OREN FADER: First Flight

Oren Fader

First Flight

© 2005 Oren Fader (783707053509)

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New Music For Classical Guitar

notes

Premiere Recording of ten new works composed for and dedicated to Oren Fader.

Review:
"On his new CD First Flight...Oren Fader serves up a nourishing feast of new music...Fader's skill, particularly his conductor-like understanding is palpable on every track. First flight navigates through a kaleidoscope of emotions, from the disjointed Homage to Braque by Eva Wiener, the schizophrenic Chimera by Brian Coughlin, to the heated catharsis of Pedro da Silva’s Rapsodie sun un theme d’Olivier Messiaen. The ultimate strength of this CD, however, is its form: the program has the consistency of one large 12 movement sonata, yet every piece shines with its own personality and intellectual gusto."
Guitar Review

Bio:
Oren Fader is highly regarded as a performer of classical guitar repertoire, both solo and chamber, traditional and contemporary. Reviewing his solo New York City recital, Guitar Review magazine stated: "His scholarship, technique, and intelligent musicianship are plainly evident and the beauty of his tone is consistently compelling".

He has performed in London, Tokyo, Munich, Amsterdam, Montreal, Maui, Russia, Mexico, and throughout the United States. Concerto performances include the Villa-Lobos Guitar Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Concierto de Aranjuez, with the Brooklyn Conservatory Orchestra, and the Vivaldi D major with the Manchester Music Festival Chamber Players in Vermont.

Mr. Fader is much in demand as a chamber musician. He has performed hundreds of concerts with a wide range of classical and new music groups, including the Met Chamber Ensemble (directed by James Levine), New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group, New World Symphony, Absolute Ensemble, American Composers' Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Music from Japan, New Amsterdam Singers, New York Festival of Song, North Country Chamber Players, Poetica Musica, and Speculum Musicae. Festival performances include Aspen, Tanglewood, Bach Oregon Festival, Deer Valley Festival (Utah), and Morelia, Mexico.

Mr. Fader recently finished a year long engagement with the Mark Morris Dance Group, performing Lou Harrison's Serenade for Guitar as onstage accompaniment for a new solo dance work choreographed and danced by Mark Morris.

Mr. Fader is well known for his performance of contemporary music. As a member of the Award- winning new music ensembles Cygnus, Fireworks, and Glass Farm, he has premiered over 100 solo and chamber works with guitar, including compositions by Babbitt, Wuorinen, Machover, Biscardi, Currier, Naito, Pollock, and others. This season Mr. Fader will premiere three duos (written for him and guitarist William Anderson) by Wuorinen, David Lang, and Scott Johnson, and a new opera, commissioned by the Cygnus Ensemble, by Jonathan Dawe.
In a performance of Mario Davidovsk's Synchronisms #10 for guitar and electronic tape, The New York Times wrote: "Oren Fader gave the guitar part a polished, energetic performance that was precisely matched to the tape sounds."
And at a recent performance The New York Times called Mr. Fader's playing "Electrifying".

Mr. Fader can be heard on over 20 commercial recordings, in repertoire ranging from the 16th Century (Dowland) to late 20th (Carter). Recent releases include "First Flight": Ten premiere solo guitar pieces written for Mr. Fader, and "Another's Fandango", featuring solo works from Bach to Bogdanovic, produced by Grammy Award winner Adam Abeshouse.
Other recent recording projects include a new recording of an arrangement of "The Rite of Spring" performed by the Fireworks ensemble, and new releases from Milton Babbitt, Chien-Yin Chen, Tim Janis, Elizabeth Hoffman, Sean Hickey, and Meyer Kupferman. The Cygnus Ensemble's 2nd CD, featuring works by Naito, Babbitt, Claman, and others will be released by Bridge Records in June 2006. Mr. Fader is active in commercial film as well, just having recorded the guitar parts for the film, "Everything Is Illuminated", directed by Liev Schriber.

Mr. Fader received his undergraduate degree from SUNY Purchase and his Master of Music (Performance) degree from Florida State University. His major teachers include David Starobin and Bruce Holzman. Since 1994 Mr. Fader has been on the guitar and chamber music faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.


