Daniel Hope Releases America on DG, Tours with Zurich and New Century Chamber Orchestras and Releases Irish Heritage Documentary This Spring

(photo: Daniel Waldhecker)

 

Following up on the intimate and personal collection Hope, recorded under lockdown and released this past fall, British violinist Daniel Hope’s latest album, America, is set for release by Deutsche Grammophon on February 4, 2022. Featuring the Marcus Roberts Trio, soul/R&B singer Joy Denalane, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and more, the album is a tour through America’s rich musical heritage, from standards by Gershwin and Duke Ellington to music from Bernstein’s West Side Story and Florence Price’s Adoration. Hope – who serves as Music Director of both the Zurich and New Century Chamber Orchestras – tours in support of the album with the former ensemble in Germany this winter (Feb 1–12), and performs an all-Mozart program on tour with the latter (May 12–14). Other engagements this winter and spring include performances of Elgar’s Violin Concerto with Romanian conductor Cristian Macelaru and the WDR Sinfonieorchester, and the curation of a mini-festival of 26 concerts on Rügen, Germany’s largest island, in the “Spring Awakening” festival, of which Hope takes over the artistic directorship for one season only. Finally, the violinist explores the Irish side of his heritage in the spring with the release of the documentary Celtic Dreams: Daniel Hope’s Hidden Irish History. As Gramophone magazine notes, “There are few figures in today’s classical music who so perfectly embody the role of ambassador for music as Daniel Hope.”

New DG album: America (Feb 4)

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, Hope has more than 30 albums to his name, with multiple chart-topping bestsellers, international award-winners and Grammy nominations among them. America explores the roots and distinctive qualities of American music, with suites of songs by Gershwin, Weill and Bernstein; “Come Sunday” from Duke Ellington’s jazz suite Black, Brown and Beige, written for his band’s Carnegie Hall debut in 1943; Copland’s “At the River” as well as the “Hoe-Down” from his ballet Rodeo; Florence Price’s Adoration; Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”; and Samuel Ward’s “America the Beautiful.” Hope dedicates the album to his great-aunt, who, like Kurt Weill, escaped persecution in Germany and settled for the rest of her life in the United States.

The outstanding new classical and jazz arrangements on America are mostly by versatile conductor, arranger and pianist Paul Bateman, with whom Hope has collaborated regularly since 2013, and the jazz trio arrangements for the Gershwin Song Suite are by Marcus Roberts. Hope and Roberts have performed together on several occasions, including a memorable “piano trio battle” in 2016, when the two were both Associate Artistic Directors of the Savannah Music Festival. The performance juxtaposed Haydn, Ravel and Shostakovich trios with music by Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Roberts himself. Hope and Roberts also share a commitment to reviving compositions by African American composers and showing how their work helped make American music what it is today. Roberts explains:

“One of the crucial things you learn as a musician is the ability to listen to someone else, and learn from them. So, if we could actually take these people’s music and figure out how and why it deserves recognition – not just because they were forgotten, but because there’s a relevant message in their music from which we can still learn and benefit today – then that would be a great way to elevate them and ourselves as well.”

Along with Roberts and his trio partners, Rodney Jordan on bass and Jason Marsalis on drums, Hope is joined on America by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra throughout. Also featured are German soul and R&B singer Joy Denalane and Brazilian pianist Sylvia Thereza on Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” and German jazz guitarist Joscho Stephan and Zurich Chamber Orchestra percussionist Alexander Ponet on the Weill Song Suite.

Zurich Chamber Orchestra

Hope succeeded Roger Norrington as Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra in 2016. America is the fifth album on which he has been joined by the ensemble, following the recent Hope, 2020’s Belle Époque and Serenades, and 2019’s Journey to Mozart. This winter, Hope tours Germany with the orchestra, culminating at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie (Feb 9) and Frankfurt’s Alte Oper (Feb 12), with repertoire drawn primarily from the album. Other stops on the tour are Bremen (Feb 1), Munich (Feb 2), Hanover (Feb 4), Berlin (Feb 5), Braunschweig (Feb 6), and Düsseldorf (Feb 11).

