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Slightly Off-Broadway Flute Music

  • Writer: Steven A. Kennedy
    Steven A. Kennedy
  • 15 hours ago
  • 2 min read

 

Act One: New Works for Flute & Piano Susan Axelrod, flute. Joshua Rosenblum; David Chase; Mary-Mitchell Campbell; Gary Adler; Georgia Stitt; Joseph Church—Piano. Freedom Road Records 003 Total Time:  46:46 Recording:   ****/**** Performance: ****/****

 

 

Act One is a collection of six new solo works for flute and piano.  The composers represented are all connected to Broadway (as arrangers, conductors, music directors) and each accompanies soloist Janet Axelrod on this new release.  She has performed for over 30 Broadway productions and a host of New York orchestras. The pieces here were all commissioned by her as well.


The album opens with a fun little number, Touch and Go (2020) from Joshua Rosenblum.  Both it and the following Jump Scher(z) (2024), by David Chase, combine a bit of post-romantic style with touches of jazz rhythms and swing elements.  They are close cousins to the Claude Bolling jazz suites.  Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s fueille dans un ruisseau (2023) incorporates a few slight pentatonic references in a gorgeous, fluid line that has a slight Debussy/Ravel feel.  For Harvey (2024) has a bit more musical theater feel in its flourishes and especially poignant harmonic ideas.  Gary Adler’s work is an homage to his mentor, Harvey Schmidt (Altar Boyz).  Georgia Stitt’s Duet for Flute and Piano (2024) conceptually explores the number “5” in terms of rhythm, metrical organization, and intervallic relationships with some beautiful lyric lines.  The album concludes with Oasis by Joseph Church.  The three-movement work is the more substantial piece on the release and bookends a scherzando with two laid back movements.  It evokes a walk through the natural world of Eastern Long Island.  More experimental than the rest, it invites more advanced sound expressions and a bit more diffuse style that works to imitate bird and insects.    


The pieces here are all quite accessible and fall more into a lighter category of “classical” music.  It is not quite direct crossover music, but certainly is an album that will appeal to fans of that more popular side of contemporary music.  Axelrod’s playing is simply gorgeous throughout with committed performances that have an inner sense of joy that shines through as well.  The piano here has some slight issues of sound quality within the instrument itself (not an engineering issue), but it sort of adds to the casual salon-like feel of the music here.   The result is a quite engaging album of new music that should have wide appeal for even casual listening.  The release is available through most streaming platforms.

 
 
 
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