First flight CD notes by Brian Coughlin

As our world becomes progressively smaller with the recent advances in the technology of communication, artistic exchange occurs at an ever-faster pace. For current musical composition, the result is the most richly eclectic mixture of techniques and influences in history. Nowhere is the cosmopolitan spirit stronger and more immediate than in New York City. As a result, this collection of new pieces for guitar (perhaps the most democratic and stylistically flexible of instruments) by New York composers contains the most extraordinary, colorful patchwork of music. There are as many different unique styles on this recording as there are pieces.
This incredible diversity offers limitless possibilities and endless refreshment for the listener, but it presents overwhelming challenges for today's performer. Oren Fader, one of the most capable and insightful interpreters of new music, meets this challenge with a subtlety and musical craftsmanship rarely found on any recording, traditional or new. The result is a document of the vast spectrum of today's music, a tour-de-force of technique and skill, and an exquisitely beautiful and eminently musical performance.


Notes by the composers:

Composer Gal Ziv has created a broad repertoire of new music works played in the US and abroad, and has written extensively for various media including film, dance, theater and video. The piece on this cd received a Praise award at the 2003 Corfu Guitar Festival Competition. "The Prince is a short piece incorporating two interwoven moods, alternating between the confident, swaggering walk of the prince through the city streets, and his feelings of vulnerability and reflection."
(www.galziv.com)

Jennifer Griffith has studied piano and composition in the U. S. and Paris. Her pocket opera Dream President was presented in New York City Opera's VOX 2004. She is a student of Pulitzer Prize winner David Del Tredici and of Tania León.
"These short pieces were initially inspired by some ceramic frog musicians that were plopped down on my piano one day. I liked the idea of writing a bestiary for guitar and added the Camel, and more recently Bug-eyed."
(www.jlgmusic.com)

Marco Oppedisano (b. 1971), a native of Brooklyn, New York is a prolific composer, guitarist and producer. He has recording and performance experience in music ranging from rock/pop, jazz, hip hop, club/dance music, contemporary concert music, free improvisation, film music and musical theater. He holds a B.A in Music Composition from the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, and a M.A in Music Composition from the Queens College Aaron Copland School of Music. His composition teachers include Noah Creshevsky, Charles Dodge, Tania Leon, Thea Musgrave and Henry Weinberg.
(www.marcooppedisano.com)

William Anderson is a guitarist, composer, and director of the Cygnus Ensemble and the Composers Guild of New Jersey.
Scivias, "refers to Mr. Fader's interest in Taoist Tai Chi. Tao means, roughly "the way"; Scivias means "know the way", and was taken from a title of one of Hildegaard von Bingen's mystical works. "The way" of these little pieces is a way of hearing, and then the player's way of making things heard. The drama is all in these ways." (www.williamanderson.us)


Eva Wiener received her Masters in Composition from Brooklyn College. Originally trained as a pianist, she later studied harpsichord with Arthur Haas.
Homage to Braque, composed in 2002, is "a one-movement work, which concludes with a codetta. It is written in a free atonal style. The angularity of the melodic and harmonic materials evokes, for the composer, the Cubist style of Georges Braque."
(hansamus@earthlink.net, Eva Wiener, c/o BMI Classical, 320 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3790)


Brian Coughlin lives in New York where he directs and plays bass in the new music ensemble Fireworks.
In Chimera, "two very simple themes are subject to a process of 'stylistic
development' in which they take a whirlwind tour of the guitar's
favorite musical environments. This process allows the melodies to change
their appearance drastically without ever losing their identity."
(www.briancoughlin.com, www.fireworksensemble.org)


Shoko Suzuki grew up in Japan. She received her Bachelor and Masters degrees in Music Composition at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and was awarded the Debut Composer Prize by ISCM Japan.
Izumi 1 was written 1992 for Mr. Fader and completely revised in 2002. "The music is inspired by the Haiku of Izumi-Shikibu written in 12th century Japan. The first part of the Haiku suggests going from the darkness/suffering of life to the darkness of eternity. In the second half, the poet calls on the moon at the edge of the mountain to shine down on her." (soundwell@aol.com)

Kristin Elizabeth Hevner was born in Philadelphia in 1979. A graduate of Temple University's Esther Boyer School of Music, Ms. Hevner is currently pursuing her doctorate in Composition at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her music has been part of the Wolpe Centennial Festival in New York City, and she is one of the directors of the "Look and Listen Festival", an organization that promotes new music in art galleries. Ms. Hevner's commission to write the first Italian Opera version of A Midsummer Night's Dream was performed in Italy in the summer of 2004.
(www.kristinhevner.com)


