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Release Date: August 28, 2020
Catalog #: NV6300
Format: Digital & Physical
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E Pluribus Unum

Lera Auerbach composer
Kamran Ince composer
Chaya Czernowin composer
Reinaldo Moya composer
Anna Clyne composer
Eun Young Lee composer
Badie Khaleghian composer
Pablo Ortiz composer
Gabriela Lena Frank composer

Liza Stepanova piano

Navona Records presents E PLURIBUS UNUM, an album of solo piano works performed by internationally acclaimed pianist Liza Stepanova, praised by The New York Times for her “thoughtful musicality” and “fleet-fingered panache.” It features recordings of eight renowned composers including Lera Auerbach, Anna Clyne, Gabriela Lena Frank, Kamran Ince, Pablo Ortiz, and world premiere recordings by Chaya Czernowin, Badie Khaleghan, and Eun Young Lee.

Born out of the political climate of 2017, E PLURIBUS UNUM is an artistic response to the immigration policies implemented by the American government around that time. Stepanova devised a program featuring American composers with immigrant backgrounds, and by doing so she “offers a small glimpse of the immense contributions they make to American musical life.” The colorful mosaic of E PLURIBUS UNUM does just that, in music that reflects the composers’ roots and is an embodiment of the motto E Pluribus Unum – “Out of many, one.”

Some of the works address the urgency of historical, cultural, and political calls for justice. "La Bestia” and “Rain Outside the Church” from Venezuelan-American composer Reinaldo Moya’s piano cycle The Way North, which “capture the emotional, physical, and psychological struggles of the unnamed narrator as he makes his way north in search of a better life,” according to the composer. Iranian-American composer Badie Khaleghian offers Tahirih the Pure, inspired by the courage and strife of Tahirih, a prominent figure in 19th-century Middle Eastern history and Baha’i faith who believed in an adaptation of cultural ideologies that led her to fight for equality for the women of Persia.

In E PLURIBUS UNUM, listeners encounter a confluence of voices, narratives, and ideals, realized by the sensitive and highly-capable hands of Liza Stepanova. Even now, three years after the project’s inception, the message behind this album resounds.

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"An engaging program for lovers of American music, or really for anyone"

AllMusic

Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Images from Childhood: No. 5, An Old Photograph from the Grandparents' Childhood Lera Auerbach Liza Stepanova, piano 1:21
02 Symphony in Blue Kamran Ince Liza Stepanova, piano 12:45
03 Fardanceclose Chaya Czernowin Liza Stepanova, piano 4:37
04 The Way North (Excerpts): IV. La Bestia Reinaldo Moya Liza Stepanova, piano 3:11
05 The Way North (Excerpts): VIII. Rain Outside the Church Reinaldo Moya Liza Stepanova, piano 3:58
06 On Track Anna Clyne Liza Stepanova, piano 7:23
07 Mool Eun Young Lee Liza Stepanova, piano 7:53
08 Táhirih the Pure: I. The Day of Alast Badie Khaleghian Liza Stepanova, piano 3:46
09 Táhirih the Pure: II. Unchained Badie Khaleghian Liza Stepanova, piano 5:59
10 Táhirih the Pure: III. Badasht Badie Khaleghian Liza Stepanova, piano 7:28
11 Piglia Pablo Ortiz Liza Stepanova, piano 3:52
12 Karnavalito No. 1 Gabriela Lena Frank Liza Stepanova, piano 6:15

Recorded on September 5, November 19, and December 12, 2018; January 7, 2019; and March 6, 2020 at Ramsey Concert Hall, University of Georgia Performing Arts Center in Athens GA
Recording Sessions Engineer Paul Griffith
Editing and Mixing Paul Griffith
Piano Steinway & Sons
Piano Technician Scott Higgins
Cover, package artwork by Kevork Mourad: Between Two Worlds, On the Bank of the Euphrates

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Lewis

VP, Audio Production Jeff LeRoy
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland, Sara Warner

Artist Information

Liza Stepanova

Pianist

Praised by The New York Times for her “thoughtful musicality” and “fleet-fingered panache,” Liza Stepanova has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Weill and Zankel recital halls at Carnegie Hall; Alice Tully, Merkin, David Geffen, and Steinway halls in New York City; and at the Kennedy Center. She has appeared as a soloist with conductors James DePreist and Nicholas McGegan and live on WQXR New York, WFMT Chicago, and WETA Washington.

