BMOP/sound Releases Album of David Felder's Orchestral Works

Composer: David Felder (b.1953)
Release Date: January 21, 2020
TRT: 48:52
Works: Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux (2013-14)
Performers: Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Laura Aikin (soprano), Ethan Herschenfeld (bass), led by Gil Rose (conductor)

Boston, MA (For Release 01.21.20) — Known as the nation’s foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to new music, BMOP/sound today announced the release of David Felder: Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux led by conductor Gil Rose and performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and vocalists Laura Aikin (soprano) and Ethan Herschenfeld (bass). Merging orchestral and electronics sounds in a profound and imaginative way, the album’s eponymous work is a large-scale 45 minute song cycle composed for 40 musicians, two solo voices, and 12 channels of (surround-sound) electronics. The title references a poem of the same name by René Daumal, translated as “The Four Cardinal Times”: dawn, noon, sunset, and midnight.

According to Gil Rose, BMOP’s Artistic Director and Conductor, “a carefully choreographed balance of ensemble, soloists, and electronics is rarely found in works for orchestras these days. This recording best exemplifies Felder’s highly sophisticated colloquy of electro-acoustic music.” BMOP’s 2014 live performance of Les Quatre Temps Cardinaux was hailed by The Boston Globe as “exemplary.” “The human voice of the poetry introduced a kind of melancholy undercurrent beneath the whir of the orchestral machine. It’s a fiercely ambitious work, employing soprano and bass soloists (Laura Aikin and Ethan Herschenfeld), and weaving together poetic texts by René Daumal, Robert Creeley, and others, by turns sung, heard in recorded recitation, and abstracted into pure sound. At one point, for instance, we hear all the vowels of a poem strung together without any consonants. Felder deploys his vastly expanded palette of sounds artfully.” A seven-time Grammy-nominated label, BMOP/sound continues to astound listeners and critics alike. According to Gramophone, “the performances from BMOP are splendid, captured in first-rate sound.” “Gil Rose and BMOP perform with incredible precision and unbridled intensity in equal measure.” (I Care If You Listen)

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 seven 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. Launched in 2019, BMOP's digital radio station, BMOP/radio,

streams BMOP/sound's entire catalog and airs special programming. BMOPsound.org

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