Ephemera

ensemble recherche; Meyer, Kenneth; Eller, Joseph; DiEugenio, Nicholas; Bjerken, Xak; Argento Chamber Ensemble; Harms, Sharon

Featuring a star-studded cast of international musicians, EPHEMERA is the debut album of Guggenheim- and Rome-Prize-winning composer Jesse Jones. From sonic portraiture of the pagan god Abraxas, through a microtonal setting of Lamartine’s languid prose, to the solitary verse of Edgar Allan Poe, EPHEMERA presents a cross-section of Jones’s most personal and introspective music. Performed expertly by American soprano Sharon Harms, Germany’s famed ensemble recherché, New York’s Argento Chamber Ensemble, pianist Xak Bjerken, and guitarist Kenneth Meyer, EPHEMERA delivers a stunning glimpse into Jones’s relationship with the numinous. Intended as an artistic reflection of the fleeting, ephemeral nature of mortality, EPHEMERA engages concepts of spirituality, love and loss, unity and discord, depression, and redemption. The opening track bespeaks the struggle of birth and a striving toward the divine; the title track distills memory of the composer’s mother into a shimmering kaleidoscope of musical metaphor; the album’s keystone (Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses) alludes to issues of piety versus apostasy, while the fourth track creates a playful foil to the album’s mostly-serious nature; the final track delves into the inner psyche through the lens of Poe’s poetic imagery.

Price: $20.98

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