Georgia Shreve to release new CD “Paradise” Coinciding with her May 17th sold-out Concert at Carnegie Hall

New York composer Georgia Shreve to release new CD “Paradise”

Featuring the Manhattan Contemporary Chamber Ensemble

Coinciding with her May 17^th sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall

(New York, New York May 16, 2018) – Georgia Shreve, Composer and writer, announces the release of “Paradise,” her first CD, featuring the Manhattan Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, on May 17^th, 2018. The CD is made up of three original compositions by the New York composer: Dante’s Paradise, Portraits of the 20^th Century, and Fantasia on Celtic Themes. A digital release of the album will be available on iTunes, Spotify, GooglePlay, and Amazon.

Dante’s Paradise features original music composed by Georgia Shreve, with text by Dante. Music is performed by Yeon Jung Lee, Soprano; Gene Stenger, Tenor; Xiaoming Tian, Baritone; and the Manhattan Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. In the piece, Dante and his beloved Beatrice, having passed through Hell and Purgatory, journey through the glories of Paradise, encountering wondrous sights and characters along the way.

“The miracle of this final Cantica of the Divine Comedy is that it is at once poetry, autobiography, pilgrimage, travelogue, theology, allegory, history, cosmology, and a treatise on politics, religion morality, the arts, the imagination, and Dante’s own creative process and development,” observes composer Georgia Shreve. “It is also a hymn to music, beauty, love, human virtues, and the ineffable spirit. It still makes sense and has relevance seven centuries after it was conceived.”

Oratorio: Portraits of the 20^th Century: Environment, Art of War, Depression features original music composed by Georgia Shreve, with text by Hildegard Von Bingen, Sun Tzu, and James Agee. Music performed by Yeon Jung Lee, Soprano; Gene Stenger Tenor; Thomas Goodheart, Baritone; Xiaoming Tian Baritone; and the Manhattan Contemporary Chamber Ensemble.

“Portraits of the 20^th Century mines the work of several past centuries to tie their significance and timelessness to some of the darkest moments of our last century,” says Georgia. “The year 2000 closed not just a century but a millennium and the maladies and horrors of our civilization stood out in stark relief. The 12^th century writing of Hildegard Von Bingen contains prescient warnings about the desecration of the environment. The ironic setting of The Art of War by Sun Tzu from the 6^th century evokes the decades of gruesome war. James Agee’s more recent text vividly chronicles the poignant experiences of the depression. In the last two decades alone we have witnessed the recurrence of all these nightmares. Oratorio: Portraits of the 20^th Century speaks not just to the last century, but to all centuries.”

Fantasia on Celtic Themes features music by Georgia Shreve, inspired by Celtic folk songs. Music performed by Erin Stewart, Soprano; Michael Slattery, Tenor; and Jim Busterud, Baritone.

The Celtic folk songs that inspired Fantasia date back as far as the 19^th Century, and possibly earlier. They include, Being Here Has Caused My Sorrow, Lad of Lovely Hair, When A Man’s In Love, The Nobleman’s Wedding, and My Darling Ploughman Boy.

In addition to the release of her new album, Georgia’s work will be performed in a sold-out concert on May 17th, in her first ever solo multi-media performance, for chamber orchestra, piano, choir and vocal soloists. The Music of Georgia Shreve will mark the 7^th time her work has been performed at Carnegie Hall. The concert will include her new setting of Alice in Wonderland featuring Salvador Dali’s paintings based on Alice. It will also include her new film Protopia, which she has created and set to music; her multi-media piece, The Four Seasons, composed of time-lapse video of the seasons created on a variety of New York terraces, accompanied by her Piano Concerto; and her new choral piece, Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way.

About Georgia Shreve:

Georgia Shreve is a noted composer, fiction writer, playwright, and poet. She holds degrees from Stanford, Brown, Columbia, and PENN. Her poetry and fiction have been published in magazines such as the New Yorker, New Republic, and New Criterion, and her short story, The Countess of M-, won the Stanford Magazine Fiction award. She is in the process of putting the final touches on her novel, Spring Lake.  Her plays and musicals have received numerous readings and workshops across New York. In 2012, The New York Times praised the musical composition of Georgia Shreve, writing: “The program also included Georgia Shreve’s expansive, psychologically pointed setting of part of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ in an artfully blended performance….”

Georgia’s Rock Opera, Lovesick, will be premiered in the Fall of 2018.

For more press information about the album or to interview Georgia Shreve, contact Matthew Flynn at JGPR: matt@jamesgrantpr.com  | 917-626-1300.