Category: Contemporary

ALEX HEFFES FACE TO FACE ALBUM RE-MIXED WITH NEW CONTENT, RELEASED ON 7 OCTOBER 2022

8/7/2022

Alex Heffes re-releases his album Face to Face (PLAT14823) on 7 October 2022, re-mixed in stereo and Dolby Atmos, and with new material, including for the first time on many digital sites: click here to discover more.

Click above to pre-order Face to Face on iTunes

Alex Heffes

Released on 5 August 2022

Released on 26 August

Released on 16 September

Face To Face is an album by Alex Heffes featuring collaborations with Matthew Barley, Tunde Jegede, Kawesa, Yasmin Levy, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Regina Spektor. Each track was improvised from scratch on the day of recording and features Alex on keyboards with one guest. Sessions were recorded in a series of spectacular locations including the giant ‘Turbine Hall’ of the Tate Gallery in London at night time (Matthew Barley), an empty glass roofed warehouse in the Bronx (Regina Spektor), Abbey Road’s legendary Studio 2 (Tunde Jegede) and on a hilltop overlooking Uganda’s capital city Kampala (Kawesa).

Alex comments: 'For years people asked me many variations of one particular question: “Where does your inspiration as a composer come from?” This inspired me to make a record - one that was entirely improvised - nothing prepared in advance. I chose six inspiring collaborators to record in six inspiring locations. My task: to commit to whatever happened in that space on that day, and make a piece of music. Face To Face is my answer to this question."

Why now? The 2022 mix celebrates ten years since the original release. The album has been fully re-mixed and mastered in stereo and Dolby Atmos to immerse the listener even more vividly into the atmosphere of the original sessions. The bonus track ‘Helios Rising’ has been newly included on the 2022 mix from the Abbey Road / Tunde Jegede sessions.

Face To Face was recorded and mixed by Grammy winning engineer and producer Peter Henderson and was captured on photo and film by photographer Rama Knight.

Alex Heffes on Apple Music Classical playlists

New in Classical

Minimalism

Classical Edge

Face to Face is distributed by Platoon.

More streaming links for the album and for pre-release singles will be posted here.

0 Comments

Neo, by Charlotte Harding, with Neoteric Ensemble - single release on 24 June 2022

25/5/2022

0 Comments

Ulysses Arts releases Neo, by Charlotte Harding, on 24 June 2022, performed by Neoteric Ensemble.

Download Neo on iTunes or stream on Apple Music: click above

Inspired by Neoteric Ensemble's fresh approach to classical and jazz fusion, Neo takes a shouty melodic line and weaves it through punchy rhythmic statements and raspy textures. Improvised brass and saxophone solos contrast with rich tutti passages, exploring the expressive energy, dynamism and creativity of this exciting new ensemble comprising some of the UK's leading brass and saxophone players.

This is Ulysses Arts' second single release from Neoteric Ensemble, following Rob Buckland's Mojito, both featuring in an upcoming album in autumn 2022.

Neoteric Ensemble

DOWNLOAD AND STREAMING LINKS

iTUNES AND APPLE MUSIC

QOBUZ

DEEZER

0 Comments

ABLAZE RECORDS RELEASES ORCHESTRAL MASTERS VOL. 8 AND TREMOR, WITH ROBERT NAIRN, IN MARCH 2022

24/2/2022

0 Comments

US-based contemporary classical label Ablaze Records releases Orchestral Masters Vol. 8 on 11 March 2022 with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robert Kružík, and Tremor, featuring double bass soloist Robert Nairn, on 18 March 2022, in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

Apple Music and iTunes: click above

Apple Music and iTunes: click above.

QOBUZ

ORCHESTRAL MASTERS VOL. 8

TREMOR

0 Comments

Ulysses Arts lauches Ich spiele noch by Johannes Schlecht on 4 March 2022

16/2/2022

0 Comments

Ulysses Arts releases German composerJohannes Schlecht's album Ich spiele noch on Friday 4 March 2022, with Landeskapelle Eisenach (now Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach) conducted by Wolfgang Wappler and Tetsuro Ban , soprano Susann Möbius-Huss and 'cellist Grita Bühler.

