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Nashville Symphony, Giancarlo Guerrero, and Organist Paul Jacobs Release Album Highlighting Four American Composers

Featuring Works by Charles Ives, Horatio Parker, Christopher Rouse, and Wayne Oquin; Out August 23 Via Naxos Records

NASHVILLE, TN – August 19, 2024 – Nashville Symphony and Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero are excited to announce the August 23 release of the Symphony’s latest album. Organ Concertos features organist and longtime Nashville Symphony collaborator Paul Jacobs alongside the Nashville Symphony, performing works by Charles Ives, Horatio Parker, Christopher Rouse, and Wayne Oquin. All four works were recorded on the Nashville Symphony’s Martin Foundation Concert Organ in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

Featuring four distinct American voices, Organ Concertos captures the modern relevance of the concerto format across a century of repertoire. The Organ Concerto by Horatio Parker, today remembered as Charles Ives’s teacher, emerged when composers were seeking an authentically American voice and was hailed by one critic as “imposing and brilliant.” Dedicated to Paul Jacobs, Christopher Rouse’s Organ Concerto is notable for its contrasting dark and light sonorities in instrumentation and harmonic color. Wayne Oquin’s Resilience reflects the human capacity for tenacity and perseverance; the composer describes it as “a 13-minute exploration of two seemingly limitless spheres.” The album ends with Ives’s Variations on “America” – a piece for solo organ composed for the Fourth of July celebrations in 1892.

The album is the latest release in the Nashville Symphony’s extensive discography on Naxos, and marks 25 years of collaboration with the Tennessee-based label. The Nashville Symphony’s recordings have garnered 27 GRAMMY® Award nominations and 14 wins, earning the Symphony and Maestro Guerrero well-deserved praise for their dedication to recording music by contemporary American composers.

ABOUT GIANCARLO GUERRERO

Giancarlo Guerrero is a six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor and the Music Director of the Nashville Symphony. Renowned for his dedication to contemporary American music, Guerrero has led the world premieres of 11 works and produced 15 recordings by celebrated composers such as Jonathan Leshnoff, Michael Daugherty, and John Adams. He is also a passionate advocate for music education, guiding the creation of the Nashville Symphony’s Composer Lab & Workshop for young and emerging composers. Guerrero's international acclaim is highlighted by his guest appearances with leading orchestras across North America and Europe, including Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and San Francisco Symphonies, and the New York Philharmonic as well as NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, Deutches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, London Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, and the Sydney Symphony.

ABOUT PAUL JACOBS

Internationally celebrated organist Paul Jacobs combines a probing intellect and extraordinary technical mastery with an unusually large repertoire. He has performed to great critical acclaim on five continents and in each of the 50 United States. The only organist ever to have won a GRAMMY® Award, Jacobs is an eloquent champion of his instrument both in the United States and abroad.

Recent highlights include the premiere of a new organ concerto written for him by Lowell Liebermann, with performances at the Jacksonville Symphony and Oregon Bach Festival, and Messiaen’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. A fierce advocate of new music, Jacobs has premiered works by Michael Daugherty, John Harbison, Stephen Paulus, and Christopher Rouse, among others.

A LEGACY OF LIVE RECORDINGS

With 14 GRAMMY® Awards and 27 nominations, the Nashville Symphony is one of the country’s most prolific recording orchestras, championing American composers and giving definitive performances of their music — and the Orchestra — to a global audience. This season, Guerrero and the Symphony continue this tradition and will record three works for future commercial release. Violinist Gil Shaham returns to the Schermerhorn stage alongside the Nashville Symphony for Mason Bates’s Nomad Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Bates composed the work specifically for Shaham, and he performs the work alongside pieces by Stravinsky and Verdi (October 17-19, 2024). After the recent world premiere of Her Story during Nashville Symphony’s 2022/23 season, Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Wolfe returns for the live recording of Flower Power alongside the iconic Bang on a Can All-Stars (January 24-26, 2025). The Nashville Symphony will also perform and record for commercial release rock artist and GRAMMY® Award-nominated composer Kip Winger’s latest work, Violin Concerto No. 1, featuring Concertmaster Peter Otto (May 9 and 10, 2025).

TRACKLIST

Organ Concerto in E-Flat Minor (Parker, Horatio)

1.              I. Allegro moderato – Andante

2.              II. Allegretto, ma ben moderato

3.              III. Allegro moderato, molto risoluto

Resilience (Oquin, Wayne)

4.              Resilience

Organ Concerto (Rouse, Christopher)

5.              I. Allegro non troppo

6.              II. Lento

7.              III. Presto

Variations on America (Ives, Charles)

8.              [Introduction]: Allegro

9.              [Theme]: Moderato

10.            Variation 1: Moderato

11.            Variation 2: Andante

12.            Interlude I

13.            Variation 3: Allegro

14.            Variation 4: Polonaise

15.            Interlude II

16.            Variation 5: Allegro

PERSONNEL

Producer: Tim Handley
Engineer: Trevor Wilkinson
Assistant Engineer: Saint Thomas LeDoux
Booklet Notes: Thomas May, David Crean
Publishers: Novello & Co., Ltd, Watersong Press, Boosey & Hawkes / Hedon Music, Inc., Mercury Music Corporation

WITH SUPPORT FROM: