QUIET CITY

Description

Alison Balsom's first album 'Quiet City' on Warner Classics was released on August 26, 2022 and marks a significant shift from Balsom's previous recordings. The album takes its title from Copland's haunting work 'Quiet City', one of Balsom's favorite pieces for trumpet, which she had been waiting for the right moment to record since she performed it and won the brass final of BBC Young Musician in 1998. She felt it was the turning point that launched her solo career.In his 1939 work for trumpet, English horn and strings, Copland creates music "evocative of the nostalgia and inner distress of a society deeply aware of its own insecurity." Balsom describes it as "a true melancholy that only a certain style of trumpet playing can achieve."The album 'Quiet City' explores 20th-century American music, composed at the time of the jazz explosion. The sound of the solo trumpet in classical and jazz music at that time was contrasting in style, and yet often evocative, plaintive and haunting, and so emblematic of the soundscape of America. Fascinated by the meeting of these two styles at that time between composers and performers, Balsom seeks to share her deep love for this particular character of the instrument that defies genres.The album will also contain Balsom's newly edited version of Bernstein's "Lonely Town" from his 1944 musical "On the Town", illustrating the bewilderment and loneliness of a visitor despite being in the crowd of New York. Next comes Ives' extraordinary, ethereal and pioneering 1908 work, 'The Unanswered Question' for solo trumpet, flute quartet and strings, posing the "eternal question of existence."Balsom knew that Gershwin's iconic and much-loved work, 'Rhapsody in Blue', originally for two pianos, had fallen into the public domain in 2020. She therefore quickly planned and commissioned a new large-scale orchestral arrangement from lead arranger Simon Wright, to include a prominent solo trumpet line, which weaves in tandem with the solo piano line, with a new orchestral backdrop. Working with her long-time musical partner Tom Poster to further expand their repertoire together was one of her many motivations for this work.The last two tracks on this album change gear completely, with Balsom swapping her usual C trumpet for an old B-flat bell-front instrument, in order to somewhat channel the softer, sweeter sonorities envisioned by Miles Davis for this music. The legendary collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans that began in 1959 on their album 'Sketches of Spain' not only produced some of the most iconic music ever to come out of America, but showed Gil Evans' sophisticated understanding of classical orchestration thrown into a jazz context, and above all Miles Davis almost as an inventor of another side of the trumpet - forging a new path in creating a planned, premeditated and composed "deep song." For this new recording of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, Balsom felt the Britten Sinfonia was a perfect ensemble, made up of several of the best musicians in the UK, equally at home in classical music and jazz. The unusual collection of Gil Evans' instruments has been assembled here and creates a rich and evocative sound world. Balsom's final track is another exploration of a creation by Miles Davis and Gil Evans - a succulent harmonic arrangement of Kurt Weill's "My Ship" - which shows another facet of Balsom's performance style - playing softly into a very close microphone, once again telling the story of heartfelt longing;Alison Balsom commented: "This album has been a total joy to make. I loved every minute of the sessions with the brilliant Britten Sinfonia, conductor Scott Stroman, oboist and English horn player Nicholas Daniel and my great friend and collaborator pianist Tom Poster. The concept for this project began decades ago, when I decided that Copland's 'Quiet City' was a piece that everyone needed to hear - especially as Copland so brilliantly reveals the scene via the solo trumpet and horn. There is a real melancholy in this work that only a certain type of trumpet playing can achieve, and in the album collection, I have tried to show that through the unique lens of the trumpet, the wonderful bridge and mutual respect between classical composers and arrangers, and the jazz greats can be achieved. For many of us, the feeling behind 'Quiet City' is relevant right now, as we emerge from the solitude of the pandemic and enter another chapter of darkness in today's turbulent world. The fascinating meeting point and melting pot between classical and jazz is what has been such an adventure to explore here, both from a historical and repertoire point of view, and from my own performance. I am so proud of this project and can't wait to share it."