Ben Jackle writes: "The title 'Against My Will No Leaf Will Fall' is a line from the poem "The Joy of Writing" by Wislawa Szymborska. In this poem Szymborska explores the possibilities and pitfalls of being the creator of an imaginary world that by necessity exists in a sometimes strained relationship with our experienced world."
(benjackle@hotmail.com)


Portuguese composer Pedro da Silva is currently completing his doctorate at the Manhattan School of Music. He studied composition with Nils Vigeland and Richard Danielpour, and classical guitar with Oren Fader. Pedro also plays nine other instruments in many styles.
Rapsodie sur un Thème d'Olivier Messiaen (2002) is based on the first four notes of the third movement of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps: G-sharp G-natural A-sharp E. The whole piece is based on this motif which undergoes many mutations and 'travels' through France, Spain, Brazil, India and North-America." (www.pedrodasilva.com)



David Tobey (cover art) is an artist and sculptor. He writes, "My work explores the aesthetic between visual abstraction and music. As a professional musician for 30 years, music has given me a wealth of insight and inspiration, which I try to translate into visual art. Colors have their own inherent sounds. Shapes become harmony and rhythm becomes synonymous with line. My goal is to have the onlooker follow the linear and color arrangements like a piece of music unfolding." (http://www.davidtobey.com)


This CD is dedicated to David Starobin.
Special thanks to my teachers: David Starobin, Bruce Holzman, and Jeff Israel.
Additional thanks to Bill Anderson, Bradley Colten, Brian Coughlin, The Fader Family, Dr. William Fiedelman, Kevin Gallagher, and Thomas Humphrey.
Very special thanks to George Brunner, Todd Harris, and Marco Oppedisano.


All compositions written for and dedicated to Oren Fader
Produced, edited, and mastered by Marco Oppedisano
Engineered by Sham Sundra
Recorded August 4-5, 2003 The Baisley Powell Elebash Concert Hall, Graduate Center, City University of New York
Guitar: 1986 Thomas Humphrey Millennium
Artist photo by Christian-Miles StomsVik (http://cstomsvik.home.mindspring.com)
Program notes by Brian Coughlin
Cover painting: "Soundings" by David Tobey © 2003
CD design by Bettina Utz at Baby Blue

www.orenfader.com

© 2004 Oren Fader

reviews

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  • Wonderfully played, well written contemporary music!
    author: Yet another working musician. . . .

    Wonderfully played, well written contemporary music! I was delighted to hear such originality in the compositions, yet still a charasmatic accessibility, due in large part - no doubt - to the effortless control and sensitivity of such a polished artist!

  • Excellent choises of music, and masterful performance.
    author: Jeff Hensley

    Whoever engineered this album knows some secrets I wish they could teach everybody who ever attempts recording solo guitar. I don't know how he does it, but Mr. Fader seems to be able to make every track in this collection "talk" to each other, so that by the time I finished listening the first time, I knew that years from now, listening to it again, I'd be drawn into an aesthetic place unique and welcoming. Great choices of music, and wonderfully performed.

  • Superb performances and a valuable contribution to early 21st-century guitar mus
    author: Noah Creshevsky

    Oren Fader is among the foremost guitar virtuosos of his generation. His talent and musical sensitivity are matched by a rock-solid technique that allows him to make the most of these compelling new works. Perhaps by setting the mark so high by the quality of his playing, Fader acts as a musical catalyst, bringing out the best in others. Superb performances and a valuable contribution to early 21st-century guitar music.

  • Magnificent guitarist! Great chops, musicianship and versatility!
    author: Guitarman

    After purchasing Mr. Fader's ANOTHER'S FANDANGO not too long ago, I was very much looking forward to this new release of premieres written for the New York City guitarist. It's a magnificent solo classical guitar disc! Mr. Fader takes us on a musical journey through various contemporary styles effortlessly and with such technical demand and musicianship. Simply put, it's a very impressive musical statement made by one of the top classical guitarists living today. Try finding many solo classical guitar cds of this quality that supports solely the music by living composers--you won't. 5 stars!!!

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