Catalogue

Summary:

Featured New Release: “Creative collaboration is a fundamental aspect of American composer Joel Puckett. The three works receiving their premiere recording here exemplify this spirit, each reflecting synergy between Puckett’s dynamic creative vision and the musicians for whom he composes.” – Keegan Morris, WFMT.com 

“He [Phan] confidently negotiates the elegant, if often challenging, melodic lines, using his flair for producing exquisite pianissimi to particularly haunting effect…. Enhancing the performance is the glowing sound that Young coaxes from the LSO… Puckett’s Trumpet Concerto … written for jazz artist Sean Jones, pulls you in right at the start, with a soft haze from a string orchestra setting up the soloist’s subdued entrance… Jones handles the solo part with aplomb, his tone remaining pure and clear right on through stratospheric reaches… In our increasingly scary world, an album filled with music of such sincerity, personality and poetic impulse couldn’t be more welcome.” – Tim Smith, By Tim Smith.com

“Short Stories blossoms from the start … [Nicholas] Phan is fully comfortable with the varied elements of these settings and the vocal techniques required … [Sean] Jones’ remarkable abilities are certainly impressive … demonstrates convincingly just how communicative Puckett can be” – Mark Estren, Infodad.com

Creative collaboration is central to American composer Joel Puckett’s career, a spirit that unites the three works on this recording. Each work represents a partnership between Puckett’s vibrant creative imagination and a particular musician, or group of musicians.

Puckett’s new Trumpet Concerto (2024), his second for the instrument, was written for the distinguished jazz trumpeter Sean Jones. It’s a homage of sorts to another American classic conceived for a great jazz musician, Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, which was commissioned and premiered by Benny Goodman. The work is a personal response to Jones’s artistry, showcasing his dazzling high register and individual articulations and inflections that are unique to his playing.

The orchestral song cycle There Was a Child Went Forth was created for Grammy Award winning tenor Nicholas Phan. The music is accessible and inward, much like the verses by Walt Whitman. It’s a work of celebration, composed in 2023 for the 225th anniversary of the United States President’s Own Marine Band. Inspiration came from Phan’s love of Whitman, and synergy from Whitman’s written reviews of the Marine Band.’

The album’s title track Short Stories is a string quartet concerto, which has been widely performed since its 2013 premiere. Principal players of the London Symphony Orchestra shine as the soloists, at times playing as individuals, at others as a unit with their orchestral colleagues providing a resplendent accompaniment.

Tracklist:

JOEL PUCKETT (b. 1977)

There Was a Child Went Forth (2023)
for tenor & chamber orchestra · text: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1892), adapt. J. Puckett
1. I. There was a child 3.36
2. II. The early lilacs 4.39
3. III. And his parents 7.00
4. IV. The village on the highland 4.23

Nicholas Phan, tenor
London Symphony Orchestra
Joseph Young, conductor

Trumpet Concerto (2024)
5. I. Slow and expressively 4.27
6. II. Simple, like remembering an old song 5.57
7. III. Cadenzas 2.20
8. IV. Finale, with an air of mystery 4.51

Sean Jones, trumpet
London Symphony Orchestra
Joseph Young, conductor

Short Stories (2013)
concerto grosso for string quartet & orchestra
Part I
9. I. Somewhere near the end 1.26
10. II. Introit 2.20
11. III. The Priests 4.36
Part II
12. IV. Recitative 3.15
13. V. mother and child 5.34
Part III
14. VI. sonno agitato 1.46
15. VII. The Bridge (cadenza) 1.03
16. VIII. Ma Fin 2.52

Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, violin I · Julián Gil Rodríguez, violin II
Gillianne Haddow, viola · David Cohen, cello
London Symphony Orchestra
Joseph Young, conductor

Total duration: 60.09

Recording: 4, 5 June 2024, LSO St. Luke’s
Publishing Joel Puckett Music
Scores available from Bill Holab Music (billholabmusic.com)
Producers Joel Puckett & Silas Brown
Engineers Silas Brown & Jonathan Stokes