SKU: HL.50601001

UPC: 888680707118. 8.25x11.75 inches.

Commissione d work by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the BBC Proms.

“'The Infant Minstrel and His Peculiar Menagerie' is a symphonic fantasy for solo violin, choir, and orchestra. Violinist Vadim Gluzman performs the lead role of a traveling musical storyteller who introduces a collection of wondrous tales by the mysterious author Erroneous Anonymous. The Infant Minstrel guides listeners in a voyage of imagination. Auerbach's new composition speaks to the young and the young at heart with child-like, yet enigmatic and humorous poems in the tradition of 'nonsense' authors such as Edward Lear, Lewis Carol, Hilaire Belloc, and Mother Goose, as well as Edith Sitwell, Shel Silverstein, Edward Gorey, and Tim Burton. The text is relevant, yet timeless; absurd, yet profound; simple, yet multi-layered. We meet characters such as the Common Corporant, the Moon Rider, and the Flying Pig that enjoys sitting on a cloud watching the crowd. The work embraces with humor the traditions of the British and Gaelic bard and the troubadour, whose songs told embellished and exotic tales. It also finds inspiration in the menagerie – a diverse collection of creatures and curiosities – and the sideshow presentation of oddities and the bizarre.” (Lera Auerbach).

SKU: PR.111402850

ISBN 9781491132005. UPC: 680160680627. What the Living Do by Maria Howe.

The poetry of Marie Howe has a special place in Ricky Ian Gordon’s heart and mind, both haunting and soothing. WITHOUT MUSIC is a five-movement work in which Howe’s words and Gordon’s music together give voice to longterm grieving for a loved one lost to AIDS. The work was commissioned by Music Academy of the West for their 2019 Marilyn Horne Song Competition Winners’ Recital Tour.
For a long time, I have been in dialogue with the poems of Marie Howe. Some poets speak so directly to you that they become a second voice inside you. I have so many of her poems memorized, and I speak them so often because at certain moments I know she will say it better than me.Many I have set or tried to set and felt dissatisfied and put them away. Marie’s poems are so plain spoken, you want them to feel, if you are taking the trouble to set them to music, that the songs are plain spoken as well... because it would be criminal to set Marie’s poems in a way that obscures the words and makes them feel distant or remote.I first heard Kelsey Lauritano in a Master Class that Stephanie Blythe was giving at Juilliard. I was bowled over by her poise, the beauty of her voice, her engagement with her body and her connection to text. She is a real artist through and through. I wanted to create a cycle for her where it felt like she was talking to the audience in the most intimate way possible. I wanted to be able to see her heart.These five poems are from Marie’s book, “What the Living Do,” the book which was published eight years after her brother Johnny died at 28 from AIDS. The book is impossibly beautiful, as clear as a spring in a remote forest... the poems simply tell the story of Johnny’s illness and Marie’s relationship with it, and him... as Marie would put it, they are “how some of it happened.”I lost my partner Jeffrey Grossi to AIDS in 1996, so needless to say, this book, and Marie’s poems were balm for me... one of the myriad ways I got through an excruciating time, as Jeffrey’s death followed practically, the death of my entire community. I feel bad, and even awkward, that this is still so much a part of my story, but it is. Is it PTSD, or just, not wanting to forget? I don’t know. But these songs are steeped in that time.