Friday, November 12, 2021

Decca Classics: RENÉE FLEMING ANNOUNCES STAR COLLABORATION WITH ALISON KRAUSS & RHIANNON GIDDENS


 

RENÉE FLEMING

ANNOUNCES STAR COLLABORATION WITH

ALISON KRAUSS & RHIANNON GIDDENS

FOR NEW SINGLE ‘BEFORE THE DELUGE’ – OUT ON FRIDAY

 

VOCAL TRIO JOINED BY YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN FOR COVER OF JACKSON BROWNE’S 1974 ENVIRONMENTAL ANTHEM


Audio: https://ReneeFleming.lnk.to/BeforeTheDelugeSo

 

This Friday (12 November), as the COP26 Climate Change Conference reaches its conclusion, Renée Fleming will release a new cover of Jackson Browne’s environmental anthem ‘Before the Deluge’ with star collaborators Alison Krauss and Rhiannon Giddens. The trio of renowned singers are joined by Yannick Nézet-Séguin – with whom Fleming recorded her latest album Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene – for a new rendition of the song, available on Decca Classics HERE.

 

Speaking of the track, Renée Fleming says, “Alarmed by the increasing number and ferocity of climate catastrophes, I felt compelled to respond in Voice of Nature: the Anthropocene. The artist/activists and the ‘back to nature’ movement in the 70’s inspired me, and Jackson Browne’s epic ‘Before the Deluge’ is just as powerful today in the face of the climate crisis. What a gift that brilliant friends Rhiannon Giddens and Alison Krauss could collaborate with me and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Caroline Shaw’s haunting arrangement.”

 

Jackson Browne released ‘Before the Deluge’ in 1974 on Late for the Sky, the album widely considered his masterpiece. Its lyrics describe a population’s desperation as they face environmental destruction: “In their hearts, they turned to each other's hearts for refuge // In the troubled years that came before the deluge”.

 

For this new version of the song, Fleming is joined by Alison Krauss, US bluegrass icon and recipient of a staggering 27 Grammy Awards. They have performed together previously at the Kennedy Center’s American Voices festival, which Fleming hosted in 2013. They are joined by Rhiannon Giddens, another award-winning American music star. Giddens trained as an opera singer before embarking on a genre-defying career that encompasses country, blues, folk, bluegrass, and historic exploration, earning a Grammy Award and six nominations as a solo artist and as part of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, musical director of the Metropolitan Opera, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Orchestre Métropolitain, is the stellar pianist.

 

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