Mark Abel | |
|---|---|
 Mark Abel, composer | |
| Born | Mark Abel April 28, 1948 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Years active | 1999-present |
| Known for | The Palm Trees Are Restless |
| Style | Classical Music |
| Website | www.markabelmusic.com |
Mark Abel (born April 28, 1948) is an American composer of classical music.
After a brief stay at Stanford University in the late 1960s, Abel was active on the New York rock scene during the 1970s and early 1980s, leading his own groups, producing the bands The Feelies and The Bongos, and playing on albums of Tom Verlaine and former Left Banke mastermind Michael Brown. He returned to California in 1983 and worked in mainstream journalism for two decades, eventually becoming foreign editor of the San Francisco Chronicle . He moved away from rock during that period, immersed himself in classical and gradually began developing his hybridized style.
Eight CDs of Abel's music have appeared in the past dozen years. The self-released Journey Long, Journey Far [1] and Songs of Life, Love and Death [2] attracted little notice. But The Dream Gallery, [3] a 69-minute song cycle for seven soloists and chamber orchestra depicting the lives of imaginary archetypal Californians, caught the interest of pianist Carol Rosenberger, director of the Delos Productions label, leading to its recording by USC Thornton conductor Sharon Lavery [4] and the La Brea Sinfonietta.
Delos’ release of Gallery in early 2012 began to bring Abel's music to a wider audience. The record garnered considerable acclaim, with notices ranging from “profound and compelling” [5] and “not much like anything else out there, … most highly recommended” [6] to “anyone who is interested in modern vocal music will want to own this disc.” [7]
In the fall of 2013, Abel's “The Benediction” appeared on Stopping By, [8] the debut CD of New York tenor Kyle Bielfield. The song explores Abel's feelings about the uneasy state of socially divided America. [9]
Abel's second recording for Delos, Terrain of the Heart, [10] a collection of art song cycles for voice and piano, was released in February 2014. It features three recitalists from the Los Angeles classical scene — sopranos Jamie Chamberlin [11] and Ariel Pisturino, [12] and pianist Victoria Kirsch. [13]
The record was praised as "art song at a high-water mark of invention" [14] and for its "emotional directness and stylistic unpredictability." [15] The Journal of Singing [16] called "The Dark-Eyed Chameleon" cycle "captivating and important," adding that it "holds its own" with some of the most revered tragic cycles of Schubert, Schumann and Mahler.
In March 2016, Delos Productions released the double-CD package Home Is A Harbor [17] — consisting of Abel's first opera (of the same name) and the song cycle "The Palm Trees are Restless", a setting of verses by Los Angeles poet Kate Gale. The cycle marked the beginning of a series of collaborations by Abel with Grammy-winning soprano Hila Plitmann. [18]
Gramophone (magazine) commented “Abel employs a colorful blend of styles … (that) serve the emotional nature of each work to bracing and poignant effect. Abel’s lucid narrative and vibrant vocal lines, combined with telling orchestrations for a chamber ensemble, make (“Harbor”) an affecting experience. The brilliant soprano Hila Plitmann manages every leap and switch of emotional gears (in “Palm Trees”) with fearless commitment, and pianist Tali Tadmor matches her in power and subtlety.” [19]
Richard Sininger of American Record Guide [20] wrote that the recording showed Abel to be “at the forefront of (California's) musical life.”
Plitmann and Tadmor gave the world premiere [21] of “The Palm Trees Are Restless” on Oct. 1, 2016, at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, Ca. Plitmann has continued her support of Abel's music since then, premiering another Abel-Gale collaboration, the concert aria “Those Who Loved Medusa,” at a Dec. 10, 2017, concert [22] at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica. Several months later, Plitmann was featured in a film dramatization of “Medusa” made by videographer Tempe Hale. [23]
Plitmann recorded that piece and two other Abel works – “In the Rear View Mirror, Now” and “The Benediction” – for the composer's fourth Delos release, Time and Distance, which appeared in March 2018. [24] The album also includes two pieces written for mezzo-soprano Janelle DeStefano – the song cycle “The Ocean of Forgiveness,” a setting of poems by Joanne Regenhardt, and “The Invocation.” The “Ocean” cycle took the Honorable Mention in the 2018 Art Song Competition [25] held by the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
Time and Distance was well received by music writers. Laurence Vittes of Gramophone praised Abel's “marriages of subtly charged music with an eclectic modernist twist to emotionally provocative, introspective texts.” [26] Gregory Berg of The Journal of Singing called Abel “a composer with bold and ambitious ideas and the resourcefulness to nearly always bring those ideas to full and effective fruition. His latest collection … marks a new level of excellence we have not seen before.” [27]
