The chief attraction for many listeners on this debut release by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's Fanfare Cincinnati label will be the presence of poet Maya Angelou in one of her last appearances before her death in 2014. Even with a diminished voice, Angelou makes a powerful reader indeed for Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, instinctively grasping the quasi-preached quality of Copland's text. The album also marked the debut performance with the orchestra of its new music director, French conductor Louis Langrée, who ...
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The chief attraction for many listeners on this debut release by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's Fanfare Cincinnati label will be the presence of poet Maya Angelou in one of her last appearances before her death in 2014. Even with a diminished voice, Angelou makes a powerful reader indeed for Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, instinctively grasping the quasi-preached quality of Copland's text. The album also marked the debut performance with the orchestra of its new music director, French conductor Louis Langrée, who despite not having grown up with the Copland rituals obviously responded to the power of the occasion, and the crowd response, partly retained on the recording, is electric. The three pieces on the program were recorded live, but were part of three separate concerts at Cincinnati's venerable Music Hall, but the synergy between the Copland and David Lang's Mountain, a commissioned work, is nevertheless striking. The newer work is a minimalist collection of chords and drum strokes that...
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