapolis Symphony. In those days it was a 50-piece ensemble, but in the course of the next 100 years, would double in size and change its name to the "Minnesota" Orchestra.


As this is the Composers Datebook, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that the Minnesota Orchestra has enjoyed a special relationship with a number of leading American composers.


Aaron Copland conducted the orchestra on a memorable televised Bicentennial Concert in 1976, and the orchestra has given the premiere performances of works by Charles Ives, John Adams, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, among others. Two young American composers, Stephen Paulus and Libby Larsen, served as composers-in-residence with the orchestra in the 1980's, and more recently, Aaron Jay Kernis served as the orchestra's new music advisor.


Another long-time Minnesota resident, Dominick Argento, was appointed the orchestra's composer emeritus. Argento's "A Ring of Time" was premiered by the orchestra in 1972 as part of their 70th anniversary celebration.

Britten's Orchestra Review

We wanted to publish a review that has already come out from ClassicsToday.com even before Britten's Orchestra has been released! Thank you to the Kansas City Symphony for directing us to this via Twitter & Facebook.





Classics Today

BENJAMIN BRITTEN
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra; Sinfonia da requiem; Peter Grimes: Four Sea Interludes & Passacaglia
Kansas City Symphony
Michael Stern
Reference Recordings- 120(CD)

This is an impressive recording of these frequently encountered pieces. The Young Person's Guide features excellent solo work from all departments, and a clarity of texture akin to Britten's own recording. Michael Stern's ability to let us hear not just the tunes but the imaginative colors of Britten's accompaniments gives the music additional substance and continuity. The outer movements of the Sinfonia da requiem have real lyrical eloquence, though the central Dies irae could be a touch nastier, as could the "Storm" from the Four Sea Interludes.


Still, in this latter work Stern's decision to play the Passacaglia between "Moonlight" and the "Storm" makes a great deal of sense, and the remaining movements have the same remarkable level of detail and color as The Young Person's Guide. "Sunday Morning" has a particularly lively bounce, and in "Moonlight" you can actually hear the triplet rhythm of those little exclamations for xylophone and winds. Of course, the amazingly lifelike sonics help, but their very naturalness shows that credit for the interpretations belongs to conductor and orchestra and not the engineers. A first-rate experience, on both audiophile and musical grounds.

--David Hurwitz

Pre-Order information for Britten's Orchestra

Here is a link to Pre-Order Britten's Orchestra straight from our distributor!

Allegro Music Britten's Orchestra Pre-Order

One Week to go for Britten's Orchestra Release

We are less than one week away from the release of Britten's Orchestra!!!! To help get you as excited as we are, here is a press release about it from the Kansas City Star.

BRILLIANT BRITTEN!
New Kansas City Symphony CD to be released November 10

(Kansas City) – The Kansas City Symphony, led by Music Director Michael Stern, will release their second CD for award-winning audiophile label Reference Recordings on November 10, 2009. Titled Britten’s Orchestra, this project explores the compositional genius of British composer Benjamin Britten’s music. Recording sessions were held in June in the outstanding acoustics of the Community of Christ Auditorium in Independence, Missouri.

Included is music from Britten’s dramatic score to Peter Grimes, one of the true operatic masterpieces of the 20th century. His important, controversial Sinfonia da Requiem is rooted in the darkness of World War II. The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra is a delightful piece used in music education for decades as an introduction to the orchestra’s different instrumental families.

"These works by Britten are all very close to my heart, and we all put a lot of ourselves into these performances. Above all, I am very proud of how everyone in the Kansas City Symphony plays on this recording. Working with Reference Recordings and with David Frost on this project was also very special experience. I think that the recorded sound they captured is tremendous, and it makes us all very excited as we plan our next collaborations,” said Stern.

This new release was produced by four-time Grammy Award winner David Frost. Frost says he is honored to work with Reference Recordings engineer “Prof.” Keith Johnson for the first time.

“We are delighted to continue our relationship with Reference Recordings and look forward to building on the great success of our first project together. I feel that Britten’s Orchestra is superior both sonically and musically, and look forward to sharing it with music lovers worldwide,” said Executive Director Frank Byrne.

The Kansas City Symphony's first project for Reference Recordings, The Tempest, debuted to critical acclaim. It is a high-resolution recording of two sets of incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest, by Sir Arthur Sullivan and Jean Sibelius.

The Kansas City Symphony has previously recorded for Naxos, and Michael Stern has recorded for Sony, Arabesque, Denon, Hyperion, and Naxos.

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About the Kansas City Symphony
Led by Music Director Michael Stern, the Kansas City Symphony’s 80-member orchestra performs more than 50 concerts on three series (Classical, Family, Pops) during its 42-week season, September through June. In addition, the Symphony performs non-series concerts such as Bank of America Celebration at the Station and Symphony in the Flint Hills, educational programs, community outreach performances, and serves as the orchestra for the Lyric Opera and the Kansas City Ballet. Classical performances are broadcast weekly on KCUR 89.3 FM during the Kansas City Symphony Hour, Thursdays at 9 pm. Visit the Kansas City Symphony online at kcsymphony.org.