Learn More

Lera Auerbach

Composer

LERA AUERBACH, raised in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on the border of Siberia, is a poet, composer, concert pianist, and visual artist. She has published more than 100 works for opera, ballet, orchestral, and chamber music, and performs as a concert pianist throughout the world.

Her work is championed by leading artists, conductors, stage directors, and choreographers, with recent works staged by the San Francisco Ballet, Stanislavsky Theater, Hamburg Opera, Theatre an der Wein, National Ballet of China, Finnish National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Netherlands Dance Theater, Semperoper and Staatskapelle Dresden, and New York’s Lincoln Center.

leraauerbach.com

Chaya Czernowin

Composer

Born and brought up in Israel, CHAYA CZERNOWIN continued studying in Germany (DAAD grant) and the United States, and then was invited to live in Tokyo, Japan (Asahi Shimbun Fellowship and American NEA grant), in Germany (a fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude), and in Vienna.

Her music has been performed throughout the world by some of the best orchestras and performers of new music. She has held a professorship at UCSD and was the first woman to be appointed as a composition professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria (2006–2009), and at Harvard University, USA (2009 on) where she has been the Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music.

chayaczernowin.com

Reinaldo Moya

Composer

REINALDO MOYA is a graduate of Venezuela’s El Sistema music education system. Through El Sistema, he had access to musical training from an early age and was a founding member of the Simón Bolívar Orchestra touring throughout Europe, North and South America.

Moya is the recipient of the 2019 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2015 McKnight Composers Fellowship, the Van Lier Fellowship from Meet the Composer, the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland House, and was a composer-in-residence with the Schubert Club. His music has been performed by the Juilliard Orchestra, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Attacca Quartet, and musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, among others.

www.reinaldomoya.com

Anna Clyne

Composer

London-born ANNA CLYNE is a GRAMMY-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. She has served as composer-in-residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among others, and has been commissioned by the BBC Radio 3, BBC Scottish Symphony, Carnegie Hall, Houston Ballet, London Sinfonietta, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and the Southbank Centre.

Clyne is also the recipient of several prestigious awards including the 2016 Hindemith Prize, a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awards from Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation, and prizes from ASCAP and SEAMUS.

annaclyne.com

Eun Young Lee

Composer

EUN YOUNG LEE has received commissions from Eighth Blackbird, Antico Moderno, the New York New Music Ensemble, Pacifica Quartet, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and many others. A winner of numerous composition awards, she has held fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program.

Following studies in her native Korea, she earned degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Lee is currently associate professor of composition at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and previously taught at Tufts University.

eunyoungleemusic.com

Badie Khaleghian

Composer

The music of Iranian-American composer BADIE KHALEGHIAN has been performed in Iran, the United States, Austria, Italy, and Canada. It is influenced by his Middle Eastern background, his social justice activism, and his passion for collaboration.

His recent works explore self-identity through close collaboration with musicians, artists, and scientists. Due to his religious background, Khaleghian was banned from public higher education in Iran, but he studied, taught, and created a music major for persecuted Bahá’ís in Iran. In 2014 he came to the United States as a religious refugee. He received his B.M. and M.M. in composition from the University of Georgia and is slated to begin his doctoral studies at Rice University in the fall of 2020.

badiekhaleghian.com

Pablo Ortiz

Composer

PABLO ORTIZ is Professor of Composition at the University of California, Davis and has received numerous distinctions, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and commissions from the Fromm, Koussevitzky, and Gerbode Foundations.

