SACDs - Corigliano

This album is a follow up to the album ‘ If a Song be Worth a Smile’. The composers and lyricists are (same as for the previous album) all American and still alive. Many of the songs were specially written for Lisa Delan and some are world premiere recordings.

Lisa Delan wrote for the CD-booklet :

“When I recorded the partner CD to The Hours Begin to Sing – And If the Song Be Worth a Smile – I was delighted to include four premiere recordings, one of which I commissioned for the CD. I am thrilled with The Hours Begin to Sing to introduce four more premiere recordings, three of which were written specifically for this disc. And although I cannot claim parentage in this drama of creation, I am honoured to have been cast in the role of midwife.”

This new recording by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Spano bears the title “Transmigration”, and is a collection of hymns and requiems for those we wish to honour and remember.

The featured pieces are Samuel Barber’s universal expressions of loss, “Adagio for Strings” and the vocal transcription “Agnus Dei”, John Corigliano’s “Elegy” to lost youth, Jennifer Higdon’s setting of poetry about Abraham Lincoln, “Dooryard Bloom”, and John Adams’s reflection of personal grief for the victims of the World Trade Centre tragedy on September 11, 2001, “On the Transmigration of Souls”. The ASO is joined on this piece by the Gwinnett Young singers and the soloist in “Dooryard Bloom” is the baritone Nmon Ford.

Robert Spano is recognised internationally as one of the brightest and most imaginative conductors of his generation. His achievements include a 2005 Grammy Award (“Best Choral Album”) for Berlioz’s Requiem and two 2003 Grammy Awards (“Best Classical Album” and “Best Choral Album”) for Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony.