Currents
ANGELS SHARE RECORDS
RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
BANDCAMP
APPLE MUSIC
AMAZON
SPOTIFY
CURRENTS is a dynamic new recording featuring some of the extraordinary new and recent American vocal/chamber music I have championed over the past decade. Produced by the legendary Leslie Ann Jones at Skywalker Sound, and recorded with a dream team of collaborators from the chamber, new music, and jazz communities, CURRENTS includes two works composed especially for me by American composers Liam Wade and Vartan Aghababian; an unpublished song cycle by the late John Thow; a haunting, lyric ballad for soprano and Flamenco guitar by Weslie Brown; and five arrangements created especially for this recording of songs by one of the most beloved songwriters of all time, Joni Mitchell.
CURRENTS IN THE PRESS
“Inside Skywalker Sound” by Jeff Kaliss, San Francisco Classical Voice, 6/18, 2013
“[Ann] has this magic quality that somehow makes composers want to write for her, because not only does she perform [their songs], she invests in them, physically, emotionally, personally. I think she’s a transformative artist, because she can cross genres so easily. She’s not only comfortable in classics and Baroque music, but she also is expert at new music. Nothing scares her.” - Composer Jake Heggie
“exCHANGE - Episode 1: Currents” In the inaugural episode of exCHANGE, the official podcast of CMASH, John Grimmett speaks with Ann Moss and Isaac Allen (Hausmann Quartet) about Moss’ debut album. 9/27, 2013
“exCHANGE - Episode 2: Silver Apples” John Grimmett speaks with composer Liam Wade and pianist Steven Bailey about recording together. 11/2, 2013
“Practice Your Flamenco” by John Marcher, A Beast In A Jungle, 11/3, 2013
“Between each verse Moss sings a haunting chorus of notes, like a curse, creating a hook more typically found pop songs. It’s pretty sensational, and in the liner notes Moss says ‘If it is possible for a classical singer to have a hit single, than this is mine.’ That makes sense.”
“Ann Moss: Currents” by John Marcher, A Beast In A Jungle, 11/19, 2013
“I’ve been listening to Currents for about three weeks now on a pretty regular rotation, and with each listening it reveals more of itself. Like Esperanza Spaulding’s Chamber Music Society, it covers a lot of ground, and the album’s cohesion reveals itself through repeated listening.”
CD RELEASE EVENTS
October 6, 2013 SAN DIEGO CA - New San Diego Central Library Auditorium
October 11, 2013 SAN DIEGO CA - ArtLab Studios
November 15, 2013 SAN FRANCISCO CA - Old First Concerts
January 30, 2014 TOPSFIELD MA - Willowdale Estate Signature Series
January 31, 2014 LINCOLN MA - Bemis Hall
February 4, 2014 PHILADELPHIA PA - Academy of Vocal Arts
February 6, 2014 NEW YORK NY - National Opera Center
PERFORMERS AND TECHNICAL CREDITS
Hausmann String Quartet
Karen Rosenak - Piano
Steven Bailey - Piano
Jeremías García - Guitar
Matt Berkeley - Acoustic Piano, Hammond B3, Fender Rhodes
Dewayne Pate - Bass
Joe Bagale - Drums
Produced by Leslie Ann Jones
Recorded by Leslie Ann Jones and Dann Michael Thompson
Edited by Robert Gatley
Mixed by Leslie Ann Jones
Recorded and mixed at Skywalker Sound, a Lucasfilm, Ltd., company
Marin County, CA
Mastered by Michael Romanowski at Michael Romanowski Mastering, San Francisco, CA
Executive Producers Jake Heggie, William and Bonnie Wade
Photo Credit Debra A. Zeller
Design and layout by Jonas Angelet for A to Z Media
ⓟ&Ⓒ 2013 All Rights Reserved
ALBUM LINER NOTES
Dedicated in loving memory to Frances, Leonard and Rodney
Jake Heggie, Liam Wade, Bill and Bonnie Wade, Mom and Dad - this would have been impossible without your help and guidance. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Sincere thanks also to Sheri Greenawald, Anna Gabrieli, Jane Struss, Liz Anker, Eric Sawyer, David Garner, Brian Moll, Wendy Hillhouse and Ann Kearns. Karen Chester. Markia Kuzma, Diana, Caroline and Margaret Thow. Stephanie, Chris and Izzy. Rick, Vivien and Sophia. Tom, Nancy and Anna. Ray and Jack. Missy and Kevin. Rhoda Climenhaga, Xiao Ming Cheng, Steve Bretow, Bryon Stone. The Heavenly Host of the Keuka Peat Bog. My Seven Songs collaborators over the years: Philip Moss, Edward Wu, Matthew Liebendorfer, Lisa Kempskie, Kathy Gates, Elaine Leisinger, Paul Yeager, Stephanie Bibbo, Alexa Beattie, Charlie Wilson, Andrew Eng, Isaac Allen and Russell Wilson. Guy Livingston. Benjamin Boone. Luke Aaron Mayer. Cheryl Cellon Lindquist. Richard Savino. Jeff Kaliss. Lindsay McConchie. Hot Einstein. Koji Kamada and Nick Edwards (in memoriam).
PRACTICE YOUR FLAMENCO (2008)
Music and lyrics by Weslie Brown
Jeremías García, guitar
The framework of Weslie’s epic ballad “Practice Your Flamenco” had taken nearly ten years to come to fruition when she revealed it to me and Flamenco Guitarist Jeremías García in 2008. The lead sheet was unlike most scores I encounter — a simple pop tune over chord changes — and I was captivated by her gorgeous melody and haunting lyric. We transposed it a fifth higher than initially conceived, allowing me to explore a wider color palette and vocal range, and the three of us experimented with rhythmic textures and sketched out an intro and coda. If it is possible for a classical singer to have a hit single, then this is mine.
As you sail out of my harbor
All the winds will multiply
I will climb into my tower
And I’ll wave our last goodbye.
May your travels bring you pleasure
And the freedom of the sea
When you practice your Flamenco
Always sing to me.
You’re bound to have another lover
In the comfort of silk sheets
If you wonder how to please her
Just remember what pleased me
As we danced inside my tower
All your secrets seemed so sweet
And you’d practice your Flamenco
Singing just for me.
Was there ever life without you?
Did we meet out of the blue?
And must I go on believing
I’ll be empty without you?
SILVER APPLES (2008)
Music by Liam Wade (b. 1978)
Poems by E. A. Poe, R. L. Stevenson, W. B. Yeats, Lisa DeSiro
Steven Bailey, piano
Liam composed this enchanting song cycle for me and pianist Steven Bailey to premiere on CMASH’s second annual New American Chamber Music program in 2008. Liam and I selected the moon-themed poems together, and Steven and I worked closely with Liam throughout his compositional process, contributing musical ideas along the way that were incorporated into the score. Liam left us a great deal of room for improvisation in these magically whimsical songs, allowing for a fresh perspective in every performance. Working in the studio with Leslie and Dann, the cycle evolved in totally unexpected ways, revealing still new surprises. I am thrilled to be able to share Liam’s inventive story-telling and natural affinity for the lyric coloratura instrument with a broad audience, especially as his budding operatic career is propelled by a recent commission from Washington National Opera. SILVER APPLES has enabled many new listeners to connect with and find joy in the genre of Art Song.
The Moon
Robert Louis Stevenson
The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;
She shines on thieves on the garden wall,
On streets and fields and harbour quays,
And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.
The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,
The howling dog by the door of the house,
The bat that lies in bed at noon,
All love to be out by the light of the moon.
But all of the things that belong to the day
Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;
And flowers and children close their eyes
Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.
Eldorado III
Edgar Allen Poe
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old
This knight so bold
And o’er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be
This land of Eldorado?”
“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied
“If you seek for Eldorado!”
The Cat and The Moon
William Butler Yeats
The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin to the moon,
The creeping cat, looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For, wander and wail as he would,
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet.
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.
Carpe Luna
Lisa DeSiro
After practicing
self-perfection —
my mind alone,
my fingers, my arms,
my body
creating
the only sound
in the world
for hours —
I left the room,
scuffed down empty halls
to a door, pushed
myself out
into sudden silence.
And there was the moon,
gleaming, round
as a snowball, frozen
amid shallow drifts of cloud.
I reached up
tall as the night sky,
grabbed that moon
and melted it
with my bare hands.
FOR LOVE: THREE SONGS FOR SOPRANO AND PIANO (1980, rev. 2003)
Music by John Thow (1949-2007)
Poems by Robert Creeley
Karen Rosenak, piano
I first learned of the music of composer John Thow when asked to sing at his memorial service in 2007. Composed in 1980 with revisions commencing in 2003, For Love is a setting of three poems by Robert Creeley, leading member of the Black Mountain School of poetry. In reading through John’s hand-penned manuscript, which he was still revising at the time of his passing, the strange beauty of Creeley’s poems immediately spoke to me on a visceral level. Though we never met in real life, after performing his contemplative and delicately wrought cycle multiple times I feel a strong connection to John. I feel especially fortunate for this opportunity to record and share an unknown song cycle of great beauty.
Kore
The Rain
Water Music
These poems appear in For Love: Poems 1950-1960 by Robert Creeley
(New York: Scribners, 1962) ISBN 0-684-71738-7
SEVEN SONGS (2003)
Music by Dr. Vartan Aghababian (b. 1964)
Poems by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
The Hausmann Quartet: Isaac Allen, Eric Chin, violins; Angela Choong, viola; Jeremiah Shaw, cello
Vartan and I conceived the idea for SEVEN SONGS in the early winter of 2002, as our country was entering into armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. With imagery ranging from soldiers in the trenches, to wives and mothers on the home front, to the plight of veterans returning to broken lives, this powerful work evokes compassion for those who have given their lives or lost loved ones in the past, and challenges us to question our modern military actions and motivations.
The Return
He went, and he was gay to go;
And I smiled on him as he went.
My son, ‘twas well he couldn’t know
My darkest dread, nor what it meant —
Just what it meant to smile and smile
And let my son go cheerily —
My son … and wondering all the while
What stranger would come back to me.
The Going
R.B.
He’s gone.
I do not understand.
I only know
That as he turned to go
And waved his hand,
In his young eyes a sudden glory shone,
And I was dazzled with a sunset glow,
And he was gone.
23rd April 1915
Breakfast
We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,
Because the shells were screeching overhead.
I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread
That Hull United would beat Halifax
When Jimmy Strainthorpe played full-back instead
Of Billy Bradford. Ginger raised his head
And cursed, and took the bet; and dropt back dead.
We ate our breakfast lying on our backs,
Because the shells were screeching overhead.
All Being Well
All being well, I’ll come to you,
Sweetheart, before the year is through;
And we shall find so much to do,
So much to tell.
I read your letter through and through,
And dreamt of all we’d say and do,
Till in my heart the thought of you
Rang like a bell.
Now the bell tolls, my love, for you;
For long before the year is through
You’ve gone where there is naught to do
And naught to tell.
Yet mayn’t I find when life is through
The best is still to say and do,
When I at last may come to you,
All being well?
Long Tom
He talked of Delhi brothels half the night,
Quaking with fever; And then, dragging tight
The frowsy blankets to his chattering chin,
Cursed for an hour because they were so thin
And nothing would keep out the gnawing cold –
Scarce forty years of age, and yet so old,
Haggard and worn with burning eyes set deep –
Until at last he cursed himself asleep.
Before I’d shut my eyes reveille came;
And as I dressed by the one candle-flame
The mellow golden light fell on his face
Still sleeping, touching it to tender grace,
Rounding the features life had scarred so deep,
Till youth came back to him in quiet sleep:
And then what women saw in him I knew
And why they’d loved him all his brief life through.
Back
They ask me where I’ve been,
And what I’ve done and seen,
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn’t I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands…
Though I must bear the blame
Because he bore my name.
Lament
We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily upon the sun or feel the rain,
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly, and spent
Their all for us, loved too the sun and rain?
A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings –
But we, how shall we turn to little things,
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break at the heart of things?
JONI MITCHELL SUITE (2013)
Words and music by Joni Mitchell (except for The Hissing of Summer Lawns - Mitchell/Guerin, and The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines - Mitchell/Mingus)
Arranged by Liam Wade & Ann Moss (unless otherwise noted)
Jeremías García, guitar; Matt Berkeley, acoustic piano, Rhodes, Hammond B3; Dewayne Pate, bass; Joe Bagale, drums; The Hausmann Quartet
This suite explores the broad, multifaceted spectrum of musical worlds I inhabit. Collaboratively re-imagined and conceived, our arrangements highlight Mitchell’s artistic ties to the canon of classical vocal music, further cemented by her inclusion in the Great American Songbook.
Conversation (1970, arr. Moss/García)
The Arrangement (1970, arr. Moss/Berkeley)
The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975)
The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines (1979)
Cactus Tree (1968)
Lyrics for Joni Mitchell’s songs can be viewed at her website.