VOX

Description: 
Voices of whales and more
Composers: 
George Crumb
Narong Prangcharoen
Stacy Garrop
Carter Pann
Performers: 
Heare Ensemble
Jennie Oh Brown
Jennifer Blyth
Kurt Fowler
Catalog Number: 
#1 040
Genre: 
new classical
Collection: 
chamber
flute
cello
piano
Location: 

Elmhurst, IL

Price: 
$15.00
Release Date: 
Jan 24, 2020
Liner Notes: 
View
1 CD
One Sheet: 

VOX, the premiere recording of the Heare Ensemble, celebrates the 90th birthday of iconic American composer George Crumb with a scintillating rendition of VOX BALAENAE [Voice of the Whale] for Three Masked Players: Electric Flute, Electric Cello, and Electric Piano (1971).

The Heare Ensemble (Jennie Oh Brown, flutes; Jennifer Blyth, piano; and Kurt Fowler, cello) first performed Vox Balaenae as graduate students at the Eastman School of Music. Since then, the ensemble has performed this powerful, environmentally-conscious piece more than 25 times. It was written after Crumb heard hydrophone recordings of Humpback whale song that opened up a whole new/ancient sonic world; timeless, reverberant, atmospheric.

Additional works on the album were programmed for their thematic relevance to Crumb’s ideas. Having grown up and lived for many years in Virginia, the ambient sound of the Appalachian Mountains infused much of Crumb’s writing. Stacy Garrop’s Silver Dagger is based on an Appalachian folk song. The lyrics contain many variants on the Romeo and Juliet theme, one of which is a boy asks a girl for her parents’ consent to marry, the parents won’t give approval, so the girl and boy each end their lives with a silver dagger.

In the spirit of Crumb’s expansion of the Western musical pallette, the ensemble chose a work by Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen. The title references the Thai porcelain, Bencharong, typically created using three to eight colors and often given on special occasions, such as weddings. The process of creating Bencharong pottery takes several steps of firing, as the artisan carefully lays the colors onto the pottery in repetitive designs. Each step must yield a perfect result or the vessel will be destroyed. Prangcharoen illustrates the colors of Bencharong pottery in each dynamic movement.

Carter Pann’s Melodies for Robert was written as a loving homage to the late Robert Vincent Jones, an American war hero, respected physician, and cherished father.  In contrast to Crumb’s de-personalization of the masked performers on stage, in Pann’s piece, the openness of humanity is celebrated. Heartfelt sentimentality fills Pann’s score with lush harmonies and interwoven, beautiful melodies. It is an intricate and masterfully crafted chamber work that elegantly embodies love, optimism, and freedom. Melodies for Robert was commissioned by SDG Music Foundation and premiered by the Heare Ensemble in 2017.

Together these works of voice and song help us hear our living world in a new light – and where ninety years is a drop in the ocean.

Reviews: 

THE WHOLE NOTE

"The performances are flawless, and the recording quality excellent; Vox Balaenae is a timeless masterpiece." [FULL ARTICLE] - Max Christie

TEXTURA

"As much as Vox Balaenae is, as stated, the forty-five-minute recording's key work, the trio was smart to end it with Pann's to enable the listener to leave VOX buoyed by its rapturous spirit and humanistic tone." [FULL ARTICLE

JAZZ WEEKLY

"the entire album feels like a walk through a musical Impressionistic museum." [ FULL ARTICLE

ART & CULTURE MAVEN

"This is an album of music that plays with the emotions and offers reflection and contemplation, where the superb talents of the musicians are almost forgotten in the sheer beauty of the music." [FULL ARTICLE]