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Two song cycles form the cornerstone of “Spectrum” (Delos DE3592, rel. October 21, 2022), the new album of music by Mark Abel, which features some of the most outstanding voices on stage today: Hila Plitmann, Isabel Bayrakdarian, and Kindra Scharich. Abel's music has been praised by Gramophone Magazine as "compelling in narrative depth and energy" and The Whole Note wrote that Abel is “a compositional master of intriguing contemporary music.”
Trois Femmes du Cinema (Three Women of Cinema), set to texts by Abel himself, is performed by powerhouse soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and famed pianist Carol Rosenberger. Abel says his texts about cult figures Anne Wiazemsky, Pina Pellicer and Larisa Shepitko “distill my feelings about their work and what I believe they were trying to convey as artists.”
Renowned singers Hila Plitmann, soprano, and Kindra Scharich, mezzo-soprano, are featured in the emotive Two Scenes from “The Book of Esther.” The composer refers to the piece as “a slice of an opera in development.” Writes Abel in the booklet notes, "The biblical heroine, an iconic figure in the cultural lore of Judaism, was an inspiration for Hila Plitmann when she was growing up in Israel."
The two-disc set, rounded out by three chamber works and the short song cycle 1966, features pianist Dominic Cheli (2017 CAG winner), Pacific Symphony concertmaster Dennis Kim, Alexander String Quartet violist David Samuel, cellist Jonah Kim, horn player Jeff Garza, flutist Christy Kim and pianists Sean Kennard and Jeffrey LaDeur.
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