Lisa Kirchner Something to Sing About
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lIsA kIRchneR something to sing About Acknowledgments Piano by steinway Produced by lisa kirchner Recorded August 10 and 12, 2010 at Avatar studios, n.Y. cover & tray card: Photo by sue kessler last page Booklet, cd Face, liner note opener: Photos by Anthony legg engineers: Anthony Ruotolo, Brian montgomery mastered by Alan silverman at Arf ! mastering Booking Information for lisa kirchner www.lisakirchner.com 917 338 6057 with thanks to the mattina R. Proctor Foundation for their support, to Paul Yeon lee, danny emerman, Jody simon, tara deal, Robert www.albanyrecords.com TROY1268 albany records u.s. Riggs, Adina williams, Brian suh, lauren 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 krinsky, tino Passante, susan Feder, and as albany records u.k. always, to susan Bush at Albany Records box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd tel: 01539 824008 © 2011 lisa kirchner made in the usa ddd waRning: cOpyrighT subsisTs in all Recordings issued undeR This label. this cd presents songs by some of America’s reigning composers, note for note, while the other instruments improvise with a subtle layer of dissonance evokes a sense of many known for their cross- genre writing, including jazz, pop, classical, upon the harmonies. Stanley Silverman studied passage. the piano part is played as written, and folk and art songs written with distinguished authors for concert, with my father at mills college. Years later, l had the band improvises. theatre and film venues. the elements are universal—melody, groove, the opportunity to create the role of Irma Vep the John Adams studied with my father at harvard Vampiress, in the stanley silverman and Richard and was a welcome visitor to our house. Leila’s harmony, story and imagery—the musical passport to a chapter in Foreman production of Hotel for Criminals and Song, from I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I the great American songbook. its sequel, The American Imagination. From Saw the Sky, Adams’ musical theater opera, which silverman’s stratford shakespeare Festival songs, premiered in 1995, is an intimate confession of I chose the musicians on this album from a group album, composers and performers who have had a I chose Sigh No More Ladies from Much Ado About longing for partnership in love. with lyrics by June of new York’s world class performers in jazz and profound impact on my own passage through folk, Nothing. The song depicts men as “deceivers” with Jordan, the song evolves into a cathartic emotional classical genres—soloists, recording artists and theatre, jazz, pop and classical music. “one foot on sea and one on shore,” with a lilt as self-realization in the aftermath of an earthquake leaders, all well known on the international circuit. The album opens with a Charles Ives song, bouncy as the ocean of infidelity it evokes. in los Angeles. I have enjoyed an evolving musical history with In Autumn, a poignant lament by a rejected Bill Schimmel and I did many concerts Crazy Love, Crazy heart is a song that I them, witnessing their performances, appearing in lover. the lilting harmonies evoke the flight of together that included Piaf and Poulenc. we chose composed by way of a harmony exercise that concerts and making records with them. I invited a summer bird weaving a gilded tapestry that Suicide in C Minor, his tongue-in-cheek ballad evolved into a folk-jazz tune over a French waltz. them to do the project knowing their musical and unravels in a sudden cadence of betrayal and world about an obsessed moll on the verge of suicide the lyrical excursion details an attraction that imaginative proclivities for gorgeous harmony weariness. Paul Chihara’s haunting instrumental following abandonment by her gangster cad. the leads the protagonist reeling into crazy love in a and poetic sensibility. I was delighted to find that was written for sidney lumet’s 1980s film, Prince Brecht-weill and tsigan reference is unabashed in carousel of misadventure at sixes and sevens with everyone could make the recording dates for this of the City, an urban police drama about corruption this multicultural expat world, where european time. the original lyrics to the traditional song, The exploration of repertoire that was new to many of on the force. I asked Paul, a long-time colleague gangsters gather in the underworld cafes of the Little Horses, or All the Pretty Little Horses, sung them. the stage was set with the go ahead from of my father’s, if I might write lyrics to his classic 1940s. Ned Rorem, a long-time colleague of my by odetta, depict the violent truth of the scene composers and publishers to allow transposition theme song, and he and Universal graciously father’s, was my fellow performer one night on a with “birds and bees pecking at his eyes,” as