Theodore Bell of CultureSpot LA wrote: “The collection has a unique L.A. sound and attitude … . Abel’s settings fuse chamber and contemporary styles seamlessly together to achieve a spacious feel with only a small ensemble.” [28] Huntley Dent of Fanfare observed: “Few current songwriters rival Abel’s intriguing texts and their reach into so many psychological and cultural issues. Meaning and melody go hand in hand in a very contemporary way, which I truly admire.” [29]
Enthused Joseph Newsome of Voix-des-Arts: “Too plentiful to enumerate are the passages in this music that are so wrenchingly private that they may compel the listener to ask, ‘How can this man whom I have never met know so much about my life?’ This intuition, uncanny and unifying, is the foundation of Abel's unique musical language and the quality that makes Time and Distance a disc that severs new veins of raw emotion each time that it is heard.” [30]
Abel shifted focus for his fifth Delos release, The Cave of Wondrous Voice, [31] offering a program dominated by chamber music. Three American masters of the idiom – David Shifrin, Fred Sherry, and Carol Rosenberger – introduce Abel’s Clarinet Trio and “Intuition’s Dance,” while German violinist Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker and young American pianist Dominic Cheli perform “The Elastic Hours.” Hila Plitmann makes her fifth traversal of an Abel work in the song cycle “Four Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva,” accompanied by Rosenberger and English hornist Sarah Beck. The piece is the first setting of the Russian poet in English, with translations by Alyssa Dinega Gillespie. [32]
Like its predecessors, Cave received wide acclaim. Beyond Criticism's Matthew Gurewitsch described the album as “sundown music, aglow with somber color and orientalist touches. Serendipity and an Impressionist sensibility … guide the ebb and flow. Beautiful.” [33] Henry Schlinger of Culture Spot LA called the release “a wondrous creation” in which Abel “announced his arrival as a serious chamber music composer.” [34] The Whole Note's Tiina Kiik wrote that Cave showed Abel to be “a compositional master of intriguing contemporary music.” [35]
Gramophone's Donald Rosenberg praised Abel's “establishing of vibrant and urgent contexts for the interaction of voice and instruments,” and the Clarinet Trio's “poetic, engaging and philosophical material that these superb players afford colorful and lyrical delineation.” [36] Fanfare's Huntley Dent declared: “Abel represents the best strain in contemporary American composers who can merge their musical gifts with a sensitive, far-reaching intellect. He brings up to date the strain of literary delving found in Schumann and Debussy.” [37]
In fall 2021, Abel's duo composition Approaching Autumn appeared on a Delos album of the same name [38] by San Francisco-based cellist Jonah Kim. [39] The piece, performed with pianist Robert Koenig, [40] was labeled “compelling” [41] by Lou Fancher of San Francisco Classical Voice. Lynn René Bayley of The Art Music Lounge called it “a surprisingly dramatic piece … the work of an assured composer who knows what he is about. Not a single phrase or note is superfluous, repetitive, or just thrown in to impress the listener. … A work that I consider a modern American masterpiece.” [42]
David W. Moore of the American Record Guide called Approaching Autumn "beautifully romantic" [43] and Fanfare's Colin Clarke hailed it as “a splendid piece, nearly a quarter-hour of pure beauty.” [44] Rafael de Acha of All About the Arts described it as “melodically forthcoming, harmoniously laid-out, often playful, eminently accessible, at times ruminative, unabashedly joyful at others. … A delightful work.” [45]
October 2022 saw the release of Spectrum, a 92-minute survey of Abel’s most recent work, evenly divided between vocal and chamber pieces. Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and mezzo Kindra Scharich make their first appearances on an Abel album, while Hila Plitmann returns for her sixth. Instrumental players include Carol Rosenberger, Dominic Cheli, David Samuel, Jonah Kim, Dennis Kim, Sean Kennard and Jeff Garza.
Eric Edward Whitacre is an American composer, conductor, and speaker best known for his choral music. In March 2016, he was appointed as Los Angeles Master Chorale's first artist-in-residence at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Warren Ellis is an Australian musician and composer. He is a member of the rock groups Dirty Three and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He also performed with the band Grinderman until its disbandment in 2013. He has also composed film scores with long-time friend, collaborator and band-mate Nick Cave. Ellis plays the violin, piano, accordion, bouzouki, guitar, flute, mandolin, mandocello and viola. He has been a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1994.
Hila Plitmann is an Israeli-American two-time Grammy Award-winning operatic soprano, songwriter, and actress specializing in the performance of new works.
Peter Goddard Lieberson was an American composer of contemporary classical music. His song cycles include two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: Rilke Songs and Neruda Songs; the latter won the 2008 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition and both were written for his wife, the mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. His three piano concertos were each premiered by the pianist Peter Serkin, with the 1st and 3rd also being Pulitzer finalists.
Nir Yaniv is an Israeli multidisciplinary artist.
