Miriam Khalil's Debut Disc Nominated for Classical Album of the Year
“Khalil's performances offer an energy and understanding that make hers a new definitive interpretation of the work.” Ayre: Live, the debut release from Against the Grain Theatre’s new in-house recording label, has been nominated for a 2019 Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year, Vocal or Choral.
January 30, 2019
““Khalil doesn’t so much sing the Argentine-born composer’s material as wholly inhabit it. The fluidity, grace, and seeming ease with which she executes the undulating melodies are stunning...””
Ayre: Live, the debut release from Against the Grain Theatre’s new in-house recording label, has earned a 2019 Juno Awards nomination for Classical Album of the Year, Vocal or Choral. The album has been critically acclaimed for its performances by Lebanese-Canadian soprano Miriam Khalil, who dispatches Osvaldo Golijov’s eclectic song cycle – with elements of Byzantine chant, Sephardic lullabies, Sardinian protest songs, and Arabic, Hebrew, and Christian texts – with aplomb.
Read reviews:
“One of my favourite albums of 2018… it is intimate yet powerful, piercing with emotion and mesmerizing in its tonal expression. The superb chamber ensemble of Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre has a wonderful synergy with the company’s co-founder, soprano Miriam Khalil, a true star of this recording. Her immense range of colours and fascinating vocal transformations made her performance on this album both spectacular and touching.”
The WholeNote
“Khalil doesn't so much sing the Argentine-born composer's material as wholly inhabit it. Khalil's passionate engagement with the material is evident the moment her tremulous voice floats over a delicate foundation provided her by accordionist. The fluidity, grace, and seeming ease with which she executes the undulating melodies are stunning, and without wishing to downplay the magnitude of Golijov's accomplishment, it's her performance that most recommends the recording.”
Textura
“While Khalil’s delivery is unforced and achingly direct, it is far from artless or unpolished. The final movement, “Ariadna en su laberinto,” in particular is a tour de force of effortless virtuosity. Much of the movement is given over to wordless vocalise that traverses the entire compass of Khalil’s voice—she ascends from her lush, velvety lower register to a rhapsodic cantillation over an octave above without missing a beat, delivering the winding, highly ornamented phrases with a graceful fluidity that belies the iron control necessary to execute the extended passage. Ayre’s eclectic sources can feel blocky in their juxtapositions, like buildings from different eras of a city thrown up with no compromise or eye to overall aesthetic cohesion. In Khalil’s rendition, the impression is more of a lived-in landscape, one where tree and grass and hill and oasis have melded together into an intricate network, no one part fully extricable from any of the others. In this way, she makes Ayre feel like a piece for our time…”
Log Journal
“Best Recording of 2018: The clear standout was Miriam Khalil’s extraordinary performance of Golijov’s Ayre. It’s as spine-tingling on record as it was live.”
OperaRamblings
“Khalil’s performance shows her to be more than a singer: she is an elemental force. There are no missteps here… She sings with such tonal surety, such microscopic shading so as to mesmerize and move the listener, [then] rips through the text with ecstatic grunts, wails, menacing caterwauling. Khalil does great things as she leaps into operatic heights and sings long melismatic lines with solid technique and primal force.”
Opera Wire
"Ayre is so relentless in its storytelling that it’s almost exhausting – another emotional wave we can surely ride alongside Khalil, who sings the challenging work with her whole body. Few singers have the stamina or the stylistic palette that Khalil employs throughout Ayre, and it’s even more impressive when one remembers this is a live recording. With Ayre Live, Against the Grain Theatre has christened its new record label with a piece that evades definition, a game in which artistic director Joel Ivany excels. The recording is a nod to the opera collective’s roots, with its spotlight on founding member Khalil, but more importantly, it’s something that will make it into my daily playlist. It’s too bold for background music, too tough to forget after even just one listen."
The Globe and Mail
“The gutsy, political, and hypnotising Ayre Live, performed by Canadian soprano and AtG founding member Miriam Khalil…offers an energy and understanding that make hers a new definitive interpretation of the work. The album is also a bold way for Against the Grain to inaugurate its status as a record label…to lead with Ayre is to lead with a strong message of putting art and diversity first - without compromising on quality.”
