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Bernard Rands’s “Memo” Series Now Available on PSNY in Digital Format

May. 01, 2020

Bernard Rands’s “Memo” Series Now Available on PSNY in Digital Format

We are delighted to announce that seven works from Bernard Rands's Memo series have been added to PSNY and can be purchased in digital format for the first time. These works include solo pieces for various instruments, including Memo 1 for solo double bass, Memo 2 for solo trombone, Memo 5 for solo piano, Memo 6 for solo alto saxophone, Memo 7 for female voice, and Memo 8 for solo oboe, as well as PRISM (Memo 6b), for saxophone quartet.



(Memo 1/Bernard Rands/Corrado Canonici, double bass)


(Memo 5/Bernard Rands/Ursula Oppens, piano)

Last month, Oberlin Music—the official record label of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music—released "Rands at Oberlin", featuring recordings of two landmark works by Bernard Rands: Concerto for English Horn, commissioned and premiered for Oberlin's 150th anniversary in 2015, and Rands's Pulitzer prize-winning Canti del Sole. On this new recording, Rands's Concerto for English Horn is performed by Robert Walters, who is both principal English horn for The Cleveland Orchestra and a professor at Oberlin, alongside the Oberlin Orchestra, conducted by Raphael Jiménez. Rands's Concerto explores the lyrical, unique timbre of the English horn, playing with the tempo and instrumentation of the orchestra to throw the horn into relief; its final movement, "Hommage à C-AD", celebrates Rands's lifelong love of the music of Claude-Achille Debussy. This work complements the lyricism of Rands's Canti del Sole, here performed by tenor Magnus Staveland, which sets a multi-lingual collection of poetry relating to the sun into a single, uninterrupted movement, narrating the course of a day. On this new recording, Canti del Sole is masterfully performed by Staveland with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, conducted by their long-standing director Timothy Weiss.


(Jan Miyake hosts a pre-concert chat with Robert Walters and composer Rands—a longtime friend of Oberlin—followed by a sneak-peek performance of the concerto featuring Walters and the Oberlin Orchestra, under the direction of Raphael Jiménez)

To learn more about Bernard Rands, visit: schott-music.com.

Bernard Rands
Memo 1 (1971)
for solo double bass
9'

Memo 2 (1973)
for solo trombone
15'

Memo 5 (1975)
for solo piano
9'

Memo 6 (1998)
for solo alto saxophone
9'

Memo 7 (2000)
for female voice
10'

Memo 8 (2000)
for solo oboe
10'

PRISM (Memo 6b) (2008)
for saxophone quartet
13'

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