As Music Director of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra, one of the world’s few conductorless ensembles, Hope embarks on a Bay Area tour this spring (May 12–14). THe all-Mozart program features Hope and violist Paul Neubauer as soloists in the composer’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra. “A master musician” with a “rich, sumptuous tone” (New York Times), Neubauer frequently collaborates with Hope, and may be heard on his live recording of Brahms, Schumann and Mahler Piano Quartets.

Celtic Dreams Documentary

An artist who uses his platform to engage in many spheres, the versatile Hope has ventured twice before into documentary film projects. Terezín – Refuge in Music, which the violinist helped produce, tells the story of two extraordinary musicians who survived the Terezín concentration camp, and was awarded the 2014 ICMA Prize for “Best Documentary.” More recently, the documentary Daniel Hope – The Sound of Life was screened in movie theaters across North America, Australia and Europe in 2017.

Airing on ARTE in February and then broadcasting in March from American Public Television (APT) to PBS stations nationwide, Hope’s third documentary project is Celtic Dreams: Daniel Hope’s Hidden Irish History. This hour-long special follows the violinist as he takes the wheel of an old Morris Traveler to explore Ireland, Irish music, and his family’s roots. His great-grandfather left Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century in search of a better life and settled in South Africa, where Hope was born in 1973. His destinations in the film include medieval Kilkenny, where he meets Siobhán Armstrong, known as the “Queen of the Irish harp”; Galway, where he encounters fiddler Seán Smyth of the band Lunasa, a master of Irish folk music; and Dublin, where he premieres a piece by the long-forgotten Irish composer Ina Boyle with RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra.

The emotional highlight of the trip is the violinist’s visit to Waterford, where he and his father, the writer Christopher Hope, look for the last address of his great-grandfather Danny McKenna. Hope elaborates:

“Without this Danny, I might never have discovered the violin for myself. Because only through him were we entitled to an Irish passport when my father had to leave South Africa because of his resistance against the apartheid regime. And it was only thanks to this Irish passport that we were able to settle in London, where my mother found a job with Yehudi Menuhin, the violinist of the century. ”

To download high-resolution photos, click here.

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Daniel Hope: America

With Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Marcus Roberts Trio, soul/R&B singer Joy Denalane, pianist Sylvia Thereza, guitarist Joscho Stephan, and percussionist Alexander Ponet
All arrangements (except where noted) by Paul Bateman
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Release date: Feb 4, 2022

GERSHWIN: Song Suite (violin, jazz trio and string orchestra)
Jazz Trio Arrangements: Marcus Roberts & J-Master Music
1 Fascinating Rhythm from Lady, Be Good!
2 Summertime from Porgy and Bess
3 ‘S Wonderful from Funny Face
4 The Man I Love from Strike Up The Band
5 I Got Rhythm from Girl Crazy

6 COOKE: A Change Is Gonna Come (violin, voice and piano)

BERNSTEIN: West Side Story Suite (violin and string orchestra)
7 America
8 Maria
9 Tonight
10 Somewhere
11 A Boy Like That
12 I Have a Love
13 Mambo
14 PRICE: Adoration (violin and string orchestra)

15 COPLAND: At the River from Old American Songs, Set 2 (violin and string orchestra)
16 COPLAND: Hoe-Down from Rodeo

17 ELLINGTON: Come Sunday from Black, Brown and Beige (violin and string orchestra)

WEILL: American Song Suite (violin and chamber orchestra)
18 September Song from Knickerbocker Holiday
19 My Ship from Lady in the Dark
20 Speak Low from One Touch of Venus
21 Mack the Knife from The Threepenny Opera

