For Your Consideration
open G records
Harold Meltzer
Variations on a Summer Day & Piano Quartet
Harumi Rhodes, violin | Dimitri Murrath, viola | Raman Ramakrishnan, cello | Max Levinson, piano
Abigail Fischer, mezzo-soprano | Sequitur | Jayce Ogren, conductor
Produced and engineered by Judith Sherman
Engineering and editing assistant: Jeanne Velonis
Recorded at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York.
Download: CD Notes | Track Listing | Digital Book
For Your Grammy Consideration in the following Classical Categories:
Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance
Producer Of The Year, Classical
Best Engineered Album, Classical
Press for this recording
“enchanting and unpredictable”
— Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
“thrives on ample invention and an astute sense of color”
—Allan Kozinn, The Wall Street Journal
“a composer fully in charge of his powers, and in his prime”
—Robert Carl, Fanfare
“summoning up sounds from his ensemble that seem nearly impossible”
—Sydney Boyd, American Record Guide
“novelty and nostalgia interact in a mesmerizingly intricate ballet”
—Joseph Newsome, Voix des Arts
“From a different portion of the stylistic spectrum comes Harold Meltzer, a composer of great ambition, scrupulous technique, and real imagination. While his roots are more “modern classical”, that tradition doesn’t prelude real personality. His Variations on A Summer Day is a 20-part song cycle on the eponymous poem of Wallace Stevens, and takes us into a sound-world with shades of Carter, Tippett, and Knussen. But it’s very much the composer’s own, and I’m moved by it.”
— Robert Carl, Fanfare Want List
Piano Quartet
Harumi Rhodes, violin; Dimitri Murrath, viola; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Max Levinson, piano
(Boston Chamber Music Society)
Variations on a Summer Day
Abigail Fischer, mezzo-soprano
Sequitur
Jayce Ogren, conductor