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In the Company of Music

New Music for Flute

Melissa D’Albora composer
Allen Brings composer
Christopher Jessup composer
Anthony Paul De Ritis composer
Richard E Brown composer
Mark G Simon composer
Deon Nielsen Price composer
Heidi Jacob composer

Lindsey Goodman flute
Clare Longendyke piano

Release Date: September 6, 2024
Catalog #: NV6656
Format: Digital
21st Century
Solo Instrumental
Flute

“Masterful music invites performers to accept and rise to all challenges,” says flutist Lindsey Goodman, who along with pianist Clare Longendyke brings an exhilarating cross section of contemporary chamber works to life on IN THE COMPANY OF MUSIC. From evocative miniatures to pensive, multi-movement works, this Navona Records release showcases the breadth of compositional styles in which the flute can shine, exploring traditional expressions, the avant garde, and everywhere in between. These pieces are remarkably diverse, and so are the inspirations behind them — from major events in human history to pure musical curiosity and more.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Lava Melissa D'Albora Lindsey Goodman, flute 6:35
02 Cadenza 2 Allen Brings Lindsey Goodman, flute 4:56
03 Phases, III. Dampening Christopher Jessup Lindsey Goodman, flute 3:04
04 ...no such thing as an empty space Anthony Paul De Ritis Lindsey Goodman, flute 4:36
05 Soliloquy and Rondo Richard E Brown Lindsey Goodman, flute; Clare Longendyke, piano 9:20
06 Voice of the Turtle Mark G Simon Lindsey Goodman, flute; Clare Longendyke, piano 12:24
07 War Ends; Song Endures Deon Nielsen Price Lindsey Goodman, flute; Clare Longendyke, piano 6:27
08 Suite for Flute and Piano: I. Preludio Heidi Jacob Lindsey Goodman, flute; Clare Longendyke, piano 3:05
09 Suite for Flute and Piano: II. Scherzo Heidi Jacob Lindsey Goodman, flute; Clare Longendyke, piano 2:57
10 Suite for Flute and Piano: III. Intermezzo Heidi Jacob Lindsey Goodman, flute; Clare Longendyke, piano 4:25
11 Suite for Flute and Piano: IV. Rondino Heidi Jacob Lindsey Goodman, flute; Clare Longendyke, piano 3:14

Recorded February 15-19, 2024 at Fraser Performance Studio, WGBH in Boston MA
Session Producer Brad Michel
Engineer Antonio Oliart
Assistant Engineer Téa Mottolese
Editing, Mixing & Mastering Brad Michel

Executive Producer Bob Lord

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Sullivan, Chris Robinson

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette
Production Manager Martina Watzková
Production Assistant Adam Lysák

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Chelsea Kornago
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

Melissa D’Albora

Composer

Melissa D’Albora’s music addresses mental health and political discourse, ranging from gun violence to women’s rights. Respire (2020) for flute and guitar is a reflection searching for inner peace. The piece received the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant and was premiered by Duo Sequenza in 2021. A Fantasy (2019), commissioned by GRAMMY®-Award winning Seraphic Fire, addresses the expectations women face in society. South Florida Classical described her work as “an exploration of spatial harmonics that evidenced a sure command of writing for the voice.” D’albora’s works have been performed throughout North America by community ensembles like the East Central Indiana Community Orchestra and professional artists like Claire Grellier and Seraphic Fire.

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Allen Brings

Composer

A native of New York City, Allen Brings received a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Queens College and a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University, where he was a Mosenthal Fellow and a student of Otto Luening, and a doctorate in theory and composition from Boston University, where he was a teaching fellow and a student of Gardner Read.

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Christopher Jessup

Composer

Multi award-winning composer and pianist Christopher Jessup is an artist of formidable prowess. Jessup has garnered acclaim for his “imaginative handling of atmosphere” [Fanfare] and his “high standard of technique” [New York Concert Review], cementing himself as one of the foremost composer-performers of his generation.

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Anthony Paul De Ritis

Composer

Described as an “eclectic whose works draw on popular and electronic music” (Wall Street Journal), and a “genuinely American composer” (Gramophone), Anthony Paul De Ritis has received performances around the world including at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Lincoln Center, Beijing’s Yugong Yishan, Seoul’s KT Art Hall, the Italian  Pavilion at the World Expo in Milan, and UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

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Richard E Brown

Richard E Brown

Composer

Richard E. Brown, a native of New York State and has been active as a composer-arranger and music educator for many years. His training includes M.M. and D.M. degrees in composition from Florida State University, as well as a B.A. in music education from Central College, which named him a Distinguished Alumnus in 1983. His principal composition studies were with Carlisle Floyd, John Boda, and Charles Carter. He is a member of ASCAP and is represented in the catalogs of several trade publishers, as well as his personal imprint Dacker Music.

