According to his website, "Wayne Alpern ALPERN is a New York City composer, arranger, and scholar who integrates popular and jazz idioms with classical techniques and repertoire to create a sophisticated contemporary style of cross-genre, or even post-genre music. After years of composing complex new music, he embraced his personal history and indigenous musical culture and fused them with his classical background and training. His work includes numerous jazz arrangements, string quartets, woodwind and brass quintets, mixed ensembles, pieces for string orchestra, and several piano works."
This present recording consists of his arrangements for the Dorian Wind Ensemble of twenty songs from the classics, Broadway, jazz classics, and rock-pop standards. The Dorian Wind Ensemble consists of Gretchen Pusch on flute, Gerald Reuter on oboe, Benjamin Fingland on clarinet, Karl-Kraner-Johansen on horn, and Adrian Morejon on bassoon.
The Wind Ensemble's performance of the arrangements transform compositions such as "Blue Moon," Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Start Believing,'" Charlie Parker's "Ornithology," The Beatles' "Penny Lane," and the Stephen Sondheim classic "Send In the Clowns" into chamber ensemble gems. The resulting performances are such that they might be comfortable being on a Masterpiece Theater show (and one of the tunes performed is the "Downton Abbey" theme).
Alpern's arrangements also give considerable charm to Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood," "Do-Re-Mi" from "The Sound of Music," and the "Nutcracker Suite." "Jukebox" is a fascinating and delightful recasting of familiar numbers that may be easy to listen to but has solid musical substance.
I received my review copy from a publicist.
No comments:
Post a Comment