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Orchestral

Universal Music Classic and Deutsche Grammophon Release Mohammed Fairouz Album Titled 'Follow, Poet'

Universal Music Classics will release a new album on the Deutsche Grammophon imprint of work by Mohammed Fairouz titled "Follow, Poet," Jan. 27. The album marks the composer’s debut on the Yellow label, and the first release in the Universal Music Classic’s Return to Language series.The Return to Language series was created by Universal Music Classics President/CEO Elizabeth Sobol, a lifelong lover of literature. Sobol says it was only natural that the series be launched with Fairouz’s album."There is a deep humanity and civic devotion to Mohammed’s music," she says. "For him, music isn’t an abstract art — it has a higher purpose.”The musical works on this album, "Audenesque" and "Sadat," each exalt the transformative power of language through different means: one poetic, one oratorical. In "Audenesque," Fairouz sets verse by the great 20th-century English poet W.H. Auden and late Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney. With "Sadat," the composer evokes in an instrumental work the stirring life-story of slain Egyptian president Anwar Sadat.
By Jaime Prisco

  • Italian Director Monte Bettolgi Uses Marble Quarry Sounds for New Techno-Opera 'Il Capo'

    The intricate art of extracting sounds from the environment and using them for composition is its own work of art. And for a recent spot at Aeon Video, the techno-opera "Il Capo," of marble being extracted from an Italian quarry is a new idea in the face of opera and composition.It is not the first installation of field recordings but the idea is original. With the epic and destructive sounds of marble being harvested from a quarry, the idea of making it a musical composition is astounding.Just like a score for a movie from the likes of Johnny Greenwood, it is like an orchestra all its own, with the crashing sounds of marble that emulates something sinister just like the breaking of Arctic ice.The film depicts quarrymen working on the Monte Bettolgi in the Carrara region of the Apuan Alps in northwest Italy. The Italian director, Yuri Ancarani, followed a marble quarry boss as he led his men through tedious work and using a silent language of hand gestures to complete the dig.
    By Ian Holubiak

  • Minnesota Opera Music Director Michael Christie to Lead 'The Manchurian Candidate,' Based Off Famous Novel by Richard Condon

    Minnesota Opera music director Michael Christie will lead the world premiere performances of "The Manchurian Candidate" from March 7 to 15 in the Music Theatre at Ordway.The new opera by Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell is based on the novel by Richard Condon. "The Manchurian Candidate," a Minnesota Opera New Works Initiative Production, traces the suspenseful story of an American soldier decorated during the Korean War who is brainwashed into becoming an unwitting assassin in a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government.The performances of "The Manchurian Candidate" are part of the Rock the Ordway series. These 22 days of opening nights will be marking the grand opening of the new, state-of-the-art concert hall at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Minnesota. The celebration kicks off Feb. 28 with a gala evening featuring The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra led by Christie in collaborative performances with the Minnesota Opera Chorus, pianist Jeremy Denk, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and more.
    By Jaime Prisco
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