0
Join
Delos Productions
  • Home
  • About Delos
  • The People of Delos
  • The Delos Catalog
    • Delos Recording Artists
    • Composers on Delos
    • Delos Family Classics
    • Coming Soon
    • Delos Collections
    • Cart
    • Shipping Options
    • My account
    • Privacy Policy
  • The Delos Insider Blog
  • Delos Licensing
  • Contact Us

Archive for Terrain of the Heart

Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on September 20, 2016

Mark Abel Joins The Classical Classroom!

Houston Public Media’s Classical Classroom features Delos composer Mark Abel for a fantastic discussion on Art Song! Have a listen: Speaking of Art Songs by Mark Abel… Hila Plitmann Premieres The Palm Trees Are Restless October 01, 2016 – 8:00pm Boston Court Performing Arts Center 70 N. Mentor Ave. Pasadena, CA 91106 Tickets Apple Music…

Read Now
Jamie Chamberlin
Posted by Mark Abel on March 16, 2015

Jamie Chamberlin stars as Marilyn Monroe!

Jamie Chamberlin, featured soprano on Delos release Terrain of the Heart, has the plum role of legendary Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe in Long Beach Opera’s upcoming production of Gavin Bryars’ Marilyn Forever. LBO describes Marilyn Forever as an examination of “Monroe’s intellectual and emotional relationship to death and love. As the work progresses, the performance…

Read Now
January and Feburary 2014 Delos Releases
Posted by Delos Productions on December 22, 2014

Looking Back on 2014

As we get close to 2015, we’re taking some time to look back on an exciting 2014 filled with fantastic releases! Below are our January and February releases. Make sure to check back here for the rest of the recaps! Vadym Kholodenko Plays Rachmnaninoff; Medtner MusicWeb International Review ICMA Nomination: Best Solo Instrumentalist Buy It…

Read Now
Jamie Chamberlin | Terrain of the Heart
Posted by Delos Productions on October 28, 2014

Live Performance of Mark Abel Rainbow Songs

Soprano Jamie Chamberlin and pianist Victoria Kirsch perform “It Was an Evening” and “The Guest” from composer Mark Abel’s cycle “Rainbow Songs” at the Songs Uncommon and New (unSUNg) concert, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Glendale, Ca., August 17, 2014. The entire Rainbow Songs cycle appears on Abel’s Delos CD Terrain of the Heart. It Was…

Read Now
Mark Abel Terrain of the Heart Now Available for Streaming and Download
Posted by Delos Productions on October 13, 2014

Terrain of the Heart Receives Fantastic Review From Don Clark

Critic Don Clark has a fantastic and thorough new review for Mark Abel’s Terrain of the Heart recording: “Abel melds his experience in classical, rock and song writing music into songs that are sophisticated, accessible, original and tuneful…well crafted, emotionally complex and engaging lyric songs in the truest sense of the form. “Very theatrical in…

Read Now
Victoria Kirsch & Ariel Pisturino | Terrain of the Heart: Song Cycles of Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on October 9, 2014

Live Performance of Mark Abel Rilke Poems

Soprano Ariel Pisturino and pianist Victoria Kirsch perform “I Live My Life in Growing Orbits” and “My Life is Not This Steeply Sloping Hour” from composer Mark Abel’s cycle “Five Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke” at Alvas Showroom, San Pedro, Ca., September 23, 2014. The entire Rilke cycle appears on Abel’s Delos CD Terrain of…

Read Now
Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on August 19, 2014

KCET ArtBound features Mark Abel

A fantastic new feature from KCET.org’s “ArtBound” contributor Sarah Linn on Mark Abel and his new Terrain of the Heart recording: “‘You can never tell what you’re going to see out here,’ explained Abel, who moved to the Central Coast from Carlsbad in January 2013. It’s here, surrounded by the bucolic beauty of northern San…

Read Now
Mark Abel Terrain of the Heart Now Available for Streaming and Download
Posted by Delos Productions on July 30, 2014

Jamie Chamberlin Performs La Sonnambula

Soprano Jamie Chamberlin and pianist Victoria Kirsch perform “La Sonnambula” from composer Mark Abel’s cycle “Rainbow Songs” at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, Ca., July 15, 2014: Buy from Delos Today! Download the Digital Booklet!

Read Now
Jamie Chamberlin | Terrain of the Heart
Posted by Delos Productions on July 28, 2014

Opera News Reviews Mark Abel: Terrain of the Heart

Opera News has a new review of Terrain of the Heart: Song Cycles of Mark Abel in their online edition: “Composer Mark Abel draws on both his career as a rock musician and his classical roots by marrying the parameters of art song with the harmonies and figurations found more commonly in rock, pop and…

Read Now
Terrain of the Heart: Song Cycles of Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on July 7, 2014

Classical Candor Reviews Terrain of the Heart

Classical Candor has a new review of Mark Abel’s Terrain of the Heart recording: “… As with The Dream Gallery, I enjoyed his new album, which draws in part upon the composer’s roots in pop, rock, and jazz as well as classical music. … We get a good deal of tortured introspection in “The Dark-Eyed…

Read Now
Terrain of the Heart: Song Cycles of Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on June 23, 2014

Stanford Radio Reviews Terrain of the Heart

Make sure to tune into the Stanford’s “Zookeeper” Radio Station to hear tracks from Mark Abel’s Terrain of the Heart recording! “Mark Abel has forged an original style that blends elements of classical, rock and jazz. This disc’s art songs feature the gorgeous voices of sopranos Jamie Chamberlin and Ariel Pisturino, accompanied by pianist Victoria…