Schmopera
Jorge Mejia and An Open Book Nominated for Latin Grammy
Mejia’s “Prelude in F Major for Piano and Orchestra,” from his album An Open Book, was nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
September 20, 2018
Photo by Laura Coppelman
Jorge Mejia’s memoir in music, An Open Book, has been nominated for a Latin Grammy Award. The album comprises 25 preludes for piano and orchestra, with the composer appearing as pianist alongside the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra.
A Steinway Artist, Jorge is a masterful storyteller dedicated to bringing new audiences to classical music. He was recently profiled in Billboard Magazine, graced the cover of Músico Pro Magazine, and was interviewed on WLRN Radio. Immediately following its Miami launch concert, An Open Book was hailed as "an instant classic...a rigorous and eclectic work" by El Nuevo Herald.
Mejia’s “Prelude in F Major for Piano and Orchestra” was nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. The winner will be announced at the 2018 Latin Grammy Awards Show on November 15.
All Who Wander Wins 2018 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award
“No one who has heard Jamie Barton in action is in any doubt about the American mezzo-soprano’s gifts. She boasts an expansive, robust vocal sound, tinged with richly varied colors, and she deploys it with a distinctive combination of heroic power and tender intimacy. So the splendors of her debut release don’t exactly come as a surprise. But that hardly diminishes the joy of listening to Barton’s expressive, full-throated performances.” Jamie Barton's debut solo album has won the Vocal Category of the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Awards.
April 6, 2018
““The long wait for Jamie Barton’s debut recital disc was worth every minute. Barton is wonderfully idiomatic in Dvořák and Sibelius, and she and her pianist give a performance of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder that is up there with the greatest.””
Jamie Barton's debut album, released on Delos Music, has won the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award. Accompanied by pianist Brian Zeger, All Who Wander features lush, romantic melodies by Mahler, Dvorak, and Sibelius. All Who Wander was also nominated for an International Classical Music Award in the Vocal Recital category, and was one of six Solo Vocal albums shortlisted by Gramophone for their Classical Music Awards.
Photo courtesy of BBC Music Magazine
Jamie Barton's Debut Album Nominated for BBC Music Magazine Awards
"Some of the most beautiful recordings I have ever heard. Anyone who loves the human voice should own this." All Who Wander is up for a BBC Music Magazine Award in the Vocal category.
January 25, 2018
Jamie Barton's debut album, released on Delos Music, has been nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award in the Vocal category for 2018. Voting is open until February 19 at www.classical-music.com/awards.
All Who Wander has also been nominated for an International Classical Music Award in the Vocal Recital category, and was one of six Solo Vocal albums shortlisted by Gramophone for their Classical Music Awards.
Accompanied by pianist Brian Zeger, All Who Wander features lush, romantic melodies by Mahler, Dvorak, and Sibelius.
““Jamie Barton seems now to be the equal of any dramatic mezzo before the public. The great element which has enabled her rise to stardom is, of course, her voice-large, rich, fully controlled. She is one of the few singers who can delight an audience simply by the sheer beauty of her voice. Nowhere is this beauty more evident than here.
She and Zeger communicate exactly the proper mood of each song, whether boisterous and fun-loving or quiet and reflective. Barton produces some exquisite soft singing, with amazingly steady sustained tones [and] she emphasizes the drama of the situation with great variations in dynamics, from her beautiful soft singing to exciting forte passages.
But it is the opening section of Mahler songs that makes this recording stand alone – Ms. Barton’s glorious sound reinforcing the emotions surely felt by any sensitive listener. These are some of the most beautiful recordings I have ever heard. Anyone who loves the human voice should own this.””
All Who Wander Receives Award Nominations
"It’s the sort of instrument you could listen to all day, in any sort of repertoire." Jamie Barton's debut album receives recognition from the International Classical Music Awards and Gramophone Classical Music Awards.