The Pacifica Quartet is a professional string quartet based in Bloomington, Indiana. Its members are: Simin Ganatra, first violin; Austin Hartman, second violin; Mark Holloway, viola; and Brandon Vamos, cello. Formed in 1994 by Ganatra and Vamos with violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson and violist Kathryn Lockwood, the group won prizes in competitions such as the 1996 Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the 1997 Concert Artists Guild Competition, and the 1998 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition. In 2001, violist Masumi Per Rostad replaced Lockwood. The group subsequently received Chamber Music America's prestigious Cleveland Quartet Award in 2002, the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006, and was named "Ensemble of the Year" by Musical America in 2009. In 2017, violinist Austin Hartman replaced Bernhardsson and violist Guy Ben-Ziony replaced Rostad.
Kate Gale is an American author, poet, librettist, and independent publisher. She is the managing editor of Red Hen Press.
Stile Antico is a British vocal ensemble, specialising in polyphonic early music composed prior to the eighteenth century. Like groups such as the Tallis Scholars or The Sixteen, it has roots in the choral tradition of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, but, unusually for groups tackling complex polyphony, Stile Antico has no conductor. The singers rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, an approach which has been praised by critics.
Valeriya is a stage name of Alla Yurievna Perfilova, a Russian singer and fashion model. Valeriya, who is a recipient of the titles People's Artist of Russia (2013) and People's Artist of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (2016), has also won numerous awards, including Golden Gramophone (thirteen), Pesnya goda (thirteen), Muz-TV, and MTV Russia Music Awards. She has been a member of the Council for Culture and Art under the President of the Russian Federation since 2012.
Rhian Samuel is a Welsh woman composer who resided in the USA for many years. She has composed over 140 published works, including orchestral, chamber, vocal, and choral music. She now divides her time between mid-Wales and London.
Carol Rosenberger is a classical pianist. In 1976, Rosenberger was chosen to represent America's women concert artists by the President's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide. Rosenberger recorded over 30 albums on the Delos Productions, Inc. recording label. Rosenberger's memoir, To Play Again: A Memoir of Musical Survival was published in 2018 by She Writes Press.
Robert Paterson is an American composer of contemporary classical music, as well as a conductor and percussionist. His catalog includes over 100 compositions. He has been called a "modern day master" and is primarily known for his colorful orchestral works, large body of chamber music and clear vocal writing in his operas, choral works, vocal chamber works and song cycles.
Huw Thomas Watkins is a British composer and pianist. Born in South Wales, he studied piano and composition at Chetham's School of Music in Manchester, where he received piano lessons from Peter Lawson. He then went on to read music at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Robin Holloway and Alexander Goehr, and completed an MMus in composition at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Julian Anderson. Huw Watkins was awarded the Constant and Kit Lambert Junior Fellowship at the Royal College of Music, where he used to teach composition. He is currently Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal College of Music.
Delos Productions is an American record label. Long in Los Angeles but now headquartered in Sonoma, California, it specializes in classical music. The Delos label was founded in 1973 by Amelia S. Haygood (1919–2007), whose stewardship of the company made her a prominent figure in the classical recording industry. She named the label after the Greek island of Delos, the birthplace of the Sun god Apollo, who brought music and healing to the world. The company's current director is Carol Rosenberger, an American pianist who recorded over 30 CDs for Delos in a career spanning more than three decades.
Tigran Yeghiayi Mansurian is a leading Armenian composer of classical music and film scores, People's Artist of the Armenian SSR (1990), and Honored Art Worker of the Armenian SSR (1984). He is the author of orchestral, chamber, choir and vocal works, which have been played across the world. He was nominated for Grammy awards in 2004 and 2017.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides—Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album to the 2011 eponymous film. Hans Zimmer, who produced Klaus Badelt's score for The Curse of the Black Pearl and composed the music for Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, returned to score the fourth installment of the Pirates franchise. Collaborators included Rodrigo y Gabriela, which are listed as featured artists, and composers Eric Whitacre, Eduardo Cruz and Geoff Zanelli.
Peter Seabourne is an English contemporary classical composer based in Lincolnshire, England.
Roger Elgin Myers FRSA is an Australian/American concert violist and academic. He is Fellow of the Florence Thelma Hall Centennial Chair in Music and Professor of Viola at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mythologies is the sixth studio album by French-American composer and pianist Danaë Xanthe Vlasse, and won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2022 at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards. The album features sopranos Sangeeta Kaur and Hila Plitmann and was released in the US on August 6, 2021 on Cezanne Records.
Benjamin Britten's Five Flower Songs, Op. 47, is a set of five part songs to poems in English by four authors which mention flowers, composed for four voices (SATB) in 1950 as a gift for the 25th wedding anniversary of Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst. It was first performed in the open air at the couple's estate Dartington Hall, with Imogen Holst conducting a student choir. The set has been frequently recorded by English and foreign chamber choirs and ensembles, including Polyphony, Cambridge Singers and the RIAS Kammerchor.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
