The Kansas City Star has some suggestions for your summer classical playlists, and the Kansas City Symphony’s recording of Adam Schoenberg’s Orchestral Music is at the top:
“At the top of the list is the latest recording from the Kansas City Symphony conducted by Michael Stern. The disc is devoted to three works by 36-year-old composer Adam Schoenberg… Schoenberg is a masterful orchestrator, and his use of orchestral color serves him well in music inspired by the visual arts. ‘Finding Rothko’ captures the abstract artist’s rapturous spirituality, and ‘Picture Studies,’ Schoenberg’s answer to Modest Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition,’ brings masterpieces from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art vividly to life. Stern deserves a lot of credit for having the vision to commission these works. He has a superb ear for new music that is vibrant and engages audiences but doesn’t pander. Reference Recordings, which recorded the CD in Helzberg Hall, once again delivers stunning sound that is even more mind-blowing in Super Audio.” —Patrick Neas, Kansas City Star
