Search - Thomas Buckner, baritone :: New Music for Baritone & Chamber Ensemble

For 30 years Thomas Buckner has carved out a very special niche - that of a champion of the avant-garde. In concert halls throughout the world, his "baritone-mastery" has astonished both audiences and critics. He has an extraordinarily flexible voice; his experience and ability ranges from madrigals, lieder, opera, free improvisation, extended techniques, all the way to electronically processed wordless minimalist song. This wonderful new collection of works for baritone and chamber ensemble were all written specifically for Mr. Buckner. Annea Lockwood is known for her explorations of the rich world of natural acoustic sounds and environments, in works ranging from sound art and installations, through text-sound and performance art to concert music. Lockwood s Luminescence is a song cycle based on eight poems from Etel Adnan s Sea . It falls into three movements, opening and closing with Adnan s voice. The piece celebrates their three-way friendship and their shared love of the Pacific Ocean. Tania León, born in Cuba, a vital personality on today s music scene, is highly regarded as a composer and conductor recognized for her accomplishments as an educator and advisor to arts organizations. León s Canto is a song cycle for baritone and mixed ensemble. It is: rhythmically driven lines orbiting each song around its core...A multi-dimensional checkerboard of harmonic colors...Diaspora of images in words. Poetic voices of Cuban roots at the center of a musical universe. Petr Kotik is a performing musician (conductor and flutist) and the founder and director of the S.E.M. Ensemble which expanded in 1992 as The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble (debut at Carnegie Hall tribute to John Cage with soloist David Tudor). Kotik s Conceptuality/Life was created specifically for Thomas Buckner. The baritone solo is sung simultaneously with instrumental sections excerpted from Kotik s Chamber Music (1982). There is no general score and the superimpositions of individual sections are prearranged. The pulse of the music unites all simultaneously performed parts into one homogenous unit.