Click above to download on iTunes or stream on Apple Music

Johannes Schlecht comments:

'At some point, many years ago, I had my first contact with poet Rose Ausländer during a night drive. On the radio. I heard her talk about herself andher exciting, fulfilling life, I heard her read from her poems. Her voice sounded cheerful and lovable, friendly and comforting, modest and humble, amazed and hopeful, curious and lively. This voice came from a woman who had been bed-ridden for years, sick, in a Jewish old people’s home in Düsseldorf. I was impressed and touched by the clarity and simplicity of her language and above all, the brevity in which she said the important, essential and necessary. For a long time I had the idea of composing poems by Rose Ausländer, of tracking down the melody of her language and poetry.

For me that means composing by listening to the melody of the language and bringing it to life musically. In this sense, as a composer, I see myself as a creator and mediator. I put my personal, subjective view of poetry up for discussion: I try to provide a comment that brings the word, at best read or spoken, sung to another level of experience and feeling. Understanding the word, initially an ostensibly intellectual means of communication, becomes unimportant. It took me years to tackle Rose Ausländer’s poems. In between, to name just two important works, were the composition of ten songs based on poems by Paul Celan. For this cycle I received the last Hanns-Eisler Composition Prize from GDR Radio in 1989. Paul Celan, just like Rose Ausländer, comes from that melting-pot and centre of Eastern Jewish intellectual life - Cernowitz. I have developed a great affinity for this way of thinking and feeling. And in between there was also the composition of the small volume “DIR”, which was composed and drawn by Heinrich Vogeler, fourteen very soft, tender, sad-melancholy love poems for voice, cello and viola.'

Album Details

Ich spiele noch: Sieben Stücke für Singstimme, Flüte, Oboe, Fagott, Violoncello und Streichorchester nach Texten von Rose Ausländer
Susann Möbius–Huss – Sopran; Landeskapelle Eisenach, Leitung: Wolfgang Wappler

Streichquartett Nr. 1
i. nicht zu schnell
ii. sehr langsam
iii. unglücklicher Walzer mit glücklichem Ausgang
iv. schnell, ausgelassen

Divertimento Streichquartett der Landeskapelle Eisenach:
Simona Balan, Violine; Silvia Peter, Violine; Gheorghe Balan, Viola; Roxana Mereutza, Violoncello

Kommen und Gehen – Orchestermusik für Sophia
i. Sehr ruhig
ii. Ruhige Viertel
iii. Sehr ruhig

Landeskapelle Eisenach, Leitung: Tetsuro Ban

Kommentare zu einem Thema von Max Reger – für Violoncello allein
i. sehr frei, so langsam wie m glich
ii. gehend
iii. sehr ruhig, sempre col legno schnell, hüpfend
iv. sehr langsam
v. gehend
vi. Thema, Largo

Grita Bühler, Violoncello

DOWNLOAD LINKS

iTUNES

QOBUZ

SPOTIFY

TIDAL

STREAMING LINKS

DEEZER

YOUTUBE

Links to download and stream on HDtracks and other service providers will be published here.

0 Comments

ABLAZE RECORDS RELEASES CLOUD OSSUARY ALBUM BY DOUGLAS KNEHANS - BRNO PHILHARMONIC, MIKEL TOMS, JUDITH WEUSTEN, PAVEL WALLINGER

7/1/2022

0 Comments

Ablaze Records releases Cloud Ossuary (AR00062) by Douglas Knehans, performed by the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mikel Toms, with Dutch soprano Judith Weusten and violin soloist Pavel Wallinger, with text by Katarina Knehans, on 7 January 2022. The album is released in partnership with Ulysses Arts.

