View Release with Images

Composer Mark Abel's Spectrum to be released on Delos Records October 21

Album features world premiere recordings of songs and chamber music

Featuring all-star performers including sopranos Hila Plitmann and Isabel Bayrakdarian

“[Abel] treats words with shapely care, establishing vibrant and urgent contexts for the interaction of voice and instruments.” – Gramophone

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.

Contact ClassicalCommunications@gmail.com to request a physical CD or digital copy of this recording.

“Mark Abel earns praise for musical innovation. Moreover, he garners affection by recapturing the enchantment of song." – Voix des Arts

Composer Mark Abel
Spectrum

Delos  (DE 3592)
Release date: October 21, 2022

TRACKS

CD1

Trois Femmes du Cinema (23:22)
01 Anne Wiazemsky (8:47)
02 Pina Pellicer (6:07)
03 Larisa Shepitko (8:28)

04 Reconciliation Day (10:22)

05 Out the Other Side (10:01)

CD2

Two Scenes from “The Book of Esther” (22:46)
01 The Maiden Esther (8:47)
02 Two Queens (13:58)

03 The Long March (12:59)

1966
04 Fall Sunday, San Francisco (4:17)
05 First Love (3:09)
06 Somewhere in Wyoming (5:22)

Biography

Mark Abel has been called “a compositional master of intriguing contemporary music” (The Whole Note) and his works have been praised by Gramophone Magazine as "compelling in narrative depth and energy."

Abel’s creative life weaves together music and journalism. Deeply entranced by classical music as a child, his interest gave way to jazz and rock in adolescence, capped by a lengthy stint as a guitarist, bassist, songwriter and record producer in New York in the 1970s and & '80s. In 1983, however, he turned his attention to journalism, ultimately becoming foreign editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. During those years, he began working out complex compositional ideas, a path that rekindled his affection for classical music. Spectrum is the sixth recording of his music on the Delos label.