CRAIG URQUHART: Secret and Divine Signs

Craig Urquhart

Secret and Divine Signs

© 2006 Heart Earth Music, LLC (8222252208825)

CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.

Lyrical songs, beautiful piano music. Settings of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Ron Draddy and others

tracks

1 Streamwalker (Introduction)
2 Here the Frailest of Me (Whitman)
3 Sometimes With One I Love (Whitman)
4 Astronomer (Introduction)/ O You Whom I Often and Silently Come
5 I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose (Dickinson)
6 Pas De Deux
7 Split the Lark (Dickinson)
8 Vesper Hymn
9 Among the Multitude (Whitman)
10 Far From Love (Dickinson)
11 Venetian Snowfall
12 Sleeping Rose (Draddy)
13 The Dalliance of Eagles
14 Piano (D. H . Lawrence)
15 Across the Fields (Hesse)
16 Secret Spaces
17 Adrift, a Little Boat Adrift! (Dickinson)
18 On This Wondrous Sea (Dickinson)
19 The Awakening
20 It’s All I Have to Bring Today (Dickinson)

notes

Composer/Pianist Craig Urquhart
and Tenor Michael Slattery Release New CD

Secret and Divine Signs Combines
Vocal and Solo Piano Works

Five stars, BBC Music Magazine

"-the songs of Urquhart, with their seamless tonal melodies and rippling
keyboard accompaniments...the unrelenting beauty of Slattery's lyric tenor voice...heart-melting immediacy...The listener is transported into a state of tranquil contemplation."

Five Stars, Andrew Stewart - Classic FM Magazine
"Love poems both of excitement and disillusionment, anticipation and memory, receive well-judged settings and accomplished performances, and the results make for rewarding listening."

Glyn Pursglove – Musicweb International


“Significantly, Craig Urquhart worked as a musical assistant to Leonard Bernstein for a number of years and there is the same sense of approachability to his music. The share the facility to make an original setting of words and richly sinewed music sound deceptively simple… Michael Slattery, has a fine, clear voice, secure throughout the wide range demanded by these pieces, and beautifully modulated. The recital also has the obvious advantage that the composer plays the piano, and his solo pieces, interspersed between the songs, give equal pleasure.”

Serena Fenwick, Musical Pointers



Composer/pianist Craig Urquhart and tenor Michael Slattery have released Secret and Divine Signs: The Music of Craig Urquhart, a collection of vocal and solo piano works. The CD is the New York City-based Urquhart’s sixth recording produced independently by the artist’s own label, Heart Earth Music, LLC, and his first in association with Avie Records. This is the first recording the fellow Americans have done together.

The collaboration between Urquhart and Slattery began after the composer heard the tenor sing “Maria” from West Side Story in a Paris concert devoted to the music of Leonard Bernstein. Urquhart, who had a close musical relationship with the late composer, felt he was hearing for the first time the voice he had been composing for all along. The culminating CD reflects a unique vision forged by the two artists: the synergy between lyric art songs set against a canvas of solo piano pieces. The songs take their verse from poems by Emily Dickinson, Ron Draddy, Hermann Hesse, D. H. Lawrence, and Walt Whitman. Interspersed between the songs are a selection of solo piano works, which create a bridge of shared melodic themes between groups of vocal pieces. Although Urquhart had written many of the works prior to meeting Slattery, two of the album’s solo piano works –– “Venetian Snowfall” and “Secret Spaces” –– were written specifically for the CD after the artists began working together.

“It was a joy collaborating with Michael and sharing our ideas, which have resulted in a unique vision of presenting a song recital on disc,” Urquhart explains. “It was Michael’s idea to interweave my songs ‘without words’ and the songs ‘with words,’ creating a unified program that I believe creates a satisfying listening journey.”

Craig Urquhart’s songs have been performed and recorded by Thomas Hampson, Lauren Wagner, and other artists. His last recording, Streamwalker, was honored in the Contemporary Instrumental Top Twenty of 2004 by Michael Debbage of Wind and Wire. Craig’s five previous recordings include: Streamwalker (2004); Evocation (2000); Epitaphs and Portraits (1994); The Dream of the Ancient Ones (1993), and Songs Without Words (1990). Urquhart has also toured throughout the word, and in April he performed to sold-out audiences during a recital tour of Japan. To know more about Craig, please visit craigurquhart.com.

Michael Slattery is a Juilliard graduate who has sung with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. He made his UK debut in February 2005 singing Candide with the BBC Concert Orchestra. This past May Michael sang the title role in Monteverdi’s Orfeo at The Châtelet Theater in Paris. To know more about Michael, please visit michaelslattery.com.


