Virko Baley: Music for Emily Dickinson

Featuring

Virko Baley
Lucy Shelton
Karen Bentley Pollick
Timothy Hoft
Cleveland Chamber Symphony

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Compositional Technique

Virko Baley uses a single musical theme or idea, the name of Bach encoded in German musical notation (B-flat, A, C, B), as a unifying subtext throughout "Uniforms of Snow."

Composer's Artistic Vision

Virko Baley's music is described as dramatically expansive, elegant, refined, and profoundly lyrical, capable of singing with passionate urgency whether embracing folkloric elements or a universal modernist style.

Composer Biography

Virko Baley, a Ukrainian-American composer, pianist, and conductor, received a 2007 Grammy Award as recording co-producer and the prestigious Academy Award in Music in 2008 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Compositional Technique

The ambiguity of Emily Dickinson's poetry, with its elusive language and unconventional punctuation, makes it attractive yet daunting for composers like Virko Baley to set to music.

Composition History

Virko Baley's work "Uniforms of Snow" is part of an ongoing project called "The Emily Dickinson Songbook," with the orchestral work drawing from earlier art-song settings for voice and piano.

Performer Biography

Karen Bentley Pollick, a leading contemporary musician, performs a wide range of solo repertoire and styles on violin, viola, piano, and the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, extending concert boundaries from Baroque to cutting-edge contemporary music.

Performer Biography

Lucy Shelton, the soprano on this album, is an internationally recognized exponent of twentieth- and twenty-first-century repertoire and is the only winner of two Walter W. Naumburg Awards for both chamber music and solo singing.