“Recorded with clarity and depth…Shao’s tone comes through with ineffable sweetness…it’s an altogether gorgeous recording of this compelling music.
Breckenridge at her sensitive best…the music inhabits an emotional knife-edge.”
Jon Sobel, Blogcritics
“Three intensely emotional and inspired chamber music works…Garfein pens music imbued with a profound aching sadness…elegantly produced and impeccably engineered…”
Rafael de Acha, All about the arts
“The pure voice of Marnie Breckenridge is incredibly pleasing just as a sonic experience…Few better piano partners could surely exist than Michael Brofman, the founder of the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS)…Garfein’s setting is infinitely attuned to the nuances of the text…Breckenridge is superb in this song, absolutely spellbinding.
This is a fascinating but most especially involving disc. Garfein triumphs again; his imagination is absolutely unique.
Colin Clarke, Fanfare
CD
Digital Downloads
Streaming
“when the moon was covered” feat. Sophie Shao & John Blacklow
Single released 4/18/2023, and has had 52,000 streams on Spotify
information correct, October 10, 2023
Packaging and Graphic Design: Jessie Glass
Waltzes, acid-rock solos for cello, klezmer tunes, and birdsong reveries:
each has a place in The Layers.
Brooklyn-based composer Herschel Garfein, a two-time GRAMMY winner, writes music of “a Romantic flavor with a cinematic rhythm sense.” (Blogcritics) Here, inspired by great contemporary poetry, he takes imaginative journeys leading everywhere from a rural church in war-torn Bosnia to the boardwalk at Coney Island.
Album:
Release date: May 16, 2023
Recorded: Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon, New York
September 2017 - October 2022.
The Layers (22:13)
Sophie Shao, cello
John Blacklow, piano
i. scavenger angels
ii. when the moon was covered (watch music video!)
iii. every stone on the road
Inspired by the poem The Layers by Stanley Kunitz.
Commissioned by Sophie Shao.
The Luminous Particular (20:13)
i. Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks
ii. Twilight: After Haying
iii. Midnight Sun
iv. Mosaic of the Nativity: Winter, Serbia 1993
v. Otherwise
Texts by Jane Kenyon.
Three Rides (14:51)
i. Black Ice
ii. The Mechanism of Pleasure
iii. The Cyclone
Marnie Breckenridge, soprano
Dave Eggar, cello
Thomas Bagwell, piano
Texts by KC Trommer.
Premiered by Brooklyn Art Song Society
The Cyclone was commissioned by The Five Boroughs Music Festival.
Total Time: 57:19
Links: Herschel Garfein | Press Release | Marnie Breckenridge, soprano | Sophie Shao, cello