The rave reviews and accolades for Mark Abel’s The Dream Gallery just keep coming! Micaele Sparacino of ConcertoNet.com: The Classical Music Network compares Abel to Modest Mussorgsky and calls The Dream Gallery a modern Pictures at an Exhibition unique and sophisticated enough to be worth placing next to Leonard Bernstein, Elvis Costello and Kurt Weill:
“This superb recording of composer Mark Abel’s latest composition, The Dream Gallery, has already received theAward of Excellence (for Lyrics) and the Award of Merit(for originality and creativity), which is presented by Global Music Awards (GMA). The Dream Gallery, which is a 70 minute orchestral song cycle, recalls the famous Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, as it is in many ways a modern version of his Pictures at an Exhibition. First of all Mr. Abel, like his Russian predecessor has found a new and original musical language in which to write, that he describes as a fusion of Classical Music with Contemporary Rock. Secondly the song cycle is composed like a gallery of very colorfully painted portraits and pictures…
“Mr. Abel has composed his own lyrics, which truly give a strong unity of vision to his composition as the texts meld perfectly with the music, and they convey a wide range of issues and behavior patterns. Which in his own words range from ‘big-city swagger, elitist conceits and the struggle of immigrants to betrayal, racial scape-goating and environmental devastation.’.
This is a major new American song cycle, which is going to be much discussed and weighed by musicologists and critics in the coming months. I believe it is a recording you will enjoy and want to own…I have placed it on the shelf next to my recordings of Leonard Bernstein, Elvis Costello and Kurt Weill.” — Micaele Sparacino, ConcertoNet
Read the full review on ConcertoNet.com!
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