From Navona Records
This album features music for voice and piano, voice and guitar, chorus and organ, woodwind quintet, clarinet and piano, flute and piano and solo piano pieces. Each of these unique works has a special connection with a song.
https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6481/
A more satisfying and comprehensive account of Garth Baxter's music than Ask of Me What the Birds Sang would be hard to imagine. Consider: the release features a mix of twelve vocal and instrumental pieces performed by duos, trios, a wind ensemble, a solo pianist, and choir. While variety is a key aspect of the recording, what distinguishes it even more is his writing style. Described as a “modern traditionalist,” he's a tonal composer whose works are unabashedly lyrical and melodic; Baxter isn't a hard-liner, however: an unusual harmonic gesture or smattering of dissonance will appear if the material calls for it.
Ask of Me What the Birds Sang wouldn't have the impact it does if the performers weren't such an impressive bunch, but that they assuredly are, from soprano Katie Procell and mezzo-soprano Christine Thomas to The Patagonia Winds, the Kühn Choir of Prague, and the many other instrumentalists that take part..
All twelve of the pieces presented impress in one way or another, November 1994 for the heartbreak Thomas, accompanied by Stewart, conveys in her vocal performance of the song.
Flirt, performed by Procell and pianist Valerie Hsu, for spotlighting Baxter's humorous side. Songs Without Words in Miniature, six short piano works based on art songs by Baxter, is performed by Bonghee Lee, for whom the work was written. “Hearts as One” finds Baxter at his lyrical best, but others see him venturing into Satie-like dreaminess (“Starry Wondrous Nights”) and jazz-tinged romanticism (“The Night Grew Cold Without”).
As the album nears its close, flutist Johnson partners with pianist Mariko Hiller on The Darkness Between Us, a two-part work Baxter dedicated to Jwandune, whose face was destroyed by a bomb dropped from a United States drone in Afghanistan. Whereas the first section, “Â lalo lalo lalo,” evokes the sadness and pain caused by her disfigurement, “Jwandune's Song” captures the resilience and courage she showed in dealing with surgical reconstruction. Arriving after that intimate performance is the final one, a towering treatment of Still Falls the Rain by the Kühn Choir of Prague with Lenka Navrátilová conducting and Linda Sitková at the organ.
In liner notes, Baxter discusses the words by Teasdale he set for The Long Hill and specifically makes note of the realization expressed in the text “that at some point most of us will suddenly discover we have reached middle age and our hopes to be someone grand are not going to be met.” Baxter might not be a household name in the same way that certain celebrity figures are, but in giving to the world exceptional music of the kind on Ask of Me What the Birds Sang, he most definitely qualifies as “someone grand.”
Textura
February 2023
From Navona Records
This album includes my work Still Falls the Rain for SATB and Organ performed by the Kühn Choir of Prague, Lenka Navrátilová, conductor and Linda Sítkov, organist.
Voices of Earth and Air, Volume III showcases contemporary choral music. There are also works by William Copper and Deborah Anderson among others.
Released October 9, 2020
February 8, 2019 PARMA Recordings (Navona) released a new album of Garth's instrumental music.
The performers are:
Pianist Andrew Stewart.
Flutist Melissa Wertheimer.
Violinist Nicholas Currie.
Pianist Diana Thompson Greene.
Saxophonist Kenny Baik.
Pianist Bonghee Lee.
The Arabesque Duo (Troy King, Kathrin Murray).
The Azimuth String Quartet (Nicholas Currie, violinist James Tung violist Alice Tung and cellist Adam Gonzalez).
And the West Shore Piano Trio (violinist Heather Haughn, cellist Diana Flesner and pianist Jay DeWire.)
Available at:
http://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6206/purchase---resistance---garth-baxter.html
Was released January 12th 2018 by PARMA Recordings. It will include performances by soprano Jessica Satava, pianist Andres Stewart, Tenor Peter Drackley, Soprano Annie Gill, Soprano Katherine Keem and flutist Melissa Wertheimer. It will include the song cycles Skywriting, Three Poems from Edna St. Vincent Millay, Three Madrigals, Two Last Songs, as well as Nights Without Sleep and Grandmother, think not I forget and the closing aria from the opera Lily, Is this the cost? This has been described as an "exquisite collection of works for voice."
Available at:
https://naxosdirect.com/items/garth-baxter-ask-the-moon-430034
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/garth-baxter-ask-the-moon/1321481310
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2264163
The recording Katherine Keem Sings Songs and Arias by Garth Baxter is now available from Centaur Records. This includes a number of art songs for voice and piano as well as some for voice and guitar. Also, there are 5 arias from the opera Lily. The artists on this release are Katherine Keem, Soprano; Andrew Stewart, Piano; Kathrin Murray, guitar; and Peter Scott Drackley, Tenor.
The Four Songs from Twelfth Night is included on the release
Chords and Strings, Centuries of Songs for Voice and Guitar from Lil Red Hen Records
Suzi More, Soprano; Daryl Hester, Guitar
Available at CDBaby
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/suzimorewithdarylhester