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1 CD
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| Label Centaur Records, Inc. |
UPC 0044747340722 |
Catalogue number CRC 3407 |
Release date 01 May 2015 |
Dominique Labelle’s voice has been called “angelic,” “silvery,” and “vibrant,” and she could easily lay claim to the title “diva.” Instead, she simply calls herself a musician, and takes greatest pride not in her rave reviews, but in her work with colleagues and in her probing explorations of the repertoire from the Baroque to new music. Her passionate commitment to music-making has led to close and enduring collaborations with a number of the world’s most respected conductors and composers, such as Iván Fischer, Nicholas McGegan, Jos van Veldhoven, Jean-Marie Zeitouni and Yehudi Wyner. She also treasures her long association with the late Robert Shaw.
Dominique’s many collaborations with Nicholas McGegan and his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra include Handel’s Atalanta, Alexander’s Feast, and Teseo, which they revived at the 2014 Mostly Mozart Festival. Her appearances with Iván Fischer include the Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro in Las Palmas and Budapest; a Bach B Minor Mass in Washington, DC, Bach, Matthew Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra;as well as Mozart’s Requiem and a Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. She has also sung Britten’s Les Illuminations with Jean-Marie Zeitouni and I Musici de Montréal; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Brahms Requiem, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with Zeitouni and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.
Born in Montreal, Dominique enjoys sharing her technical and musical insights with young singers, and is Professor of Voice at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. She has also taught master classes at The Classical Singers Convention in Boston, Harvard University, San Francisco Conservatory, Smith College, Vassar College, and the University of Massachusetts.
Georg Frideric Handel was a composer from the Baroque period. Handel wrote primarily music-dramatic works: 42 operas, 29 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, which comes to a total amount of almost 2000 arias! Furthermore, he composed English, Italian and Latin sacred music, serenades and odes. Among his instrumental music are several organ concertos, concerti grossi, overtures, oboe sonatas and violinsonates, along with many solo works for harpsichord and organ.
Together with Johann Sebastian Bach, who was born in the same year (1685), Handel is viewed as one of the greatest composers of his time. He was extremely prolific and wrote in total more than 610 works, many of which are still performed today.
Compared to his contemporaries Bach, Telemann and Scarlatti, Handel was by far the most cosmopolitan. When Handel was a child, his father, who was a surgeon at the court of Saxe-Weissenfels, imagined a juridical career for him. But his musical talents did not go unnoticed at the court, which forced the father to let him study music. In Hamburg, Handel befriended Mattheson. Together they visited Buxtehude, the greatest organ player of his time, in 1703 (two years before Bach did). At that time, Handel was already an excellent musician, but it wasn't until his stay in Italy - the land of opera - that his talents and skills truly started to flourish. Back in Germany, he received a position at the court of Hannover, where the noblemen had a connection to the British throne. Thanks to these connections, Handel decided to move to London, after which a puzzling history of intrigues and political games started. For example, it is unclear what the exact political message of his famous Water Music is, which was composed for a boat ride on the river Thames by King George. Initially, Handel focused on Italian opera during his stay in London, but from the 1730s onwards he started composing English spoken oratorios, with the celebrated Messiah at its peak.
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