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Mark G. Simon

Composer

Mark G. Simon is an accomplished American composer and clarinetist. He holds a D.M.A. in composition from Cornell University, where he studied with Karel Husa, Steven Stuckey, and Robert Palmer. His compositions include orchestral, chamber, and vocal works, many featuring the clarinet. His musical Jennie’s Will was commissioned for the bicentennial of the Village of Dryden NY. The Carnival of the Subatomic Particles, a 13-movement exploration of particle physics for chamber ensemble and narrator set to a poem by Cornell physicist N. David Mermin, was commissioned and premiered by Music’s Recreation in Ithaca NY.

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Deon Nielsen Price

Composer

The deep humanitarian concerns that permeate much of Dr. Deon Nielsen Price’s music is represented in her duo War Ends-Song Endures, a tribute to the valiant spirit of Ukrainians, premiered in 2023 at the Mu Phi Epsilon International Convention in Texas by flutist Rik Noyce and commissioning pianist Mary Au. Named the "Tom Brady of Composers" (New York Times 12/24/2022), Price feels honored to represent octogenarian composers who are still professionally active. She was a Winner of The 2023 American Prize in orchestra for her Chamber Symphony as well as a finalist for The 2023 American Prize in vocal chamber music for her song cycle Ludwig’s Letter to Eternal Beloved, and, in opera/theater, for her chamber opera, Ammon and the King, Immigrant Speaks Truth to Power. Her Oratorio CHRISTUS was premiered and recorded in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in June 2023.

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Heidi Jacob

Composer

Heidi Jacob’s music has been described by BBC Magazine as “compositions …of complex mesmerizing beauty,” and by Gramophone Magazine as music with “…forthright expressiveness [that] exposes a multitude of stylistic associations.” Praise for her recent recording on Navona Records of Lilacs with the Kühn Choir of Prague include: “the music is simply breathtaking,” (Nicholas Wright) “…Jacob writes music of imagination and adventure…voices interweave hauntingly… ascending to towering heights,” (Textura), and “Heidi Jacob’s Lilacs opens with Kristýna Fílová’s soaring soprano… Amina Robinson’s narration amid the sublime choral harmonizing.” (Take Effect)

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Lindsey Goodman

Flutist

Flutist Lindsey Goodman is a soloist, recording artist, chamber collaborator, orchestral musician, educator, and clinician whose “palette of tone colors includes cool silver, warm chocolate, the bright colors of a sunrise, and the deep blue of midnight.” (The Flutist Quarterly) Renowned for her “energy and artistry, conveying her exuberance and creativity” (Pittsburgh in the Round), Lindsey has performed solo and chamber concerts, taught masterclasses, and given presentations at countless series, festivals, and universities. Performances “played with conviction” (New York Times) have been heard across three continents, including at Carnegie Hall, Eastman School of Music, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Google headquarters, University of Cincinnati College’s Conservatory of Music, several National and Canadian Flute Association conventions, across China, and on the Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone podcast.

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Clare Longendyke

Pianist

A pianist with “an artistic ferocity that captivated and astonished listeners” (Waverly Newspapers), Clare Longendyke is a soloist, chamber musician, and musical innovator who performs with American orchestras and on recital series around the world. Recent highlights include performances of concertos by Mozart, Falla, Rachmaninoff, Florence Price, and Joan Tower with orchestras in Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, and Virginia, and the release of her debut solo CD in 2024, …of dreams unveiled featuring works of Debussy, Amy Williams, and Anthony R. Green.

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Notes

The music recorded here was inspired by a poem that was being shared on social media after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. The poem describes women’s anger and how it will not be felt suddenly, but rather cover the earth slowly like lava.

Lava explores the scope of women’s anger through two contrasting ideas. The first opens the piece with a slow, simple two-note idea. The second motive is a fast, rhythmic passage in the upper register of the flute and could be described as a burst of energy. As the themes alternate, they expand, transitioning the piece from restrained resentment to exasperation, seethe, and fury.