Recent premieres include Suomalainen tango for orchestra, by the Orquestra Nacional de Catalunya, Trois tangos en marge by the Kovacik, Dann, Karttunen trio at the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía in Madrid, Notker for choir and organ by Paul Hillier and the Theatre of Voices in Copenhagen, and a multimedia oratorio at the Centro Experimental Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires in his native Argentina.

Gabriela Lena Frank

Composer

Included in the Washington Post's list of the 35 most significant women composers in history (August, 2017), identity has always been at the center of composer/pianist GABRIELA LENA FRANK's music. Born in Berkeley CA to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions.

Frank has traveled extensively throughout South America and her pieces often reflect and refract her studies of Latin American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own. Frank regularly receives commissions and performances from the leading artists and ensembles of today.

glfcam.com/people/gabriela

Notes

This project was born in early 2017. The political climate surrounding the issue of immigration was beginning to change, and many of my colleagues, friends, and students in the music world found themselves or their communities to be directly affected. One of them was the wonderfully gifted young composer Badie Khaleghian, at the time my piano student, whose Iranian parents were barred from traveling to attend his graduation recital at the University of Georgia. In response to this situation, I decided to commission Badie for a new work that became the centerpiece of a recital program and this recording. The program features American composers with immigrant backgrounds and offers a small glimpse of the immense contributions they make to American musical life.

Immigration is also an integral part of my own personal story. Born in Belarus, I lived in Germany for a decade and am now a US citizen. When I play the opening piece of this album by Lera Auerbach, it reminds me of home, as I spent a lot of my childhood in Russia, in my maternal grandmother’s house, filled with pictures of our family’s past. I got to know Venezuelan-American composer Reinaldo Moya in graduate school, and his personal connection to the difficult issues surrounding immigration is evident in his powerful piano cycle The Way North (2017), of which two movements are included on this program. Other featured composers were born or have deep roots in Turkey (Kamran Ince), Israel (Chaya Czernowin), England (Anna Clyne), Korea (Eun Young Lee), Argentina (Pablo Ortiz), and Andean South America (Gabriela Lena Frank). They bring a rich diversity of artistic, cultural, and personal expression to the vibrant landscape of American music and are an embodiment of the motto E Pluribus Unum. This project has been very meaningful to me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to share it with you.

I would like to thank PARMA Recordings for guiding the process of making this album every step of the way, the Willson Center for Humanities and Art at the University of Georgia for making it possible through a research grant, Paul Griffith, William Marlow, and Itamar Zorman for the hours spent with me in the recording booth, Kevork Mourad for the beautiful painting on the cover titled Between Two Worlds, and my parents (for everything). 

– Liza Stepanova

Auerbach’s cycle Scenes from Childhood follows in a tradition of collections for and about children, such as Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album. Set almost entirely in soft dynamics with generous use of both pedals, this short movement “An Old Photograph from the Grandparent’s Childhood” beautifully evokes hazy memories of family history and has particularly resonated with me.

– Liza Stepanova

Symphony in Blue was commissioned by the Istanbul Modern Museum in honor of the rare showing of Burhan Dogancay’s painting of the same name. A never-ending momentum, motion. Every shape is pregnant to the next one. American. Turkish. New York. Istanbul. Stylistic multiplicity, obsessive sameness. The feeling of being in one dimension as we are simultaneously in another. Traditionally music is agreed to exist in time from left to right. Paintings are not, other arts are not. They can go to the left, right, up and down. They can come closer, become distant. Actually, with our memory at play, music can exist this way as well. Of course, all will be experienced still in an abstract fashion. Where you pull or push to is up to you. But ultimately the voyage undertaken is a whole one before your virtual eyes.

