Heggie: Unexpected Shadows
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JAKE HEGGIE
Heggie: Unexpected Shadows
Jamie Barton (mezzo), Jake Heggie (piano), Matt Haimovitz (cello)
[ Pentatone / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 18 September 2020
Star mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton presents a recital of songs by American composer Jake Heggie, with the composer at the piano. UNEXPECTED SHADOWS is a celebration in words and music of powerful, exceptional women. The programme contains four song cycles, a standalone art song, and an opera aria.
The Work at Hand, set to poetry of the late Laura Morefield, contemplates the brave fight against cancer that she, and millions like her, went through. Matt Haimovitz' cello playing adds an extra layer to this profoundly moving song cycle. Iconic Legacies, with texts by Gene Scheer, offers four portraits of remarkable First Ladies. Scheer also wrote texts for Statuesque, inspired by five iconic sculptures of women and the deeply human stories within them. Of Gods & Cats, based on poetry by Gavin Dillard, offers playful parodies on religious allegories. Music, set to a text by Sister Helen Prejean, addresses the transformative, healing, and humanizing power of music, while the "Ice Cube Aria" from Heggie's opera If I Were You, with a libretto by Gene Scheer, shows the female demon Brittomara reflecting on the delicious predictability of human nature.
Award-winning mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, just named BBC Music Magazine's 2020 Personality of the Year, makes her PENTATONE debut. Jake Heggie has a vast discography with the label, including the opera It's a Wonderful Life (2017) and song recital albums by Melody Moore, Lisa Delan and Joyce DiDonato. The same applies to Matt Haimovitz, who has released several albums on PENTATONE, from contemporary classical and jazz and rock covers to Bach's complete cello suites.
GRAMOPHONE Award Nomination 2021 - Song
"Barton's all-embracing talent - her powerful presence, her spectacular vocal equipment - has a whole lot of Heggie to get hold of here. But there's a whole lot of motivation…Heggie's way with music, the way in which his choices unlock and intensify the poetry and drama of the words, is consistently illuminating, full of surprises." Gramophone Editor's Choice Awards Issue 2020
"In her latest recording, Barton shows that she is a dab hand at contemporary repertoire and artistry on a more intimate scale...Throughout this recital, Barton and Heggie move seamlessly from the dramatic ('Ice Cube Aria' from the opera If I were you) to the droll ('Once Upon a Universe' in Of Gods and Cats), the mezzosoprano's tone clear as a bell." BBC Music Choral & Song Choice Dec 2020
Tracks:
Jake Heggie (text by Sister Helen Prejean from "The Breaking Waves")
"The Work at Hand" (texts by Laura Morefield)
Ice Cube Aria from "If I Were You" (text by Gene Scheer)
"Iconic Legacies: First Ladies at the Smithsonian" (texts by Gene Scheer)
"Of Gods and Cats" (texts by Gavin Geoffrey Dillard)
"Statuesque" (texts by Gene Scheer)