Composer Douglas Knehans comments:

'Cloud Ossuary began as a setting of my daughter Katarina Knehans' riveting and poignant poem Bones and All. When I first read her poem, I was seized with an immediate desire to set it to music. So, almost as immediately I got to work on it. As work progressed, I became more and more pleased with the piece—until it was finished. Once completed I had some difficulty reconciling the feelings of satisfaction with the setting with my concomitant feelings that it was incomplete.

After much reflection, I came to realize that Bones and All was actually the final movement of a larger work, hence creating the two preceding movements: Breathe Clouded and The Ossein Cage. Breathe Clouded is an inverted and compressed version of Bones and All and The Ossein Cage follows the same harmonic architecture as both of the outer movements. Thus, Cloud Ossuary sits as three different guises of the same harmonic material and structural approach, though with dramatically different surfaces.'

Preceding Cloud Ossuary is Knehans' hauntingly evocative single-movement Mist Waves for solo violin and strings - a 'loose chaconne based on veiled repetition of its initial eight bars' - performed by Pavel Wallinger, leader of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra.

VIEW SCORES

CLOUD OSSUARY

MIST WAVES (violin and strings version)
MIST WAVES (violin and piano version)

APPLE MUSIC

Mist Waves on Apple Music's New in Classical playlist

SPOTIFY

YOUTUBE

TIDAL

HDTRACKS

DEEZER

AMAZON MUSIC

QOBUZ

BUY CLOUD OSSUARY CD

CLOUD OSSUARY REVIEWS

'Ever-challenging, ever-surprising'.
ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

'Cloud Ossuary is a striking and fascinating work, full of gorgeous textures and colours,
yet throughout it is clear that Knehans brings a strong structural underpinning to the beauty, making for a satisfying symphonic work.’
PLANET HUGILL

'Eloquent and original'.
GAPPLEGATE CLASSICAL-MODERN MUSIC REVIEW

'Atmospheric presence and strong waves of inner exploration:
the perfect match of classical music in modern times.'
Anthony Biasioli, BRNO DAILY

'Sensitive, committed performances by the Brno Philharmonic
under the meticulous guidance of Mikel Toms'.
Michael Quinn, LIMELIGHT

HEAR MIST WAVES LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY

11 MAY 2022 - LEFRANK CONCERT HALL *

12 MAY 2022 - WEILL RECITAL HALL, CARNEGIE HALL, 8PM *

* Note Pandemic re-scheduled changes of date from those in advertised links

0 Comments

ULYSSES ARTS AND ABLAZE RECORDS LAUNCH NEW DISTRIBUTION PARTNERSHIP FROM SEPTEMBER 2021

24/9/2021

0 Comments

Released on 8 October 2021

Ulysses Arts is delighted to be working with leading US-based contemporary classical music label Ablaze Records to manage digital distribution of its extensive catalogue of orchestral, choral and chamber music recordings. The partnership starts with a series of re-releases of Ablaze recordings on 24 September and 1 October 2021, then Othmar Schoeck's song cycle Das stille Leuchten, on 8 October, with mezzo-soprano Clara O'Brien and pianist James Douglass.

James Ross, Ulysses Arts' director, comments: 'Ablaze Records is one of the world's most innovative classical label, whose catalogue is a treasury of contemporary composers' works. Ablaze's mission aligns strongly with our wish to present classical music as a living, evolving art-form and to support today's composers to create a new generation of great works for us to perform and hear. We are looking forward hugely to helping Ablaze to widen its digital reach to listeners on a huge range of digital platforms, and to help the composers it records to maximise their visibility worldwide.'

Mist Waves by Douglas Knehans
Pre-release from Cloud Ossuary album: 3 December 2021

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1gudwIIpTYs1JPcGjVu0ET

Deezer: www.deezer.com/en/album/273169602

YouTube: youtu.be/JHqwuvaMy5s

New Release: 7 January 2022: Douglas Knehans, Cloud Ossuary

Click above to discover more

Download Cloud Ossuary:

iTunes

Qobuz

24 September 2021 Releases

Released in October 2021

15 October

22 October

29 October

Released in November and December 2021

26 November

10 December

17 December

3 December

10 December

Released on 4 February 2022

10 December

19 November

10 December

19 November

17 December

Millennial Masters

ELECTRONIC MASTERS

0 Comments

CARITAS CHAMBER CHOIR AND BENEDICT PREECE RELEASE CROSSING THE BAR - MUSIC FOR REFLECTION AND HOPE

20/9/2021

0 Comments

Released on 19 November 2021:

Download on iTunes or stream on Apple Music - click above

Crossing the Bar on Apple Music's Classical New Releases playlist

O Nata Lux by Philip Stopford on Apple Music's Sacred Sounds playlist

LISTEN TO CROSSING THE BAR ON YOUTUBE

Ulysses Arts released two singles from Crossing the Bar - Music for Reflection and Hope, performed by the Caritas Chamber Choir directed by Benedict Preece. The first single, O Nata Lux by Philip Stopford, releases on 1 October, followed by Crossing the Bar, by Benedict Preece, on 22 October, on Apple Music/iTunes, Spotify, Qobuz, HDtracks and all other major digital service providers.

O Nata Lux is a world première recording from Philip Stopford, one of the most celebrated contemporary choral composers. It is conducted by Benedict Preece, who featured on Ulysses Arts' 2020 J.S. Bach horn and organ album with Anneke Scott. This calm but powerful work takes us from darkness to light, a theme of Advent, when this piece would normally be sung. It has musical elements that hark back to the familiar version of the same text by Thomas Tallis.

Benedict Preece writes about his motet Crossing the Bar:

'Written in 2016 as a gift to Gothenburg's HagaMotettkör for collaboration with Caritas Chamber Choir, I chose to create deliberately simple hymnlike music to allow this most powerful poem to remain the listener's focus. The 'aw' section, sung by lower voices, is intended to represent the sea. The work builds to an almighty climax: “I hope to see my pilot face to face” before finishing with an echo of the “sea”, this time as a hum, which depicts crossing the bar from this life to what comes next.'

iTunes

Crossing the Bar (album)

O Nata Lux

Crossing the Bar (single)

High definition sound on Qobuz

Crossing the Bar (album)

O Nata Lux

Crossing the Bar (single)

HDtracks

Crossing the Bar (album)

0 Comments

STEPHEN HORNE LAUNCHES SILENT SIRENS - SOLO PIANO MUSIC INSPIRED BY SILENT FILM

1/3/2021

1 Comment

Download on iTunes with digital booklet or stream on Apple Music: click above

Ulysses Arts launched Silent Sirens, an album of music composed and performed by Stephen Horne, on 9 July 2021. One of the world's leading silent film performers, Stephen Horne is pianist in residence at the British Film Institute at London's Southbank Centre.

Silent Sirens is on all main streaming and download services including Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, Qobuz and HDtracks.

Stephen Horne comments: 'I have been a silent film pianist and composer for over thirty years. What began as an intriguing musical sideline developed gradually into a full-time nomadic career, accompanying more than a thousand films in more than twenty countries. During that time I developed hundreds of musical themes and it has long been my ambition to record an album, incorporating some of these into musical pieces.

The tracks on this album are intended to stand alone from the films by which they were initially inspired. However, most of these films have two things in common. Firstly, they share a certain haunting quality, leaving unanswered questions to reverberate in the viewer’s mind long after ‘The End’. Secondly, at least for me, the strongest impression is made by the films’ leading women – the actresses and their roles. Combining these two elements suggested the theme of Silent Sirens.

While the music of Silent Sirens stands on its own, in general terms inspiration has come from The First Born, The Manxman, Varieté, The Informer, Tonka of the Gallows, Menilmontant, Stella Dallas, L'Hirondelle et La Mésange and Visages d’Enfants. For those who are interested, some of the titles are taken directly from the films’ inter-titles. A couple of the pieces are purely personal, with no connection to any film.'

Read Stephen Horne's interview about his album in Silent London.

