BMOP/sound Releases New Album by Paul Moravec: The Blizzard Voices

Paul Moravec: The Blizzard Voices (#1054)

Composer: Paul Moravec (b.1957)

Performers: Erica Brookhyser (mezzo-soprano), David Cushing (bass-baritone), Matthew Dibattista (tenor), David Kravitz (baritone), Emily Pulley (soprano) Deborah Selig (soprano), New England Conservatory Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, and BMOP led by Gil Rose?

Release Date: September 12, 2017

TRT: 61:21

Tracks: The Blizzard Voices (2008)

Boston, MA (For Immediate Release) — Known as the nation’s foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to new and 20th Century music, BMOP/sound today announced its 54th and latest album release The Blizzard Voices (TBR 09.12.17) by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec. Moving and relevant, The Blizzard Voices is a valuable contribution to the choral literature of our time. A musical setting of essayist and Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s poetry collection of the same name, this expansive work is Moravec’s contemporary update to the vaunted tradition of the oratorio. Joining the musicians of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project under the direction of Gil Rose are the New England Conservatory Concert Choir and Chamber Singers along with distinguished soloists Emily Pulley and Deborah Selig (sopranos), Erica Brookhyser (mezzo-soprano), Matthew DiBattista (tenor), David Kravitz (baritone), and David Cushing (bass-baritone).

In powerful dramatic details, Moravec’s darkly tonal music captures the firsthand accounts of survivors of the deadly “Schoolhouse Blizzard” that hit the Great Plains in 1888. Moravec combines Kooser’s laconic verses, including stories of terror, determination and resilience, with passages from the Bible resulting in a “musical depiction of the outbreak of the storm that [is] nothing short of terrifying” (The New York Times). Scored for six soloists, choir, and orchestra, The Blizzard Voices uses the chorus to represent the entire community, to narrate the poems, and to evoke the sounds of the blizzard.

Moravec has written over 100 orchestral, chamber, choral, lyric, film, and electro-acoustic compositions described as “tuneful, ebullient and wonderfully energetic” (San Francisco Chronicle), and “assured, virtuosic” (The Wall Street Journal).  This recording marks Moravec’s second BMOP/sound album. Northern Lights Electric (Released December 2012) was described by WQXR Radio as demonstrating “just how finely matched the Project is to the album’s star composer.”

About BMOP/sound?         

BMOP/sound, BMOP’s independent record label, was created in 2008 to provide a platform for BMOP’s extensive archive of music, as well as to provide widespread, top-quality, permanent access to both classics of the 20th century and the music of today’s most innovative composers. BMOP/sound has garnered praise from the national and international press; it is the recipient of six Grammy Award nominations and its releases have appeared on the year-end “Best of” lists of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Time Out New York, American Record Guide, Downbeat Magazine, WBUR, NewMusicBox, and others. Admired, praised, and sought after by artists, presenters, critics, and audiophiles, BMOP and BMOP/sound are uniquely positioned to redefine the new music concert and recording experience. BMOPsound.org