Some Women’s Voices
Albany, 2022
8/10
On his 5th album for the Albany label, Don Walker brings us songs he penned using the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, Phyllis Wheatley, Helen Hunt Jackson, Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Harrie Alley, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The album leads with poems by Anne Bradstreet, where the sublime keys and expressive singing highlights the articulate wordplay, and poems by Phillis Wheatley continues the elegance with more swift keystrokes amid the dreamy vocals.
In the middle, the soaring voice and twinkling keys of Emily Dickinson’s work is quite stirring, while “Dear Miss Dickinson”, a poem by Helen Hunt Jackson, meshes the very progressive piano with powerful, emotive vocal acrobatics.
At the end, the playful nature of Harrie Alley’s “I Feel Like Spring” emits a very frisky album highlight that’s filled with rebirth thanks to the dynamic interaction between the vocals and keys.
Walker’s songs are performed by the soprano Ann Moss, a graduate of the Longy School and the San Francisco Conservatory, who has been responsible for the commissioning and premieres of more than 80 art songs, vocal chamber music, and operatic roles. The pianist Karen Rosenak, a longtime member of the Empyrean Ensemble, and a founding member of the new music ensemble Earplay is also on hand, and they make for a very radiant and literate body of work,
Travels well with: Nancy Hill Elton- Nancy Hill Elton Plays Chopin And Rachmaninoff; George Rochberg- Caprice Variations