— Melissa D’Albora

Cadenza 2 for solo flute is one of five compositions that I composed in 2018, each for a very different solo wind instrument that would draw me into an inspiring tonal world of melody, harmony, and rhythm — a world in which melodic shapes could be enlivened by contrasts in loudness and softness and varied articulation without the interference of another musical instrument heard at the same time. I was also inspired by listening to a movement of a concerto by a composer like Mozart, who sometimes wrote a movement heard at the end of a concerto when the accompanying orchestra would stop playing and permit the soloist to improvise a passage based on themes from the movement but heard in the company of music with many unexpected contrasts.

— Allen Brings

“Phases, III. Dampening” is the third movement of a five-movement set of miniatures for flute, piano, and cello titled Phases. Each movement represents one of the five natural elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. The third movement, earth, is the only solo movement of the piece, allowing it to stand on its own. Without the context of the other four movements, the piece takes on a new life. Intentionally sparse in texture, the composition demonstrates the fundamental and grounded quality of the earth. Mysterious melodies are juxtaposed with a diverse array of extended techniques, exuding a meditative and centering aura that cleanses both the player’s and the listener’s ear.

— Christopher Jessup

John Cage, in his book Silence, wrote: “There is no such thing as empty space… There is always something to see, something to hear… Sounds occur, whether or intended or not.”

…no such thing as an empty space is a flute solo written for Deborah Boldin, who in summer 1991 was a fellow participant with Anthony Paul De Ritis at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. That was the first of two summers that De Ritis attended at the Écoles D’Art Américaines. The composers in residence that summer were Philippe Manoury and Tristan Murail, both of whom made a very strong impact on the (then) young composer. When composing the piece, De Ritis was preoccupied with timbre, the music of Debussy, and the musings of John Cage via the lens of his Bucknell University mentors composer William Duckworth, and professor of philosophy Richard Fleming (authors of the book John Cage at Seventy-Five). That summer was a life transforming experience for De Ritis.

Soliloquy and Rondo’s two movements employ loosely-applied sonata forms, albeit with ambiguous tonality, and are connected without pause.

1. Slowly, ad libitum; Gently flowing
2. Quickly; As fast as possible

— Richard E Brown

Voice of the Turtle is at heart a popular love ballad, with moments of heightened dissonance and splashes of my favorite 5-29 pitch class set. The Title comes from the Song of Solomon. In the King James Version, it reads “The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” Of course the turtle dove is meant, but I was intrigued by the idea of what the voice of a turtle might sound like. I imagined something like the snapping of its bill, and so I made sure that key clicks and other percussive flute sounds would be liberally employed. Though this is a love song, it is a rather solitary one. Much of the piece is a soliloquy for the flute. The lover is absent either physically or emotionally. This is a piece about loneliness, about being with a person but still feeling alone.

— Mark G Simon

War Ends; Song Endures was composed in 2023 for flutist Rik Noyce and pianist Mary Au, who commissioned the work to be dedicated to the valiant people of Ukraine in their fight to retain their sovereignty. The single movement begins with the ad libitum incantation of an ancient Ukrainian chant on Alto Flute. It is interrupted by an Agitato with shrieks and multiphonics on the C Flute and soaring piano passages and clusters that represent missile strikes and explosions. We then hear sections, some on piccolo, of traditional Ukrainian folk songs, including the National Anthem of Ukraine, with interruptions by the Agitato with its cataclysmic inference.

– Deon Nielsen Price

As in many of my compositions, Suite for Flute and Piano is broadly based on a 12-note row. The row is gradually introduced in the Preludio through repetitions and versions of the row, exploring the range and various colors of the flute. The phrases start in the lower registers and move to the powerful upper registers of the instrument, while the opening phrase resumes towards the end as reflection and conclusion. Throughout the Scherzo and Rondino there is a good-humored, teasing interaction of the dynamics and rhythmic motives both within and between the two instruments. At one point in the Scherzo, the piano almost engulfs the flute, yet the flute dominates its conclusion. The Intermezzo is a nod to Brahms given his relationship to Schoenberg, where the latter, in his essay, Brahms the Progressive, claims Brahms as a model for his use of both tradition and radicalism.

— Heidi Jacob

NV6656-notes-1

Lindsey Goodman, flute and Clare Longendyke, piano performing at session

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Jan Košulič, Melissa D'Albora, Lindsey Goodman, and Brad Michel

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Heidi Jacob during session

Videos

Christopher Jessup – Phases: III. Dampening from ‘IN THE COMPANY OF MUSIC’