[Tania León: Singin' Sepia; Bridge 9231 (2008)]
Ambition Abounds in Tanglewood’s Exultation Over Contemporary Works
Music Review – Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music
By Allan Kozinn
Published August 12, 2009
“A pleasant surprise in the Sunday morning program was Paula Matthusen’s piece 'of memory and minutiae' (2006), a plaintive, haunting setting of a Norwegian prayer that fragments further with each repetition. Olenka Slywynska gave the soprano line a chantlike quality while cello counterpoint and electronic timbres wove a graceful atmospheric cocoon around it. Christin Wismann was the eloquent soprano in Tania León’s song cycle 'Singin’ Sepia' (1996), one of this composer’s most dramatic and beautifully orchestrated works. And a polished ensemble, led by Zachary Boeding’s carefully shaped oboe-playing, performed Yehudi Wyner’s rugged Quartet for Oboe and String Trio (1999).
Most years the festival ends with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra concert, so the Tuesday evening recital by the British pianist Nicolas Hodges felt like an epilogue. Not that it was insubstantial. After three programs ruled largely by consonance and directness, if not quite simplicity, an old-style modernist density came roaring back in Mr. Hodges’s set. [The Afro-Cuban composer Tania Justina León (b. 1943) is profiled at AfriClassical.com and at http://www.TaniaLeon.com]
