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Ruiz Venus & Adonis

Grace Davidson | George Herbert

Ruiz Venus & Adonis

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212087626
Catnr: SIGCD 876
Release date: 27 September 2024
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1 CD
€ 19.95
Preorder
 
Label
Signum Classics
UPC
0635212087626
Catalogue number
SIGCD 876
Release date
27 September 2024
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN

About the album

Venus & Adonis is the premiere recording of the eponymous song cycle by Billboard-charting composer Rodrigo Ruiz. Released to celebrate William Shakespeare’s 460th anniversary, this album is a tribute to the poet’s unmatched inspiration. When the composition was finished in 2020, Venus & Adonis became the first song cycle known to be written by a Mexican composer, as well as the only known song cycle (in English or otherwise) set entirely to Shakespeare's texts. Despite the newness of the cycle, the music lacks no lyricism and will gladden singers, pianists, artistic directors and all those longing to perform and programme such lyrical and well-crafted music. These seventeen songs, performed by British duo Grace Davidson (soprano) and George Herbert (piano), exemplify the enormous variety of expression that Ruiz is able to conjure in his writing, making of Venus & Adonis a truly exciting and refreshing addition to the art song tradition —one that will touch audiences and musicians alike.

Artist(s)

Rodrigo Ruiz

Rodrigo Ruiz was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, where he enjoyed playing with his friends, as all children do, but also loved music and literature. Although barely able to reach the keyboard, he was drawn to a small Steinway spinet that his great-grandfather had gifted his mother for her twelfth birthday. While studying piano under Zarema Tchibirova, and only fifteen at the time, he wrote his first piano sonata, which later received the Outstanding Composition Prize (2008) by the state of Baja California. Even if many of his early compositions were naturally works for solo piano, his creative efforts also extend into the realm of art song and chamber music. One of his most recent compositions, Venus & Adonis, a song cycle...
more

Rodrigo Ruiz was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, where he enjoyed playing with his friends, as all children do, but also loved music and literature. Although barely able to reach the keyboard, he was drawn to a small Steinway spinet that his great-grandfather had gifted his mother for her twelfth birthday. While studying piano under Zarema Tchibirova, and only fifteen at the time, he wrote his first piano sonata, which later received the Outstanding Composition Prize (2008) by the state of Baja California.

Even if many of his early compositions were naturally works for solo piano, his creative efforts also extend into the realm of art song and chamber music. One of his most recent compositions, Venus & Adonis, a song cycle written for Grace Davidson after Shakespeare’s homonymous poem, was sparked by their collaboration in An Everlasting Dawn, Rodrigo’s first album, released independently in 2017 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, which also featured Christopher Glynn and Alison Farr.

An avid reader of classics, he is currently preparing his own Italian translation of Shakespeare’s King Lear which will be the basis for a new opera libretto, early sketches of which already populate his sketchbook next to drafts for a string quartet.

After earning his Bachelor of Music cum laude from Lawrence University, Rodrigo was offered a scholarship at University of Michigan’s orchestral conducting program where he completed his Master in 2014. During this time he was assistant conductor in the recording of Milhaud’s L’Orestie d’Eschyle for Naxos Records, a project that was nominated for the 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording.

Rodrigo is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, investigating novel ways to fuse music and myth through opera, oratorio, masses, programmatic music, and other genre-defying works, such as Tattvas, a five-work project ‘for orchestra and elemental nature’, as he likes to call it, which crowds his piano and writing desk; in it, each of the five elements of the ancient world—earth, water, fire, air and ether—are portrayed through an orchestra, ethnic instruments, and pre-recorded sounds and effects.

In his spare time Rodrigo takes joy in hiking the outdoors, reading, and cooking for family and friends.


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Composer(s)

Rodrigo Ruiz

Rodrigo Ruiz was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, where he enjoyed playing with his friends, as all children do, but also loved music and literature. Although barely able to reach the keyboard, he was drawn to a small Steinway spinet that his great-grandfather had gifted his mother for her twelfth birthday. While studying piano under Zarema Tchibirova, and only fifteen at the time, he wrote his first piano sonata, which later received the Outstanding Composition Prize (2008) by the state of Baja California. Even if many of his early compositions were naturally works for solo piano, his creative efforts also extend into the realm of art song and chamber music. One of his most recent compositions, Venus & Adonis, a song cycle...
more

Rodrigo Ruiz was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, where he enjoyed playing with his friends, as all children do, but also loved music and literature. Although barely able to reach the keyboard, he was drawn to a small Steinway spinet that his great-grandfather had gifted his mother for her twelfth birthday. While studying piano under Zarema Tchibirova, and only fifteen at the time, he wrote his first piano sonata, which later received the Outstanding Composition Prize (2008) by the state of Baja California.

Even if many of his early compositions were naturally works for solo piano, his creative efforts also extend into the realm of art song and chamber music. One of his most recent compositions, Venus & Adonis, a song cycle written for Grace Davidson after Shakespeare’s homonymous poem, was sparked by their collaboration in An Everlasting Dawn, Rodrigo’s first album, released independently in 2017 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, which also featured Christopher Glynn and Alison Farr.

An avid reader of classics, he is currently preparing his own Italian translation of Shakespeare’s King Lear which will be the basis for a new opera libretto, early sketches of which already populate his sketchbook next to drafts for a string quartet.

After earning his Bachelor of Music cum laude from Lawrence University, Rodrigo was offered a scholarship at University of Michigan’s orchestral conducting program where he completed his Master in 2014. During this time he was assistant conductor in the recording of Milhaud’s L’Orestie d’Eschyle for Naxos Records, a project that was nominated for the 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording.

Rodrigo is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, investigating novel ways to fuse music and myth through opera, oratorio, masses, programmatic music, and other genre-defying works, such as Tattvas, a five-work project ‘for orchestra and elemental nature’, as he likes to call it, which crowds his piano and writing desk; in it, each of the five elements of the ancient world—earth, water, fire, air and ether—are portrayed through an orchestra, ethnic instruments, and pre-recorded sounds and effects.

In his spare time Rodrigo takes joy in hiking the outdoors, reading, and cooking for family and friends.


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Press

Play album Play album
01.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: I. A thousand honey secrets
02:46
(Rodrigo Ruiz) George Herbert, Grace Davidson
02.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: II. Frosty in desire
03:39
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
03.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: III. This countless debt
01:01
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
04.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: IV. A spirit all of fire
05:35
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
05.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: V. No more of love
02:31
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
06.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: VI. The pleasant fountains
02:19
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
07.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: VII. Give me my hand
02:07
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
08.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: VIII. So he will kiss her still
01:39
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
09.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: IX. In earth or heaven?
05:47
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
10.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: X. Bestowed in vain
02:41
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
11.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: XI. A churlish swine
03:16
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
12.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: XII. Good night
01:25
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
13.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: XIII. Confounded in the dark
01:35
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
14.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: XIV. The gentle lark
02:15
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
15.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: XV. The foul boar’s conquest
03:39
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
16.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: XVI. Two lamps burnt out
03:29
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
17.
Venus & Adonis, R. 10: XVII. My sweet love’s flower
03:23
(Rodrigo Ruiz) Grace Davidson, George Herbert
show all tracks

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