John Corigliano's "Winging It" Takes Flight on New Cedille Records CD with Pianist Ursula Oppens
"Winging It," a recent work by acclaimed American composer John Corigliano, receives its world-premiere recording on a disc devoted to his solo and two-piano music featuring performances by Ursula Oppens.
Chicago, IL, May 31, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Pianist Ursula Oppens performs the world-premiere recording of John Corigliano's "Winging It," an improvisation-based work written expressly for her, on a new CD devoted to piano music of the widely admired American composer.
"Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano" includes a selection of Corigliano's solo works and both of his two-piano works. For the latter, Ms. Oppens is joined by her longtime collaborator Jerome Lowenthal (Cedille Records CDR 90000 123).
The album "Winging It," available May 31, spans the composer's career from his undergraduate days at Columbia University to the present. Besides the title work, written in 2008, the CD includes "Chiaroscuro" for two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart (1997), "Fantasia on an Ostinato"(1985), "Kaleidoscope" for two pianos (1959), and "Etude Fantasy"(1976).
Corigliano wrote the CD booklet's program notes, which provide authoritative and enjoyably candid discussions of the origins of the works and the development of his musical ideas.
In his notes for the piece "Winging It," Corigliano discusses the difficulties inherent in translating complex improvisations into a playable score. For "Winging It," he initially improvised on an electronic keyboard and MIDI sequencer, which captures the sounds and "a crude but accurate notation of what is played."
The boldly inventive "Chiaroscuro" was commissioned for the 1997 biennial Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition as a test piece for the event. One piano is tuned a quarter-tone lower than the other, "creating eerie effects and dissonances when the instruments were played together."
Corigliano wrote "Fantasia on an Ostinato," his "only experiment in 'minimalist' technique," for the seventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He felt the world could do without another technical showpiece. Instead, he decided to "investigate the performers' imagination and musicality," challenging their ability to create rather than merely play what's on the page.
Corigliano's first and only other two-piano work is the youthful, high-spirited "Kaleidoscope," which projects a changing mosaic of colorful patterns.
"Etude Fantasy" takes the listener on an excursion through studies in left-hand scoring, contrapuntal clarity, a two-note figure, ornamentation, and melody. Corigliano describes the piece as "a set of five studies combined into the episodic form and character of a fantasy."
Cedille Records
Grammy award-winning Cedille Records (pronounced say-DEE) has been dedicated to showcasing the most noteworthy classical artists in and from the Chicago area since its launch in late 1989.
Starting with its May 2011 release, "Winging It," audiophile-oriented Cedille offers better-than-CD-quality 24-bit music downloads in the "lossless" FLAC format, available directly via its website, http://www.cedillerecords.org. The label introduced its CD-quality, 16-bit FLAC downloads in the summer of 2010. Cedille albums are also available via the label's website as physical CDs and extra-high-quality (256 kbps) MP3 file downloads.
The label of the nonprofit Chicago Classical Recording Foundation, Cedille Records is distributed in the Western Hemisphere by Naxos of America and its distribution partners, by Select Music in the U.K., and by other independent distributors in major international classical music markets.
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"Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano" includes a selection of Corigliano's solo works and both of his two-piano works. For the latter, Ms. Oppens is joined by her longtime collaborator Jerome Lowenthal (Cedille Records CDR 90000 123).
The album "Winging It," available May 31, spans the composer's career from his undergraduate days at Columbia University to the present. Besides the title work, written in 2008, the CD includes "Chiaroscuro" for two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart (1997), "Fantasia on an Ostinato"(1985), "Kaleidoscope" for two pianos (1959), and "Etude Fantasy"(1976).
Corigliano wrote the CD booklet's program notes, which provide authoritative and enjoyably candid discussions of the origins of the works and the development of his musical ideas.
In his notes for the piece "Winging It," Corigliano discusses the difficulties inherent in translating complex improvisations into a playable score. For "Winging It," he initially improvised on an electronic keyboard and MIDI sequencer, which captures the sounds and "a crude but accurate notation of what is played."
The boldly inventive "Chiaroscuro" was commissioned for the 1997 biennial Murray Dranoff International Two Piano Competition as a test piece for the event. One piano is tuned a quarter-tone lower than the other, "creating eerie effects and dissonances when the instruments were played together."
Corigliano wrote "Fantasia on an Ostinato," his "only experiment in 'minimalist' technique," for the seventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He felt the world could do without another technical showpiece. Instead, he decided to "investigate the performers' imagination and musicality," challenging their ability to create rather than merely play what's on the page.
Corigliano's first and only other two-piano work is the youthful, high-spirited "Kaleidoscope," which projects a changing mosaic of colorful patterns.
"Etude Fantasy" takes the listener on an excursion through studies in left-hand scoring, contrapuntal clarity, a two-note figure, ornamentation, and melody. Corigliano describes the piece as "a set of five studies combined into the episodic form and character of a fantasy."
Cedille Records
Grammy award-winning Cedille Records (pronounced say-DEE) has been dedicated to showcasing the most noteworthy classical artists in and from the Chicago area since its launch in late 1989.
Starting with its May 2011 release, "Winging It," audiophile-oriented Cedille offers better-than-CD-quality 24-bit music downloads in the "lossless" FLAC format, available directly via its website, http://www.cedillerecords.org. The label introduced its CD-quality, 16-bit FLAC downloads in the summer of 2010. Cedille albums are also available via the label's website as physical CDs and extra-high-quality (256 kbps) MP3 file downloads.
The label of the nonprofit Chicago Classical Recording Foundation, Cedille Records is distributed in the Western Hemisphere by Naxos of America and its distribution partners, by Select Music in the U.K., and by other independent distributors in major international classical music markets.
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Cedille Records
Nat Silverman
847-328-4292
www.cedillerecords.org
Nat Silverman
847-328-4292
www.cedillerecords.org
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