New Jewish Music Vol. 5 - Nobles, Bardanashvili, Klartag, Trigos by Chœur de l'Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Andrew Megill
The Azrieli Music Prizes unveil their fifth album for Analekta, celebrating excellence in music composition across four world premiere recordings that place a spotlight on the 2024 Laureates. Jordan Nobles kanata is a sonic and restorative reflection on place, landscape and home inspired by his travels across Canada. Josef Bardanashvili’s choral fantasy Light to My Path draws on both his Georgian choral heritage and the Book of Psalms to examine various states of belief, from doubt to ecstasy and gratitude. Yair Klartag’s The Parable of the Palace explores medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides’ famous parable to create a musical meditation on the limits of reason in explaining reality and our search for the divine, all sung in the original Judeo-Arabic. Closing the album is Juan Trigos’ Simetrías Prehispánicas, which pays homage to the cultural history of his native Mexico, especially Aztec culture and cosmology, through fragments of original texts in Spanish and Nahuatl by 15th-century poets.
Created in 2014 by Sharon Azrieli CQ for the Azrieli Foundation, the biennial Azrieli Music Prizes discover, elevate and amplify excellence in music composition.
TheWholeNote
Written by Andrew Scott
Just as the range of human experience is vast and wide, the expansiveness of Jewish music (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Ladino, religious, secular) is equally nuanced, leaving a rich legacy of artistry and beautiful composition. Accordingly, New Jewish Music, Vol.5, is appropriately equally varied, a welcome collection platforming works of the 2024 laureates of the biennial Azrieli Music Prize: Jordan Nobles, Josef Bardanashvili, Yair Klartag, and Juan Trigos.
Over 16 tracks performed by the Chorus of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) under the direction Andrew Megill, this fine new recording presents multiple musical traditions, experiences, and a diversity of voices while articulating themes from the cosmos during the time of the Aztec, to beautifully bringing to life the traditional Georgian influence heard on Bardanashvili’s five-part Light to My Path.
Celebrating what is possible with a variety of ensemble sizes, this recording runs the gamut from the atmospheric sparseness and intimacy of Nobles’ a cappella piece Kanata – musically plumbing the vastness of the Canadian landscape – before augmenting in scope and size with members of the OSM for Trigos’ Simetrías Prehispánicas (Pre-Hispanic Symmetries). Bardanashvili adds saxophone, percussion and piano to the mixed choir for his work, while Klartag’s Parable of the Palace supplements the chorus with four double basses.
New Jewish Music, Vol.5 is ambitious, musically satisfying and consistently excellent.