Mark Abel’s Spectrum is an Opera News Critic’s Choice
Subscribers can view the full review on OperaNews.com
Subscribers can view the full review on OperaNews.com
Gregory Berg has a new review of Mark Abel’s Spectrum album in the March/April 2023 issue of The Journal of Singing: “It is good to have another recording of music by Mark Abel, a composer who has a lot to say and has some very intriguing ways of saying it. The collection at hand features…
The Journal of Singing‘s latest issue features a wonderful new review for Mark Abel’s “Trois Femmes” from the album, Spectrum: “Mark Abel, whose works frequently have been reviewed in this column, is a gifted and fascinating composer… The texts are effective and insightful, drawing the listener into the intriguing life stories of three women, icons…
The Crossover Media Podcast hosted Mark Abel and Hila Plitmann to discuss Spectrum! Listen now on Spotify or on your favorite podcast app: See the full writeup of the Podcast on Crossover Media’s blog on Medium.
The March/April 2023 issue of Fanfare Magazine features a warm recommendation for Spectrum: Music by Mark Abel: “[Mark Abel’s] music is tonal, although at times it stretches tonal boundaries, and he has a genuine melodic gift that serves him well. … [The Book of Esther]… is scored for soprano (Esther) and mezzo-soprano (Vashti, the queen…
The December 2022–January 2023 issue of The Whole Note features a wonderful review for our Mark Abel: Spectrum release: “Not only do we meet Isabel Bayrakdarian, a haunting soprano singing emotionally in praise of three women artists we might never have known if Abel had not set their lives to song, but we find ourselves…
“Mark Abel continues to demonstrate his versatility in the works on the newest Delos release of his music, ‘Spectrum’, a generous two-disc helping of song-cycles, chamber pieces and excerpts from an opera still roaming around the California-based composer’s fertile brain. As the previous recordings revealed, Abel writes in a poetic tonal style, at times reminiscent…
Grego Applegate Edwards’ Classical-Modern Music Review has a great recommendation for Mark Abel: Spectrum recording: “Listening to this set numerous times reveals a composer of lyrical gifts, a crafter of vibrant melodic-harmonic landscapes of a ravishing sort, perhaps in the footsteps but not the actual shoes of a Samuel Barber (the Knoxville and such). There…
Ron Schepper offers an in-depth review of Mark Abel’s new album, Spectrum, in Textura Magazine: “While appreciation for Mark Abel’s music is undeniably enhanced by familiarity with releases such as The Cave of Wondrous Voice (2020), Time and Distance (2018), and Home is a Harbor (2016), it’s not required when the double-CD set Spectrum, the sixth album on Delos by the American…
Mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich and pianist Jeffrey LaDeur perform excerpts from Mark Abel’s song cycle “1966,” a composition on Abel’s Delos album Spectrum: 1966 1966 was written for Kindra Scharich and her close colleague Jeffrey LaDeur. The cycle evokes the long-ago year when I turned 18 – a magic and unsettling time filled with life-altering events.…
Composer Mark Abel discusses the lives and careers of Anne Wiazemsky, Pina Pellicer, and Larisa Shepitko – the three subjects of his song cycle, “Trois Femmes du Cinema”. The cycle appears on Abel’s Delos album Spectrum! The work is sung by soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian, accompanied by pianist Carol Rosenberger. Anne Wiazemsky Pina Pellicer Larisa Shepitko