#nmc recordings

In standard verbiage, light tends to glow, to shine, to radiate. In summoning an image of light as something that might flow, London-based cellist and curator Clare O’Connell evokes a subtle tension between stillness and movement, between seen and unseen, beautifully characterizing the elegant spirit of her latest album. Light Flowing is the second collection of songs released under O’Connell’s…

How best to encourage young musicians?  One might teach them how to play the classics, or even provide them with a modern score (I recently heard middle schoolers playing the theme from The Avengers at a park festival).  Even better, one might co-compose with them, and in so doing find their exuberance.  This is what ten U.K. composers have done on Many Voices: Ensemble, writing music with and…

Martin Suckling on NMC (CD Review)

Martin Suckling This Departing Landscape NMC Recordings CD/DL Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Katherine Bryan (flute), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Ilan Volkov Two concertos and two substantial orchestral works by Scottish composer Martin Suckling are programmed on This Departing Landscape, his debut portrait CD. The White Road (after Edmund de Waal) is inspired by De…

Bernard Rands ~ Chains Like the Sea

We love a unified thematic release.  Chains Like the Sea places its planets in alignment.  Robert Henry Harrison‘s cover art is the entry point.  This oil painting, Dylan Thomas Boathouse, is angular yet measured, a taming of wave and architecture, a fluid representation of Bernard Rands‘ music.  The reference to the poet amplifies the theme of the album, whose title track is inspired by Thomas’

Errollyn Wallen – Photography (CD Review)

Errollyn Wallen Photography Matthew Sharp cello Orchestra X / Nicholas Kok conductor The Continuum Ensemble, Ensemble X / Philip Headlam conductor Quartet X Tim Harries bass guitar Errollyn Wallen voice NMC Recordings NMC D221 A composer, vocalist, and pianist, Errollyn Wallen wears many hats and works in a plethora of…

James Wood: Cloud-Polyphonies (CD Review)

James Wood Cloud-Polyphonies; Tongues of Fire MDR Leipzig Radio Choir; Ear Massage Percussion Quartet, James Wood, conductor; Yale Percussion Group, Robert Van Slice, Director NMC Recordings CD/DL Composer/conductor James Wood has long been one of the “go-to” British musicians when it comes to percussion writing. For a number of…

"Recently discovered Britten, from the lost W.H. Auden radio play, Hadrian’s Wall UNHEARD SINCE 1937."