STEPHEN HORNE SINGLE RELEASES

Beyond The Trees

Miles Mander’s The First Born was co-written by Alfred Hitchcock’s wife Alma Reville, which may explain its startlingly Hitchcockian elements. Madeline Carroll’s lead protagonist has a yearning quality, as she misguidedly tries to hold on to her unworthy husband’s love, by giving him the child he craves more than anything.

Will You Wait?

The melody of ‘Will You Wait?’ was originally the love theme in my score for Hitchcock’s film ‘The Manxman’. The title is taken from a pivotal moment in the romantic triangle at the centre of its story. Pete Quilliam has always loved Kate Cregeen, but she secretly desires his best friend Philip Christian. On the eve of leaving to make his fortune in America, Pete asks Kate ‘Will You Wait?’ Blithely thinking that he will never return, she says "Yes Pete, I’ll wait."

Faces of Children

Faces of Children is inspired by 1925 French film Visages d'enfants – one of the most haunting portrayals of childhood ever made. Despite the perfectly rendered happy ending, what lingers is the impression of a child’s struggle to comprehend bereavement. The melody of my piece originally accompanied the final scene, when the boy protagonist stares into a churning river, contemplating oblivion.

DOWNLOAD SILENT SIRENS ON QOBUZ IN HIGH DEFINITION SOUND WITH DIGITAL BOOKLET

DOWNLOAD SILENT SIRENS ON ITUNES OR STREAM ON APPLE MUSIC

Featured in Apple Music's New in Classical and Classical Concentration playlists

Follow Stephen Horne on Spotify

Follow Stephen Horne on Deezer

Follow Stephen Horne on YouTube

1 Comment

LOUTH CONTEMPORARY MUSIC LAUNCHES EMBERS - WORLD PREMIÈRES FOR STRINGS BY VALENTIN SILVESTROV AND RAYMOND DEANE - ON 5 MARCH 2021

28/1/2021

0 Comments

Click above to download Embers on iTunes

Embers

While the Pandemic persists in making regular concerts impossible, the Louth Contemporary Music Society continues its work in the studio. Last autumn’s CD release Meadow, featuring music by Linda Catlin Smith, won praise from leading critics on both sides of the Atlantic, including Alex Ross in The New Yorker. Now comes a follow-up, Embers - three world première recordings again devoted to music for strings – instruments that, in their intimacy, seem to touch our moment.

In Samuel Beckett's radio play Embers, the main character stands at the sea shore, sifting through fragments of memory and story that are still living embers, hot to the touch. So it is in this recording, in which music by distinguished Irish composer Raymond Deane supports robustly an important quartet by one of the great masters of our age, Valentin Silvestrov.

Raymond Deane

The opener, Deane’s Marthiya, is named after a form of Middle Eastern lament. It was composed in the wake of the 2003 Iraq invasion. The music’s 'atmosphere of mourning', Deane writes, is 'not unrelated to the devastation wreaked on Iraq since 2003, and to the wider carnage inflicted upon the Arab and Islamic world'.

Deane’s other contribution is the title track, written thirty years earlier but with the same recognisable voice. Though perhaps more questioning than elegiac, Embers is music again on the edge of tears. Ideas, bits of tune, come and go, and recur, very much as things come and go, and come back once more, like in Beckett's play. To quote the composer: 'The piece obsessively turns over musical fragments which seem to have some remote but uncertain origin.'

Valentin Silvestrov

Silvestrov’s music gives voice to the sense we may all feel of being bereft, left behind by what was once a social culture of sympathy and togetherness. Listening to his Third String Quartet, composed in 2011, we seem to be watching from the dock as a great ocean liner slowly slides away, taking with it our hopes and our dreams. Something of this feeling of being on the sidelines of history may come from the composer’s inheritance as a Ukrainian. Ireland, he notes, is not so far away: 'I believe there is some Irish accent, and some simple melodies, that permeate the whole work and may sound as symbols of this wonderful country, in whose destiny and historical legacy I perceive a close spiritual affinity to Ukraine, my homeland.'

All three works are captured in intense, poignant performances by leading ensembles: Crash (Marthiya) and the Carducci Quartet (Embers; Silvestrov, String Quartet No.3).