– Kamran Ince

What dance is this? Is it the dance coming from afar, its remnants too entangled to decipher, one which was brought by a gust of wind, as you stand alone and listen to a far-away party in the night? Or is it the one so close that the heavy beating keeps the ears grounded on a distorted repeated detail? Neither is danceable to the legs – but both would like to dance with the imagination, leading notions of distance and closeness astray.

– Chaya Czernowin

The Way North depicts the journey of a Central American migrant through Mexico and his eventual arrival in the United States. The work consists of a series of short vignettes that capture the emotional, physical, and psychological struggles of the unnamed narrator as he makes his way north in search of a better life. The journey is flanked by two crossings: the first one is crossing the Southern border of Mexico. The second is into the United States, near Laredo TX. The first crossing is easier, as though the migrant is unaware of the perils to come. The second crossing is treacherous, as he makes his way across the dangerously strong waters of the Rio Grande.  Shortly after crossing into Mexico, he boards La Bestia (The Beast), one of a network of trains that migrants take to make the journey. Many people fall, are pushed off, or are dismembered trying to climb on or off the train. Rain Outside the Church refers to a quiet stop at a sanctuary church.

– Reinaldo Moya

On Track was commissioned by ASCAP and SEAMUS, and composed for pianist Kathleen Supové. The premiere performance was given at the 2008 SEAMUS National Conference. The virtuosic piano part is supported by a tape part, which comprises a range of recordings from instrumental harp to voice. In a similar process to painting, these recordings were then spliced, manipulated, and layered to create the tape part. The opening voice is that of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II from one of her Commonwealth Speeches: “I have lived long enough to know that things never remain quite the same for very long.”

— Anna Clyne

The image behind the music represents several scenes of Lake Michigan. It is interpreted as a circulation of a part of nature-water. As in nature, water never stays in one color or shape. Instead, it rapturously grips people by its various appearances and characters. Furthermore, water also ingenuously circulates from one formation to another: clouds to rain: rain goes into plants in the land, river, and sea: evaporates and returns. I attempt to capture these phenomena in music with changing new sound colors. Mool means “water” in Korean, which also reminds me of poems of Emily Dickinson, “Eternity.”

– Eun Young Lee

Tahirih The Pure narrates the heroic journey of Tahirih, a prominent figure in 19th-century Middle Eastern history and Baha’i faith, who inspired women of Persia to reject their oppressed status. The first movement, The Day of Alast, is inspired by Tahirih’s revolutionary interpretation and adaptation of Islamic ideology in her mystical poetry. The second movement, Unchained, is the manifestation of Tahirih’s free spirit, and how it led her to start the biggest movement of women’s rights in the 19th Century. The third movement, Badasht, portrays the conference of Badasht where she challenged notions of equality for women and unveiled her hijab. In mid-1852 she was executed in secret on account of her faith and her unveiling. The Coda is my visualization of Tahirih in the last minutes before her assassination where she peacefully chants and prays.

– Badie Khaleghian

I wrote Piglia, for piano, in 2002 as an homage to Ricardo Piglia (1941-2017), one of the best Argentinian writers of his generation and a beloved friend. It was part of a collection of tango-inspired tribute pieces named after admired writers, such as Bianco, Manzi, and Monjeau, or filmmakers, such as El Jefe (Renan). I always loved to read, and these authors’ works had an enormous influence on my thinking. Piglia begins with a dreamy, somewhat impressionistic section that eventually turns into a relentless milonga pattern showing the kind of intense passion normally associated with the tango.

– Pablo Ortiz

Karnavalito No. 1 is inspired by the distinctly Andean concept of mestizaje as championed by Peruvian folklorist José Maria Arguedas (1911-1969) whereby cultures can co-exist without one subjugating another. Allusions to the rhythms and harmonies of the mountain music of my mother’s homeland of Perú abound in this boisterous work, albeit freely transformed in the blender of my personal imagination. About five minutes in length, Karnavalito No. 1 is dense in its virtuosity with stylistic nods to the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, a music hero of mine.

– Gabriela Lena Frank