22 WARD: America the Beautiful (violin and chamber orchestra)

Daniel Hope: winter/spring 2022 engagements

Feb 1–12: German tour with Zurich Chamber Orchestra
PRICE (arr. PAUL BATEMAN): Adoration for Violin and Strings
BERNSTEIN (arr. PAUL BATEMAN): West Side Story Suite for violin and strings
ELLINGTON: Come Sunday
WEILL: Song Suite
COPLAND (arr. PAUL BATEMAN): Old American Songs (selection)
GERSHWIN (arr. PAUL BATEMAN): Songs (selection)
Feb 1: Bremen
Feb 2: Munich
Feb 4: Hanover
Feb 5: Berlin
Feb 6: Braunschweig
Feb 9: Hamburg (Elbphilharmonie)
Feb 11: Düsseldorf
Feb 12: Frankfurt, Germany (Alte Oper)

Feb 16–20: German tour with WDR Symphony Orchestra / Cristian Macelaru
ELGAR: Violin Concerto
Feb 16: BielefeldFeb 18 & 19: Cologne (Philharmonie)
Feb 20: Essen

March 9
Zurich, Switzerland
Zurich Chamber Orchestra
HERRMANN: Psycho score with live film
Anthony Gabriele, conductor

“Spring Awakening” Festival

March 18
Putbus, Germany
Opening Concert of Spring Awakening Rügen
BEETHOVEN, MENDELSSOHN, FRANCK

March 19
Binz, Germany
Works by SCHULHOFF
With Josephine Knight, Cello

March 19
Goehren, Germany
Orchestra Gala with Yibei Chen, Maxim Lando & Daniel Geiss

March 20
Binz, Germany
Paradise In Binz
DEBUSSY, SCHULHOFF, BACH, BEETHOVEN, VON WESTERHOFF, RAVEL
With Sebastian Koch

March 21
Putbus, Germany
Chamber Music in Putbus
BRAHMS: Scherzo in C minor for violin and piano (“F. A. E.”)
GRIEG: Sonata No. 3 in C minor for violin and piano, Op. 45
RACHMANINOV: Sonata for cello and piano, Op. 19
With Josephine Knight, cello; Jacques Ammon, piano; Maxim Lando, piano

March 22
Boldevitz, Germany
With Ikki Opitz & Jacques Ammon
MESSIAEN, SZYMANOWSKI, RAVEL, IGUDESMAN, FAURÉ, SAINT-SAËNS and RACHMANINOV

March 24
Binz, Germany
Late Night at Putbus
Daniel Hope & Friends

March 25
Putbus, Germany
BEETHOVEN: Triple Concerto
With Josephine Knight, cello; Maxim Lando, piano

March 26
Baabe, Germany
Children’s Concert

March 26
Putbus, Germany
Closing concert of the 2022 Spring Awakening Rügen
MOZART: Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, KV 581
SAINT-SAËNS: Carnival of the Animals

April 1
Dresden, Germany
Zurich Chamber Orchestra
Works by MENDELSSOHN, MOZART and TCHAIKOVSKY

May 3
Zurich, Switzerland
Zurich Chamber Orchestra
With Alexey Botvinov, piano

May 6
Berlin Germany
SCHNITTKE: Violin Concerto No. 1
With Komische Oper Berlin & Joshua Weilerstein

May 7
Ahrensburg, Germany
Recital with Marie Hauzel
ENESCU, KREISLER, RAVEL, SCHOENBERG, FAURÉ and FRANCK

May 12–14: Bay Area tour with New Century Chamber Orchestra
MOZART: Symphony in B-flat, K. 45b
MOZART: Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat for Violin, Viola and Orchestra, K. 364 (with Paul Neubauer, viola)
MOZART: Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550
May 12: Berkeley, CA
May 13: Palo Alto, CA
May 14: San Francisco, CA

June 2, 3, 4
Bonn Germany
Beethoven Haus

June 8
Hamburg, Germany
Hauptkirche St. Michaelis
“Air – a baroque journey”
With Simos Papanas, violin; Nicola Mosca, cello; Emanuele Forni, lute; Naoki Kitaya, cembalo; Michael Metzler, percussion