the of keys and improvisation. I am also fortunate agreed. John Corigliano kindly suggested songs pop “gig” with Judy collins at carnegie hall, where baby of a slave is abandoned by his mother who in having had personal associations with almost that might lend themselves to this album. I chose Judy sang one of his songs to his accompaniment must work in the fields while exposing her child all of the composers on the album. the common Fort Tryon Park: September, from The Cloisters, on piano. I asked what song of his I might do on to the ruthless sun. I was only eight when my denominator among them, and the reason for these an alluring song in mixed meter. Its melody this album, and he suggested Early One Morning, parents introduced me to Aaron Copland in Aspen. life-long connections, was my father, composer begins with pure soprano, but moves to a dustier set to a poem by Robert hillyer and depicting a copland’s arrangement of this traditional ballad leon kirchner, whose music is also represented register as modern tragedy darkens an idyllic Paris morning brimming with possibilities and conveys sweetly the chorus of little horse hooves on the album. It has been thrilling to unite on this medieval scene. the original piano part is played young love. the mellifluous tune riding a ¾ waltz and the miniature coach–the toys of a baby in a protected universe. Yet the off-kilter rhythm of the added it to his opera of the same title. “my into the scene at a gathering where a photograph, swallowed the key to my door.” on the waves of verses evokes the underlying tragedy of a broken song” became the genesis many years later the ultimate tool of self-consciousness, kicks off a lively waltz, a virtual armada of harmonic world. my father loved this song, and I sang it at his for this album. the opera was based upon the an episode of existential alienation. the melodious modulations showers down from heaven in the memorial ceremonies. David Del Tredici, a long- novel Henderson the Rain King, by saul Bellow. music belies an underlying eccentricity where the choral arrangement by samuel Barber. Joel Fan time colleague of my father’s, brightened our house the original piano part is here played note for note dark side lurks—the signature element of a plays Barber’s sparkling piano part, and I sing the from my teen years and on. we heard the new by Joel Fan, while the band improvises on the Richard Foreman lyric. Arnold weinstein, Bill melody and several choral parts joined by the York Philharmonic premiere of his Final Alice, sung harmonies. the slightly atonal tune is underscored Bolcom and Joan morris were kind enough to instruments in improvised harmony. Long Time Ago, by Barbara hendricks, which featured Acrostic by high-speed chromatic runs and some lush major introduce me to a host of the Bolcom-weinstein which closes the album, is improvised upon Aaron Song among its musical delights. the lyrics by seventh chords. the song’s ironic protagonist cabaret songs. I chose the burlesque showstopper, Copland’s arrangement of this folk song from his lewis carroll, spell the name of Alice Pleasance swings on her emotional trapeze through a Night Make My Day from Casino Paradise, which Old American Songs. In this enigmatic story of early liddell. It was the composer’s wish to express the nostalgic ballad of 1970’s self awareness for the appears in a line-up of comedic yet darkly ironic love and inferred tragedy, copland’s piano part, “undercurrent of longing” evinced by the young entertainment of guests at a cocktail party. looking tunes about the life of big money on the casino with its pristine arpeggios, evokes “flowing water” Alice. the subliminal love story—unrealized, into the art songs of John Harbison, another circuit. I heard Wynton Marsalis and his group as the scenes unfold in cinematic detail. but relived eternally in tales to eager children—is colleague of my father’s who was living in Boston, perform his Sophie Rose-Rosalee at Versailles, This album is dedicated to my father, conjured by languorous music of halcyon days that I discovered the jazz vignettes he wrote with murray outside of Paris. It occurred to me that this ethereal composer leon kirchner and my mother, singer mushrooms into expanded notes fading out of sync horwitz for his 1999 opera The Great Gatsby, and elegant tune might be suited to lyrics as it gertrude kirchner, with lasting appreciation for into a hallucinatory dream. commissioned by the metropolitan opera. I was already seemed to tell a story. he kindly agreed to the formidable composers and authors who have A student of david del tredici and walter drawn to Strange from a musical pastiche of my writing and performing lyrics for this popular written these beautiful songs, and deepest thanks Piston, Bob Telson came to harvard after his swinging tunes that evoke Fitzgerald’s “Jazz Age.” instrumental.