Duo FAE pays tribute to three boldly nonconformist women composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Cécile Chaminade, Ethel Smyth, and Amy Beach. Upstart pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko mines lesser-known Spanish keyboard repertoire, and we explore American composer Joel Puckett’s Short Stories in London.
New Releases Aug. 19: Dissident Duos, Dawn, London
Duo F.A.E.
Chicago-based Duo FAE (violinist Charlene Kluegel and pianist Katherine Petersen) pay tribute to three pioneering women composers whose work and lives defied the social confines of their time. Featuring Cécile Chaminade’s Trois Morceaux, and sonatas by Dame Ethel Smyth and Amy Beach, these chamber works for violin and piano stand as acts of bold artistic and political expression. Anchored in the women’s suffrage movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries, this collection connects historical and musical dissidence with the present and enduring fight for Women’s Rights.
Recently heard on Live from WFMT, Canadian pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko is the first prize laureate of the 2024 Concours musical international de Montréal and the winner of the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition. Recorded in the months between the International First Round and the Concerto Finals of the Leeds Competition, Izik-Dzurko presents 13 sonatas by Antonio Soler, a Spanish composer who bridges the stylistic gap between the late baroque and early Classicism. Soler’s innovations have often been overlooked but the intricate modulations and rhythmic vitality found in his sonatas offer compelling evidence of their importance. Sonatas Nos. 99–111 offer a wealth of entrancing features, among them sophisticated ornamentation, a synthesis of contrapuntal and Iberian folkloric traditions, and humorous cadences.
Creative collaboration is a fundamental aspect of American composer Joel Puckett. The three works receiving their premiere recording here exemplify this spirit, each reflecting synergy between Puckett’s dynamic creative vision and the musicians for whom he composes. Puckett’s new Trumpet Concerto was written for the distinguished jazz trumpeter Sean Jones as an homage to Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, commissioned and premiered by Benny Goodman. The orchestral song cycle There Was a Child Went Forth on texts of Walt Whitman was composed for the 225th anniversary of the United States President’s Own Marine Band. The album’s title track Short Stories is a concerto grosso for string quartet and orchestra, which has been widely performed since its 2013 premiere.
Acclaimed British vocal consort The Gesualdo Six present their tenth album, featuring a collaboration with trumpeter Matilda Lloyd in works by Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Tallis, James Macmillan, Roxana Panufnik, and others. “From religious processions to military victories, the combination of voices and trumpet has played a prominent role in concerts and ritual for centuries,” says artistic director Owain Park. “On this album, we explore different shades of light through music, capturing moments across the spectrum, from the soft, golden glow of a summer evening as shadows lengthen to the shimmering of moonlight on calm waters. Some texts contrast the terror of darkness with the brilliance of dazzling sunlight; others explore the blurred boundaries between heaven and earth. Plainchant threads this program together — sometimes finely woven into the structural framework, and at other times as a fragment of the composer’s imagination.”
Marking 70 years since George Enescu’s death, celebrated violinist Charlie Siem and the Philharmonia Orchestra present two of the Romanian composer’s concertante works (Aria and Scherzino and Ballade, Op. 4a) as companion pieces to Brahms’s Violin Concerto conducted by Oleg Caetani. Charlie Siem is one of today’s foremost young violinists with wide-ranging cross-cultural appeal. Siem has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the Bergen Philharmonic, the Camerata Salzburg, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Enescu’s Aria and Scherzino is new to the WFMT library.