November 28, 2017
““The voice is rich, generous and vibrant, big but beautifully controlled, impeccably smooth throughout its range. It’s the sort of instrument you could listen to all day, in any sort of repertoire. This really is an exciting talent, and a terrific disc.””
Jamie Barton's debut album, released on Delos Music, is receiving recognition from the International Classical Music Awards and Gramophone Classical Music Awards.
All Who Wander is one of six Solo Vocal albums shortlisted by Gramophone for their Classical Music Awards. It has also been nominated for an International Classical Music Award in the Vocal Recital category.
Accompanied by pianist Brian Zeger, All Who Wander features lush, romantic melodies by Mahler, Dvorak, and Sibelius.
Photo by Fay Fox
Read reviews:
"The voice is rich, generous and vibrant, big but beautifully controlled, impeccably smooth throughout its range. It’s the sort of instrument you could listen to all day, in any sort of repertoire. This really is an exciting talent, and a terrific disc."
Gramophone
"Barton’s grand and rich voice is perhaps as big as Flagstad’s, Farrell, and Nilsson’s, with tone as beautiful and unforced as the first two singers’. Its compass extends from the bottom of the mezzo range to an easy, room-shaking high C. But as easily as Barton can envelop you with sound, she can also grab you by the gut, and propel you deep into the emotional heart of music’s great mysteries. It is the emotional depth of Barton’s artistry that sets her apart from other singers blessed with exceptional voices. She has the power to render you breathless and at her mercy. I expect that you, too, will marvel at how, as Barton expands her voice to huge proportions, her sound and heart also expand to encompass every emotion of a woman lost in memories of a great, lost love."
Stereophile
“Jamie Barton has one of the great voices in the world today. Sumptuous, flexible, and capable of light and shade, her sizeable mezzo pours forth seamlessly. Barton’s voice at full cry is thrilling to behold but the majesty of her instrument never overwhelms the songs. Her ability to lighten her tone, especially in the tricky upper middle voice, notably allows her to sing with expressive freedom. All Who Wander is everything a song recital should be. Delivering both familiar and unfamiliar fare in beguiling interpretations, Barton and Zeger take the listener into the world of each song with deft musicality and emotional sincerity.”
Parterre Box
“A rising star, Barton seems as comfortable on the concert platform as the opera stage. In these art-songs admirable throughout is Barton’s alluring tone and gorgeous phrasing. My highlight is Mahler’s magnificent Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, a multi-faceted score full of world-weary introspection. In this intensely melancholic writing, Barton communicates a real sense of yearning to moving effect, which felt extremely spiritual. The text that aches with emotion in Um Mitternacht (At midnight) is enchantingly sung, maintaining an intense expression that adds to the dream-like quality of the writing and concludes with a sense of resignation.”
Music Web International
"Barton is the most important American mezzo-soprano since Stephanie Blythe, another phenomenon capable of singing everything, and very well. Instead of Bellini’s Adalgisa and Wagner’s Fricka, which are her calling cards on opera stages around the world, the singer opted for a more intimate and very demanding repertoire. Barton has been given a voice and that abundance of means could betray her; fortunately those fears are unfounded. Her instrument is a column of generous, opulent sound that dominates to the point of allowing her to completely abandon herself to the chosen material in order to concentrate on the interpretation."
El Nuevo Herald
"We listened to All Who Wander on a rainy afternoon in London; Barton’s singing is just as much a warm hug on a cold day as it is a refreshing breeze in the heat.”
Schmopera
"Barton’s voice is delicate throughout, a sound that the audiences are not accustomed to hearing in the opera house where her potent mezzo soprano exhilarates with its brilliance and forwardness."
Opera Wire
"Perhaps the song on the record which encapsulates best what Barton can do is Sibelius’ “Säv, säv, susa”. She conveys its arched structure from repose to violence and back again with real conviction, and the final long vowels are unbelievable.”
The Arts Desk
"She is emphatically her own artist. All Who Wander is a testament to Barton’s artistic individuality—and, equally importantly, to the depths of her talent. No, the Twenty-First Century has given us no Flagstad or Callas, but what a gift we have been given in Jamie Barton."
Voix des Arts