Embers releases on 5 March 2021 on CD, iTunes/Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, Qobuz and all main digital service providers. It is the world première recording of Silvestrov, String Quartet No.3, Deane's Marthiya and of the string quartet (original) version of Deane's Embers, which has been released previously in its subsequent string orchestra version by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in 2016.

Buy the CD
Download on iTunes
Stream on Spotify
Stream on Deezer
High definition download from Presto Music

Louth Contemporary Music Society is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and financially supported by Create Louth. Cover image: 'Grotto' by David Quinn, used with kind permission of the artist.

LOUTH CONTEMPORARY MUSIC PROFILE

Richard Fairman: 'Louth - Ireland's Hidden Gem of a Festival'
The Financial Times

EMBERS REVIEWS

'Rallying After The Silence', Brendan Finan, The Journal of Music

'Engaging and affecting, it’s a grower ... immaculately produced and designed ... When lockdown eases, I’m Louthward bound.' Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk

'A program of great coherence. ... Superb release from a label we here on our side of the big lake wish to know a lot more soon.' Frédéric Cardin, Pan M 360

'Haunting, unsettling evocations of the past', Michael Devlin, The Irish Times

0 Comments

LAURA CATRANI SINGS LA CASA AND MADRIGALE BY MICHELE TADINI, RELEASING ON 18 DECEMBER 2020

28/11/2020

0 Comments

Click here to download on iTunes

Ulysses Arts releases Michele Tadini's contemporary vocal works La Casa and Madrigale, with all parts sung by Laura Catrani, and electronic sampling by the composer. Michele Tadini comments:

'La Casa and Madrigale are built substantially on Laura Catrani's voice,: the recordings, sampling and processing of the voice give total life to the sound palette. La Casa (The House) represents our most intimate space, the heart of our existence. Madrigale is a song, of sorrow and hope. At the origins of these pieces there is a broader work: Unheimlich - exiles in their own land, a variable score for sound and image, female voice, percussion, electronics, first performed at Mittelfest, Cividale del Friuli, in 2002.'

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Featured on Apple Music's Contemporary Classical playlist

OTHER STREAMING LINKS

YouTube

Deezer

Qobuz

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC'S CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL PLAYLIST

UPC: 5054526834538

0 Comments

ALEX HEFFES FACE TO FACE ALBUM RE-MIXED WITH NEW CONTENT, RELEASED ON 7 OCTOBER 2022

Neo, by Charlotte Harding, with Neoteric Ensemble - single release on 24 June 2022

ABLAZE RECORDS RELEASES ORCHESTRAL MASTERS VOL. 8 AND TREMOR, WITH ROBERT NAIRN, IN MARCH 2022

Ulysses Arts lauches Ich spiele noch by Johannes Schlecht on 4 March 2022

ABLAZE RECORDS RELEASES CLOUD OSSUARY ALBUM BY DOUGLAS KNEHANS - BRNO PHILHARMONIC, MIKEL TOMS, JUDITH WEUSTEN, PAVEL WALLINGER

ULYSSES ARTS AND ABLAZE RECORDS LAUNCH NEW DISTRIBUTION PARTNERSHIP FROM SEPTEMBER 2021

CARITAS CHAMBER CHOIR AND BENEDICT PREECE RELEASE CROSSING THE BAR - MUSIC FOR REFLECTION AND HOPE

STEPHEN HORNE LAUNCHES SILENT SIRENS - SOLO PIANO MUSIC INSPIRED BY SILENT FILM

LOUTH CONTEMPORARY MUSIC LAUNCHES EMBERS - WORLD PREMIÈRES FOR STRINGS BY VALENTIN SILVESTROV AND RAYMOND DEANE - ON 5 MARCH 2021

LAURA CATRANI SINGS LA CASA AND MADRIGALE BY MICHELE TADINI, RELEASING ON 18 DECEMBER 2020

The UA Blog

Archives

Categories

Our Services

Sitemap

Contact Us