Archive for Uncategorized – Page 9
Carlisle Floyd’s “Wuthering Heights” is Now Available!
Our First Ever Opera Release! Florentine Opera Company Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Joseph Mechavich, conductor Buy It Today! Reference Recordings Amazon iTunes ArkivMusic The Florentine Opera Company® brings American opera composer Carlisle Floyd’s operatic masterpiece, based on the classic English novel by Emily Brontë, to life. Floyd’s score takes you to the heart of Catherine and Heathcliffe’s devastating love story. Carlisle Floyd’s canon of operas is amongst the most performed by any living American opera composer,…
What Critics Have Said about Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights
A “throwback” 1993 review from a performance of Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights in The Christian Science Monitor: “American composer Carlisle Floyd has wrapped music admirably around the Bronte story. He gives the drama added intensity with a score that is timed to the characters’ moments of passion, scorn, and rage. The music is stark and brooding, but for a contemporary piece (it was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera in 1958), it is multilayered enough…
Pittsburgh Symphony’s “Tchaikovsky” a “Monument”
“This recording of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ is a ‘monument’ in every sense of the word. … Conveying ideas to an orchestra is one thing, but letting an orchestral body of around 100 musicians carry them out like clockwork, as if holding everyone on a personal string, can only be done if musicians believe in their master and have confidence in what he is asking them to do. This makes a Chef stand out from the crowd.…
A Note from Florentine Opera Director William Florescu
William Florescu, Florentine Opera General Director This is a unique and exciting Florentine Opera recording. Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights, an unjustly neglected American gem, made its Florentine debut in this world premiere recording. This performance marked the premiere for a full-length Florentine Opera concert production on the Harris Theater Stage of the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts. We had the honor of welcoming Carlisle Floyd to guide this exceptional creative team and shape…
Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights a “Powerful Representation”
“Wuthering Heights is one of the few operas by Carlisle Floyd that isn’t based on an explicitly American story. Emily Brontë’s novel is set in Yorkshire, amid the moors that give the tale its famous atmosphere. But whether it’s English gothic or Southern (American) gothic, Floyd has a way with stories drenched in melodrama and mysticism. … But the real star here is conductor Joseph Mechavich, who guided the orchestra and voices through Floyd’s often…
RR at THE Show Newport this weekend!
Come see us June 3-5 at THE Show Newport! Reference Recordings’ Sean Martin is in Newport Beach for THE Show June 3-5, 2016 at The Hotel Irvine in Irvine, California. The RR Booth is at M14&16 in The Marketplace. For more information, check out the www.theshownewport.com.
TheaterByte Reviews Wuthering Heights!
Lawrence Devoe reviews the upcoming Florentine Opera recording of Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights: An Opera In Three Acts: “Maestro Joseph Mechavich leads his Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the choral forces of the Florentine Opera Company, one of America’s oldest such vocal organizations, in a precedent setting performance that will make listeners unfamiliar with this work sit up and take notice. Composer Floyd writes beautiful vocal lines and the cast led by stunning soprano Jarman takes…
Meet The Voices of Wuthering Heights
Lockwood: Aaron Short, tenor Hindley Earnshaw: Chad Shelton, tenor Joseph: Frank Kelley, tenor Catherine: Georgia Jarman, soprano Isabela Linton: Heather Buck, soprano Heathcliff: Kelley Markgraf, baritone Mr. Earnshaw: Matthew Burns, bass-baritone Nelly: Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano Edgar Linton: Vale Rideout, tenor Carlisle Floyd: Wuthering Heights Florentine Opera Company Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Joseph Mechavich, conductor Pre-Order Now!
The Evolution of Wuthering Heights
Carlisle Floyd discusses the evolution of his Wuthering Heights Opera with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “‘Phyllis Curtin, who later did Catherine in the original production and was in the ‘Susannah’ premiere as well, came to me and asked me to write an aria for her, a request I was happy to accept,’ Floyd said, explaining that this was in the mid-1950s and that she was working on a Town Hall recital program and wanted a…
New Reference Mastercuts LP! Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring!
NEW LP Release and NEW LP Stock! NEW! STRAVINSKY: THE RITE OF SPRING RM-1515180-gram 45RPM*Half-speed mastering by Paul Stubblebine The 1997 GRAMMY® nominated Minnesota Orchestra recording of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is now available on LP! “The Rite of Spring, The Firebird Suite and The Song of the Nightingale have never sounded more magical or more dynamic! This HDCD has more detail than any live performance I have attended. The orchestra and the hall…
Wine Dark Sea in Gramophone!
Gramophone Magazine’s June 2016 issue features a new review for Jerry Junkin and the University of Texas Wind Ensemble’s Wine Dark Sea recording! “The repertoire for wind ensemble is vast and colourful. On their dynamic new release, The University of Texas Wind Ensemble and conductor Jerry Junkin take up four recent, worthy examples. Along with superbly balanced and vibrant playing, the performances confirm that American composers have no shortage of imagination when writing for wind,…
Pittsburgh Symphony Offers a “revelatory” Tchaikovsky and Dvořák
New Graham Williams review on HRAudio.net! “It is fair to say that Manfred Honeck’s series of live recordings with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra of music by Richard Strauss, Dvorak, Bruckner and Beethoven on the Reference Recordings Fresh! label have been revelatory, even to those listeners who are very familiar with the works featured on them that are, by and large, cornerstones of the orchestral repertoire. The main work on this latest release is Tchaikovsky’s Symphony…
First Listen! Florentine Opera Company Present’s Carlisle Floyd’s “Wuthering Heights”
Excerpts from The Florentine Opera Company’s World Premiere Recording of Carlisle Floyd’s “Wuthering Heights” an Opera In Three Acts: Our First Ever Opera Release! Florentine Opera Company Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Joseph Mechavich, conductor Pre-Order Now! The Florentine Opera Company® brings American opera composer Carlisle Floyd’s operatic masterpiece, based on the classic English novel by Emily Brontë, to life. Floyd’s score takes you to the heart of Catherine and Heathcliffe’s devastating love story. Carlisle Floyd’s canon…
Watch the Pittsburgh Symphony Berlin Performance Replay!
Under the baton of Manfred Honeck, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra joins Daniil Trifonov on the stage of the Berlin Philharmonie. Watch the replay of the concert broadcast on medici.tv. The program features Beethoven’s Coriolanus, the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. Watch on Medici.TV Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 Dvořák: Rusalka Fantasy (arr. Honeck/Ille) Pittsburgh Symphony OrchestraManfred Honeck, Music DirectorFR-720 Reference Recordings Amazon iTunes Native DSD…
See Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony LIVE this weekend!
This Sunday at 2pm (Eastern US Time) you can stream Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony live in concert from the Berlin Philharmonie! Under the baton of Manfred Honeck, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra joins Daniil Trifonov on the stage of the Berlin Philharmonie. Watch this concert broadcast live from Berlin on medici.tv. The program features Beethoven’s Coriolanus, the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. Live stream details at Medici.TV Tchaikovsky:…