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Artist: Mark Abel
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Mark Abel:

Spectrum

Celebrated sopranos Isabel Bayrakdarian (four times a Juno Award winner) and Hila Plitmann (a pair of GRAMMY® Awards and a longtime Abel collaborator) are joined by mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich in pre- senting the song cycles Trois Femmes du Cinema and 1966, and debuting Two Scenes from The Book of Esther, a provocative excerpt from an opera in develop- ment.

The album’s impressive array of instrumentalists in- cludes pianist Carol Rosenberger (making the final recording of her epic career, which includes well over 40 albums for Delos); fellow pianists Dominic Cheli, Sean Kennard and Jeffrey LaDeur; Alexander String Quartet violist David Samuel; Pacific Symphony concertmaster Dennis Kim; and cello star Jonah Kim.

Spectrum is Abel’s deepest and richest offering thus far, underscoring previous kudos from Gramophone (“music compelling in narrative depth and energy”), The Whole Note (“a compositional master of intriguing contemporary music”) and The Journal of Singing (“bold and ambitious ideas and the resourcefulness to nearly always bring them to full and effective fruition”).

Founded in 1973, Delos has released more than 650 albums featuring top artists. A pioneer in digital recording, Delos is known as a label with a strong personality that attracts a host of major performers and has also garnered acclaim for the technical excellence of its recordings.

Mark Abel:

The Cave Of Wondrous Voice

Chamber Music and Songs of Mark Abel

David Shifrin, clarinet • Carol Rosenberger, piano • Hila Plitmann, soprano  Fred Sherry, cello • Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker, violin Dominic Cheli, piano • Sarah Beck, English horn

This album sings and dances, with Mark Abel's "colorful blend of styles that serve the emotional nature of each work to bracing and poignant effect" (Gramophone) and further clarifies why Abel is "one of the most interesting figures in American contemporary music" (Pizzicato).

Abel's idiom eludes easy pigeon-holing-its contours extend from art song to larger forms with orchestra to a full length chamber opera, Home Is a Harbor.

The program begins with Intuition's Dance, a combination of frolic and dreamy ruminations featuring the incomparable clarinetist David Shifrin and pianist Carol Rosenberger. (Together again for the first time since their memorable albums for Delos, recorded in 1984!) Next comes the remarkable Hila Plitmann singing the powerfully moving Four Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva-the first-ever setting of Tsvetaeva's poetry in English translation. Plitmann is joined by Rosenberger and English hornist Sarah Beck.

Mark Abel:

Time and Distance

The California-based composer Mark Abel, who "employs a colorful blend of styles that serve the emotional nature of each work to bracing and poignant effect" (Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone, August 2016) has released a new recording-his fourth in recent years-entitled Time and Distance on the Delos label. Drawing on a variegated lifetime of artistic, journalistic, political, and poetic endeavors, Mr. Abel has composed five art songs for voice and piano, three of which are based on his own texts, one on a poem by Kate Gale, and one composed to five poems by Joanne Regenhardt. Time and Distance features performances by Grammy Award-winning soprano Hila Plitman; mezzo-sorpano Janelle DeStefano, pianist Tali Tadmor, pianist Carol Rosenberger, Bruce Carver on percussion, and Mr. Abel at the organ. 

Mark Abel:

Terrain Of The Heart

Mark Abel's critically heralded previous release on Delos, the orchestral cycle The Dream Gallery, signaled a radical and culturally relevant new approach to the American art song. With TERRAIN OF THE HEART, Abel takes a fresh look at the idiom while working within the genre's more traditional framework: as a recital vehicle for solo voice and piano. Abel's lyrics leave a lasting impression. They burrow all the deeper into one's consciousness when amplified by his sophisticated musical fusion of classical and rock, aimed at broad-minded listeners – classically couth or not.

11 NEW  42 Total 
SYND: CBC
Markets include: Los Angeles, Denver, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New Orleans, Honolulu
Online: WGOE, Sanluisobispo.com, MusiClassical, RadioIO, gapplegate

Mark Abel:

The Dream Gallery

American composer Mark Abel's song cycle, The Dream Gallery: Seven California Portraits, will be released by Delos Music digitally March 6 and on CD March 27, 2012. With The Dream Gallery, Abel has written both music and lyrics to a 70-minute work that explores a character-driven psychogeography of modern California, a state that he has been continually fascinated by and sometimes frustrated with over three decades of living there. A former rock musician-producer on the cutting-edge New York scene of the late '70s, Abel shifted careers to become a top journalist in San Francisco. He has devoted himself to composition in recent years, releasing two previous albums featuring a wide array of his "postmodern art songs." For The Dream Gallery, the composer sought out some of California's most talented, sympathetic singers and players to bring his latest creation to vibrant life.

8 New 'ON' this week: 51 Total
Direct: Music Choice
Markets include: New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, New Orleans, Berkeley CA, Wichita KS
Online: Crystal Ball Report, WGOE, Live 365