Share Album:
Prisma Vol. 4
Brian Belet composer
Mara Gibson composer
Rain Worthington composer
Angel Sanchez composer
Adrienne Albert composer
John Franek composer
Navona Records proudly presents PRISMA VOL. 4, the fourth installment in the acclaimed PRISMA series showcasing the best of American contemporary composition.
Brian Belet's three-movement string orchestra work Stellar Nebulae starts off the album. The multi-layered I. Emergence is aptly contrasted with the calm II. Contemplation, before culminating in the animated finale of III. Expansion. The structure is classical, the tonal language modern, but with influences reminiscent of Baroque concertos. Mara Gibson strives to paint an impression of a small island's ecology in Secret Sky. Completely novel and original in its concept, this work is based on the migratory patterns of birds on Beaver Island MI. A similarly nature-themed inspiration is the background of Rain Worthington's Shadows of the Wind. It graphically evokes the changing silhouettes of leaves and branches cast on walls during a storm, mirroring the workings of the human subconscious.
Next up is Angel Sanchez' symphonic poem À Laura, a three-movement dedication to a beloved woman. I. La petite Princesse is a feisty characterisation of the heroine, II. La mer et les étoiles aptly portrays the beauty of the dedicatee's beloved sea and stars, while III. Feu is an uninhibited declaration of passion. There is an air of martiality to Adrienne Albert's Courage for Winds, its beginning centered around a recurring snare drum beat. Commissioned by the Inland Empire Youth Wind Symphony Commissioning Consortium, it reflects the battle against adversity in a tonal language that is decidedly American. John Franek's Mithridates epically closes the album with a punch of Dvořákian opulence: its unbridled energy remains profoundly reminiscent of the highly dramatic Slavic musical tradition of the late 19th Century.
PRISMA VOL. 4 seamlessly takes up on the quality listeners have come to expect from this series. In its diversity, this apposite cross section has something to satisfy not only every mood, but also every taste.
Listen
Stream/Buy
Choose your platform
Track Listing & Credits
| # | Title | Composer | Performer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Stellar Nebulae: I. Emergence | Brian Belet | Athens Philharmonia Orchestra | Michalis Economou, conductor | 3:31 |
| 02 | Stellar Nebulae: II. Contemplation | Brian Belet | Athens Philharmonia Orchestra | Michalis Economou, conductor | 6:22 |
| 03 | Stellar Nebulae: III. Expansion | Brian Belet | Athens Philharmonia Orchestra | Michalis Economou, conductor | 5:59 |
| 04 | Secret Sky | Mara Gibson | Athens Philharmonia Orchestra | Michalis Economou, conductor | 8:04 |
| 05 | Shadows of the Wind | Rain Worthington | Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra | Stanislav Vavřínek, conductor; Ivo Fišer, cello | 12:31 |
| 06 | À Laura, Op. 1: I. La petite princesse | Angel Sanchez | Athens Philharmonia Orchestra | Andreas Tselikas, conductor | 3:41 |
| 07 | À Laura, Op. 1: II. La mer et les étoiles | Angel Sanchez | Athens Philharmonia Orchestra | Andreas Tselikas, conductor | 4:23 |
| 08 | À Laura, Op. 1: III. Feu | Angel Sanchez | Athens Philharmonia Orchestra | Andreas Tselikas, conductor; Renato Ripo, cello | 4:24 |
| 09 | Courage (Version for Wind Ensemble) | Adrienne Albert | West Point Band | Lt. Colonel Tod Addison, commander & conductor | 4:53 |
| 10 | Mithridates | John Franek | Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Pavel Šnajdr, conductor | 5:29 |
TRACK 1-4, 6-8
Recorded October 23-24 & December 3, 2019 at Artemis Concert Hall in Athens, Greece
Session Producer Tasos Rosopoulos
Session Engineer Apostolos Theodosiou
TRACK 5
Recorded October 15, 2019 at Dům Kultury města Ostravy (The Ostrava House of Culture) in Ostrava, Czech Republic
Session Producer Jan Košulič
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák
Assistant Session Engineer Maroš Hlatký
TRACK 9
Recorded March 16, 2019 at Eisenhower Hall Theatre in West Point NY
Session Engineer SFC Branden Lane
TRACK 10
Recorded June 19, 2019 at Reduta Hall in Olomouc, Czech Republic
Session Producer Vít Mužík
Session Engineer Jan Košulič
Assistant Session Engineer Maroš Hlatký
Executive Producer Bob Lord
Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Lewis, Chris Robinson, Jacob Smith
VP, Audio Production Jeff LeRoy
Audio Director, Editing & Mixing (tracks 5-8) Lucas Paquette
Mastering Shaun Michaud
Recording Sessions Director Levi Brown
International Recording Sessions Manager, Editing & Mixing (tracks 1-4, 6-8, 10) Jan Košulič
Recording Sessions Assistant Emma Terrell
VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland, Sara Warner
Artist Information
Brian Belet
Brian Belet lives in northwestern Oregon with his partner and wife Marianne Bickett. His album SUFFICIENT TROUBLE, containing ten of his computer music compositions, was published by Ravello Records in 2017. Stellar Nebulae, for string orchestra, was published on the album PRISMA VOL. 4 by Navona Records in 2020, and his brass quintet Three by Five was published on the album BRASS TACKS, also by Navona Records, in 2022. Additional music is recorded on albums published by Capstone, Centaur, Frog Peak Music, IMG Media, Innova, New Ariel Recording, SWR Music/Hänssler Classic, and the University of Illinois labels, with research published in Contemporary Music Review, Organised Sound, Perspectives of New Music, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, and Proceedings of the International Web Audio Conference.
Mara Gibson
Composer Mara Gibson is originally from Charlottesville VA. She graduated from Bennington College and completed her Ph.D. at SUNY Buffalo. She also attended London College of Music, L’École des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau, France, and the International Music Institute at Darmstadt, Germany.
Rain Worthington
Uniquely among classical composers Rain Worthington discovered her voice as a composer and learned her art autodidactically. She began intuitively composing works for solo piano and performing them from memory. Later she taught herself musical notation and compositional forms. Her writing has been described in the IAWM Journal as “a fusion of styles—ancient, medieval modality and sonorities, modernist minimalist ostinato, and classical approaches to basic ideas—to capture components of the human experience.”
Angel Sánchez Enríquez
Angel Sánchez Enríquez was born in Mexico City in 1971. He graduated from the Superior School of Music which belongs to the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico City with a Bachelor of Music in Percussion Performance. He also studied piano with Yulia Vischnevetskaia, violin with Guela Dubrova, and orchestral conducting with several prominent conductors as Kurt Redel, Ronald Zollman, and Yuri Simonov.
Adrienne Albert
Award-winning composer Adrienne Albert (ASCAP) has had her chamber, choral, vocal, orchestral, and wind band works performed throughout the United States and around the world. Having previously worked as a singer with composers Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass, and Gunther Schuller among many others, Albert began composing her own music in the 1990s.
John Franek
John Franek (b.1996) is a pianist and composer whose compositions “evoke an epic narrative” (Sonograma Magazine). Franek has had premieres of his own works performed in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, with notable premieres in locations such as in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Vienna, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Lviv, Krasnoyarsk, Ostrava, Olomouç, Milan, Rome, Havana, Quito, and Tashkent. Among these performances, he has had his works performed by ensembles such as The Siberian State Symphony Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, The Moravian Philharmonic, KLKNewMusic, the Brightwork Ensemble, the Lontano Ensemble, and Trio Immersio.
Notes
From the recording of Secret Sky. Artemis Concert Hall in Athens, Greece.