Executive Producer Melanne Mueller

Produced by Craig Urquhart, Michael Slattery and Scott Petito

Piano Technician Alexander Ostrovsky

reviews

Please log in to review this album.

  • Beauty and emotion expressed in simplicity
    author: Mark Mandenberg

    Craig's music is stunning on this cd. Beauty and emotion expressed through simplicity. The marvelous voice of Michael Slattery compliments Craig's music making a peaceful, thoroughly enjoyable listening experience. I often put this cd on at day's end as I fall asleep. Check it out.

  • What can I say? The piano and voice become as one.
    author: Larry Allen

    This is my sixth Craig Urquhart CD. A completely new experience. Although I'm not crazy about the style of singing, Michael's voice is that of an angle. And as always Craig's music is unmatched for simplicity and listenability. I wrote the following after listening to his music and emailed it to him. "Music should make sense to my hears and yours does in spades." Larry Allen 2006

  • This is a must-have album
    author: Victoria Looseleaf

    Craig Urquhart's latest musical outing - this time with tenor Michael Slattery - stuns with its pure beauty, both vocally and pianistically. Setting various texts - from Dickinson to Whitman and D. H. Lawrence and others - to the melismatic sounds of Urquhart's lush, trance-like melodies, the composer has, indeed, crafted a work for the ages. This is a must-have album that can be savored by connoisseurs of all stripes. Why Urquhart isn't a major superstar is beyond this reviewer. Victoria Looseleaf, arts journalist and regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Performances Magazine and is the producer/host of the long- running cable access television show on the arts, "The Looseleaf Report."

  • This is a must-have album
    author: Victoria Looseleaf

    Craig Urquhart's latest musical outing - this time with tenor Michael Slattery - stuns with its pure beauty, both vocally and pianistically. Setting various texts - from Dickinson to Whitman and D. H. Lawrence and others - to the melismatic sounds of Urquhart's lush, trance-like melodies, the composer has, indeed, crafted a work for the ages. This is a must-have album that can be savored by connoisseurs of all stripes. Why Urquhart isn't a major superstar is beyond this reviewer. Victoria Looseleaf, arts journalist and regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Performances Magazine and is the producer/host of the long- running cable access television show on the arts, "The Looseleaf Report."

  • From the opening notes of the piano, I was hooked. Music that transports you to
    author: John Bayless

    Craig Urquhart has a masterful way of establishing a mood and character from the first notes he plays. People could learn from this!! These short songs are full of meaning and emotion. For me the text is enhanced and uplifted. It becomes a very personal experience for the listener. I really love what I hear and the integrity behind each piece. Michael Slattery is a beautiful singer with understanding of this special material. Secret and Divine Signs should not be a secret. Tell everyone!!!

  • great album, 2 very talented artists
    author: Tony Stone

    I have not heard anything from Craig that is not fantasic. This is the first vocal music I have heard from him and it is as great as his solo piano music. I studied voice and my speciality was the American Art Song. I wish I would have had songs like that back then. Micheal has the perfect voice for these voice.

  • Gorgeous Piano and Vocals!
    author: Kathy Parsons

    I have been a fan of Craig Urquhart’s solo piano albums for quite some time. When we did an interview several years ago for Solo Piano Publications and my own “Pianotes” newsletter, he was obviously very passionate about his performances of “art songs” as well as his own solo work. These art songs are Urquhart’s original music set to the poetry that inspires the music. He says that as a composer, he writes the music with a certain type of performance in mind. When he heard tenor Michael Slattery sing Leonard Bernstein’s “Maria” at his European debut in Paris, Urquhart felt that he had finally found the perfect voice for his songs. Slattery was very familiar with Urquhart’s music, as his CDs were often passed around the hallways of Juilliard, where Slattery recently graduated. They began a collaboration in early 2005, and Slattery suggested that Urquhart intersperse some of his solo work between the songs to continue the mood or introduce a somewhat different tone. The inclusion of the solos was a brilliant idea that makes this CD unique in that it isn’t just solo piano or just vocal selections. Urquhart’s music tends to be very spare, elegant, and expressive, and Slattery mirrors that approach with his powerful but very sensitive voice. With the piano being the only accompaniment to the vocals, the pieces are more like duets. The poems that were set to music are by Walt Whitman (4), Emily Dickinson (6), Ron Draddy (1), D.H. Lawrence (1), and Hermann Hesse (1). The lyrics are in the liner notes, as are the words of both Michael Slattery and Craig Urquhart, and some biographical information. It’s a beautiful package and a fulfilling listening experience - over and over again. Recommended!

email

Please log in to email this artist.