A DELIGHTFUL ANTIDOTE TO CHRISTMAS OVERLOAD

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

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Our ever-resourceful friends at NAVONA RECORDS just came out with DASHING – SOUNDS OF THE SEASON. ( Catalog #: NV6055)

For those of us already saturated with clichéd renditions of Christmas warhorses I heartily recommend DASHING as a delightful antidote to Christmas overload.

Among the many gems in the 14-track album, Petr Vronsky and his Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra make lively music to put one in high spirits in David Tanner’s A Visit from St. Nicholas with Kerry Statton neatly providing the narrative text.

Delvyn Case’s Rocket Sleigh. O Holy Night, with composer Tanner on soprano sax and the Moravians provide just the right amount of sentiment without sap.

The closing track of the CD , with the Moravians in fine form, lets us be home for Christmas in a note-perfect A Christmas Celebration by Timothy Lee Miller.

The members of the Stanbery Singers – an American chamber choir led by Paul Stanbery – sing with vitality in half of the album’s tracks, offering imaginatively-arranged versions of traditional melodies and altogether lovely original compositions by L. Peter Deutsch, Christopher J. Hoh, Philip Rhodes and James Shrader.

In one of our many favorite moments on the CD The Salt Lake Jazz Orchestra takes God Rest You Merry Gentlemen in Henry Wolking’s nifty arrangement and sends it sky high after a laid-back start, then morphing it into a Latin-inflected section, then briefly into a jazz waltz, then back into a straight-ahead section, proving to all that Christmas music can be many things to all kinds of music lovers.

The album is engineered and packaged in the world class manner that Navona Records always pulls off, and is available from them. (www.navonarecords.com ) It can also checked out for highlights on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7qBkTZ0UP4&feature=youtu.be

To the good people at Navona Records, a Merry Christmas!

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”