Discography
GRAMMY NOMINATED 2024
A Dream so Bright: Choral Music of Jake Runestad
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
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Reference Recordings is proud to present True Concord's newest album, A Dream So Bright, featuring two world premiere recordings of works by Jake Runestad. His EMMY-winning choral orchestral work, Earth Symphony, with poetry of Todd Boss, was commissioned and premiered by True Concord in 2022. Dreams of the Fallen, Runestad's prize-winning work for solo piano, chorus & orchestra, features pianist Jeffrey Biegel and includes texts of the poet Brian Turner, a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Turner states: "When the music lifts to it's peak, when the choir sings into the high cathedral of the human experience-the hairs on the back of my neck take notice, my own heart takes notice, and I am moved once again by the fusion of sound and story. "Dreams of the Fallen" is a compassionate, emotionally-layered, elegant, and poignant work of art that I am proud to be a part of. "
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GRAMMY NOMINATED 2020
Nominated for the International Classical Music Awards in Europe
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Alexander KASTALSKY: Requiem for Fallen Brothers
The Clarion Choir
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Alexander Kastalsky was a student of Tchaikovsky and a mentor to Rachmaninov, becoming director of the Moscow Synodal School until the Bolshevik regime banned all sacred music, including the extraordinary Requiem for Fallen Brothers which consequently lay forgotten for over a century. The Requiem is a rich and varied mosaic that honours those who perished in the First World War, poignantly combining Orthodox and Gregorian chant with hymns from the allied nations, even including Rock of Ages. This unprecedented and peerless monument to those who made the ultimate sacrifice was acclaimed on its 1917 premiere as a ‘uniquely Russian requiem that… gave musical voice to the tears of many nations’.
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GRAMMY NOMINATED 2020: Best Classical Compendium
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Luna Pearl Woolf: Fire and Flood
The Choir of Trinity Wall Street
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The composer-portrait album, released in February, encompasses 25 years of dramatic vocal and choral works and hauntingly re-imagined Leonard Cohen masterpieces by the innovative American-Canadian composer.
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Whole Note Review
GRAMMY NOMINATED 2019
Gramaphone's Editor's Choice
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Alexander KASTALSKY: Memory Eternal (1917)
The Clarion Choir
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In the face of the devastation wrought by the First World War, Alexander Kastalsky conceived a musical service of remembrance for the fallen. Following the basic structure of the Orthodox Panihida, or memorial service, Memory Eternal, and the short sacred pieces that end the programme, reveal Kastalsky’s masterful use of choral sonority and colour, his weaving of complex polyphonic textures, and his graceful use of ancient chant melodies.
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Gramaphone review
GRAMMY NOMINATED 2017
Winner of DIAPASON DÉCOUVERTE
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Maximilian Steinberg: Passion Week
The Clarion Choir
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Maximilian Steinberg's Passion Week is a long-hidden sacred work written in 1920s Russia. The piece, due to a fascinating personal story, made its way to the United States, and, some 85 years later, was performed for the first time. The Clarion Choir gave the New York premiere of the work in October 2014. The New York Times called the performance 'stunning' and added 'Truly, however belatedly, Steinberg's moment has arrived.'
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Fanfare Magazine review: "magnificent rendition", "The sound on this Naxos recording is perfect for church music and, while listening to Steinberg’s work, I felt as though I were sitting in the middle of a Russian cathedral."
JUNO NOMINATED 2016
Sacred Reflections of Canada - A Canadian Mass
Canadian Chamber Choir
Featured soloist on track 7
The Canadian Chamber Choir is proud to present a collection of works by 17 different Canadian composers which have been curated to create the first ever composite Canadian Mass.
The Whole note review : "composer-in-residence Jeff Enns’ O magnum mysterium begins with the purist soprano solo by Megan Chartrand"
Johannes Ockeghem
Complete Songs Volume 1
Johannes Ockeghem: Complete Songs, vol. 1 is the first of two discs which will present all of Ockeghem’s songs in a complete set; the second is planned for release in 2022. The songs have not been recorded complete since the early 1980s.
Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497) was one of the most celebrated musicians of the fifteenth century and is one of the greatest composers of all time, every bit the equal of J.S. Bach in contrapuntal technique and profound expressivity, and like Bach able to combine the most rigorous intellectual structure with a beguiling sensuality.
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Gramaphone review
New York Times review
Boston Globe review
Record Review, BBC Radio 3 (starts at 13:42) review
Music for Several Instruments review: "Outstandingly beautiful" "I know that I'll continue to look to Blue Heron for the most impressive music of the period."
Reincarnations
Seraphic Fire
Featured soloist on track 12
Quigley’s latest recording with his Miami-based Seraphic Fire concert choir is a collection of American music spanning about 120 years, from the anonymous hymns of the Shaker community to new works by contemporary young composers whose scores recorded here are practically still wet with inkjet from their notational printouts.
Miami Music review
Gramaphone review
Anniversaries & Messages
Yale Schola Cantorum
Featured on track 5
While we know the Yale Schola Cantorum well for their "bright, youthful, and beautifully balanced sound" (Early Music America) in early music, this fascinating new recording mixes ancient mainstays with works by greats of contemporary choral music. In this splendid live concert recording with longtime conductor and revered master Simon Carrington the ensemble lives up to its exalted reputation in every respect - engaging their fortunate listeners with gripping spontaneity, sweet sound, uncanny balance, and unblemished technical perfection.
Palestrina - Missa Confitebor tibi Domine
Yale Schola Cantorum
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Yale Schola Cantorum presents a journey from 21st century Connecticut to late 16th century Rome. This program of quasi-Baroque richness features Palestrina's a cappella Mass is imaginatively interspersed with instrumental interludes for cornett and organ.
STATEMENTS
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​Yale Composer's Project
Yale Choral Artists & Yale Philharmonia
Requiem (world premiere) – Hannah Lash
Statement to the Court – David Lang
Consent - Ted Hearne