About Reference Recordings
For more than 30 years, Reference Recordings has been one of the most innovative and respected independent labels in the music business. Founded on the premise that most commercial recordings sound nothing like the live performance experience, Tam Henderson’s productions for Reference Recordings have been widely and lavishly praised for their dedication to high quality sound in the service of great music. In 1978, Henderson began working with engineer Keith O. Johnson, who was already becoming an audio legend for his innovative approach to realistic recordings. Some 100 discs later, RR is still recording what many consider to be the finest-sounding classical and jazz discs in the world.

Reference Recordings has won two Grammy Awards and many other nominations, including a nomination for Producer of the Year in 1998 and seven nominations for Best Engineered Album. In addition, RR has received numerous awards and citations from industry organizations and publications. RR has recorded many world premieres, and has pioneered many technological innovations—most recently the introduction of HRx, high resolution digital files for home music servers, and the widely praised HDCD digital encoding process (co-invented by Keith O. Johnson). As President, Producer and Director of A&R, Tam Henderson has brought Reference Recordings to a position of prominence and respect achieved by few independent labels.

Contact: Megan Felling
816.218.2621
mfelling@kcsymphony.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 23, 2009

Britten's Orchestra Programming

Many people wonder about, question, or critique the choices of the programming on classical music recordings. So, today we would like to give you a very brief explanation of the reasoning behind our choices on Britten's Orchestra.

Once again, the programming of the album is The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Sinfonia da Requiem, and the Four Sea Interludes & Passacaglia from Peter Grimes.

Benjamin Britten was recognized as the dominant British musical figure of his time. The works represented in this recording were prominent in establishing his reputation in the early years of his creative life; they remain among his most directly appealing and most enduringly popular works, their places in the international repertory more secure than ever as the years pass.

The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is a virtuoso orchestral spectacular that RR has wanted to record for many years. Sinfonia da Requiem is widely considered to be Britten's finest orchestral inspiration, full of kaleidoscopic color and wide dynamic range. The music of Peter Grimes, Britten's operatic masterpiece, is most often heard in the well-known suite of orchestral Sea Interludes and Passacaglia. this is music of haunting atmosphere, and the final Storm brings the program to an exciting conclusion.

Raving Grainger Review

We have to interrupt our discussion about the upcoming Britten album to share this fantastic review of the Dallas Wind Symphony album Lincolnshire Posy: Music for Wind Band by Percy Grainger the review is because the album was featured as "Recording of the Month" on MusicWeb! Very Exciting, and we especially love you the review begins! Without further ado, here is the review:

MusicWeb - Recording of the Month
By Benn Martin

This is more than a CD – it is an event. The music of Grainger, already a cause célèbre among fans of wind band music, is treated here with an amount of respect and scholarship such as it has likely never seen. Grainger is counted with Vaughan Williams and Holst as one of the first major composers to write substantial music for wind band. His greatest work titles the present disc. While much of this music has been recorded countless times by bands all over the world, this release is truly something special.

For the band aficionado, there are two reasons to buy this recording. First and foremost is to hear superior performances of some of the best music ever written for band – Lincolnshire Posy, Colonial Song, Irish Tune from County Derry and Children’s March. The performances are about as close to flawless as is possible, and the sound quality is astonishing - watch out for the bass drum. Excellent liner-notes detail the history of each piece and the efforts that went into making this release as authoritative as possible.

The second reason for band fans to purchase this CD is to hear some things one hasn’t heard before. I was personally unfamiliar with the pieces The Merry King and After-Word, some really lovely music I was glad to become acquainted with. While the other repertoire was familiar to me, Junkin chooses some slower-than-usual tempi for some pieces, revealing fresh interpretive insight into well-worn territory. He also brings out some details in the music that other performances obscure. The Dallas group is an army of generals, capable of indulging any of Junkin’s (or Grainger’s) whims.

All of that said, it would be a shame if only “band fans” heard this disc - though they all need to. It deserves a wide audience, and I hope it makes many people more aware of the music of Grainger as well as the fantastic Dallas Wind Symphony. It’s doubtless one of the best band recordings I’ve ever heard.

The Music of Peter Grimes - Britten's Orchestra

Though we aren't getting into opera, we are doing the orchestral suite music from the opera Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten. Peter Grimes was writtten by Britten as a libretto adopted from a section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough. First perfromed in London in 1945, Peter Grimes was Britten's first opera to become a critical and popular sucess, and is now considered a staple of U.K. and U.S. repertoire. However, what is of most interest to Reference Recordings (and this album) are the Four Sea Interludes that were published separately from the opera and performed as an orchestral suite alongside the Passacaglia. But, I think that's enough of a teaser for now, perhaps we will tell you more later...