Read Now
Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on June 18, 2014

Mark Abel An American Composers Forum Composition Competition Winner

Delos artist Mark Abel has been named one of the winners of the 2014 Composition Competition held by the American Composers Forum of Los Angeles (ACF-LA). This year’s contest was devoted to works for voice and piano, and Mark was honored for “La Sonnambula,” part of the “Rainbow Songs” cycle recorded on his recent Delos…

Read Now
Terrain of the Heart: Song Cycles of Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on June 13, 2014

Classical-Modern Music Captivated by Mark Abel's Terrain of the Heart

Classical-Modern Music Review‘s Grego Applegate Edwards is “captivated” by the art songs by Mark Abel in his latest Delos release, Terrain of the Heart: “The art song cycle today? I don’t hear all that much of it as composed in the present… West Coast American composer Mark Abel is an exponent who excels in the…

Read Now
The five-song, half-hour cycle The Dark-Eyed Chameleon (words by the composer) is poignant, certainly, while also revealing Abel's natural setting of the English language. It all flows beautifully. Like Janáček’s, Abel’s music tends to mimic speech patterns, but his accompaniments combine elements of rock, jazz and 20th-century classical music. Chameleon looks back on the emotional pain of lost love, and the free rhythmic design of its first song, “The Burned Horizon,” allows the beat to change with the text. Abel conveys the heady rush of the initial stages of a love affair powerfully (“I am reborn, my suffering transfigured”), just as he conveys the first doubts (the third song, “Premonition”) to music that is more otherworldly than we have encountered so far, as if the protagonist is entering strange and unknown terrain. Soprano Jamie Chamberlin has the perfect voice for this cycle, youthful yet somehow knowing beyond her years, aspects that pay off hugely in the profoundly affecting “Your Girl.” The climax of the cycle is the end of the relationship (via telephone and a collection of platitudes) in the final song, “Cataclysm.” Here the musical language extends towards Messiaen, … and the piano thunders its description of heartbreak. Chamberlin’s lack of vibrato describes the feeling of being swept out to sea as she learns to accept the inevitable. … . Abel tracks the sequence of post-breakup emotions tellingly (“Did I ever know you?” gives way to the realization that “I am no longer thinking of you”). Ariel Pisturino sings the Five Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, (whose) idiomatic translations from the German are by Robert Bly. Particularly striking is Abel’s simplicity of utterance, which seems to enhance the enigmatic nature of the poetry itself. Pisturino has a large, powerful voice which stands her in good stead here. The readings of Abel’s songs are mightily persuasive, the composer’s (and the singer’s) admiration of the poet immediately audible. “The Last House” is not necessarily a home, just a marker on the path of life, which as Rilke reminds us, is a journey into the unknown. Rilke battled depression and his poetry is often marked by it, but most of these selections tend to be hopeful and Abel’s music underlines that aspect. The colorations of Pisturino’s low tones speak volumes about the many stops on the journey. The insistent stabbing repetitions of the third song, “All of You Undisturbed Cities,” are most effective before the poet’s natural introspection (and the composer’s musical reaction to this) return in the final two songs. “You Darkness, That I Come From” and “I Live My Life in Growing Orbits” are overpowering pieces that can make listeners sit back and think about their own life paths. The last line asks whether “I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.” Here poet, composer, singer, and pianist collaborate in a great performance. Pisturino negotiates the song’s sometimes wide leaps easily and confidently, just as she does in the vocalise section. Finally, the disc features Rainbow Songs, to lyrics by the composer. Although not originally intended as a cycle, these four songs share sufficient links to work together to form a single entity. Three speak of relationships and the fourth reminds us of the fortitude that it takes to be a survivor. The first two songs extol the glories of nature but by the end of the second, “Breezes Blow and Eagles Fly,” we know the couple will part on good terms but their time together is at an end. Inspired by the final sequence of Michelangelo Antonioni’s film L’Eclisse, the next song, “La Sonnambula,” opens with only the barest of pianistic textures, a succession of spare gestures over which the soprano spins a desolate line (as she) walks along through the night in a silent city expecting to meet the lover who waits for her. Chamberlin describes the scene with the radiance of her high notes. It is arguably the most effective song on the whole disc: Certainly one gets the impression that everything has come together here and the composer’s imagination is flying free. The music slowly gels in a mode of expression that is by now heard as characteristic of this composer, appealing sonically yet still expressive. In the final song, “The Guest” is one’s own spirit, a part of each of us that provides the strength to endure more than we ever thought possible. The song speaks of hope, ably conveyed by Chamberlin’s effortless soprano. She sings with plaintive tones (of being) alone. Then, with all the luster of her full voice, proclaims that she will survive.
Posted by Delos Productions on June 5, 2014

Fanfare Praise for Mark Abel: Terrain of the Heart

A composite version of newly published Terrain of the Heart reviews written by Colin Clarke and Maria Nockin in the July/August edition of Fanfare Magazine: The five-song, half-hour cycle The Dark-Eyed Chameleon (words by the composer) is poignant, certainly, while also revealing Abel’s natural setting of the English language. It all flows beautifully. Like Janáček’s,…

Read Now
Terrain of the Heart: Song Cycles of Mark Abel
Posted by Delos Productions on May 13, 2014

AllMusic Reviews “Terrain of the Heart”

James Manheim has a new review for Mark Abel’s Terrain of the Heart CD and compares the three song cycles to the music of William Bolcolm and Leonard Bernstein: “California-based composer Mark Abel has developed a unique musical language that incorporates strong influences from rock music without losing the basic shape of classical song. He…

Read Now
Next Page »
Delos Productions, Inc.

Copyright © 2022 All Rights Reserved
Delos Productions, Inc.
P.O. Box 343, Sonoma, CA 95476
707-996-3844 · 800-364-0645

Become a Delos Insider
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    • Home
    • Blog
    • Store
    • Contact