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Encounters

JAZZ, SONGS & CHAMBER MUSIC

Herbert Deutsch composer

American Chamber Ensemble
Ergon Ensemble
Belfiato Quintet

Release Date: January 22, 2021
Catalog #: RR8049
Format: Digital & Physical
21st Century
Chamber
Piano
Trumpet
Violin

Legendary composer, author, and educator Herbert Deutsch presents his newest album, ENCOUNTERS: JAZZ, SONGS & CHAMBER MUSIC, on Ravello Records. The music, performed by the American Chamber Ensemble, is unflaggingly groundbreaking; Deutsch, who in 1964 collaborated on the development of the Moog Synthesizer and composed music for its first live performance, deepens his legacy of innovation with this latest collection.

ENCOUNTERS is the result of Deutsch’s focus on composing for chamber ensembles over the past two decades. The program, which features a serious and somber jazz piece that breaks forth in moments of raucous exuberance, contemporary pieces featuring solo soprano and flute, and a fanciful and animated piece for piano and electric violin, includes works dedicated to Deutsch’s wife, pianist Nancy Deutsch, who performs on the album. Unencumbered by modal constraints, the instrumentalists explore and interact with absolute liberty.

Herbert Deutsch’s acquired mastery is on constant display in ENCOUNTERS to the delight of students and contemporary chamber music fans alike; it is an album worthy of both careful study and more casual enjoyment.

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"This album is stunning."

American Record Guide

"with Encounters he proves that even in his late 80’s he’s still very much relevant in the area of jazz and chamber ideas."

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 Measured in Miles Herbert Deutsch Glen Drewes, trumpet & flugelhorn; Paul Hefner, piano 8:34
02 Woman in Darkness (Live) Herbert Deutsch The American Chamber Ensemble | Blanche Abram, piano; Carol Feuer, violin; Chris Finkel, cello; Cortis Macomber, violin; Deidre Kingsbury, soprano soloist 10:38
03 Memories of "D" (Live) Herbert Deutsch The American Chamber Ensemble | Naomi Drucker, clarinet soloist 7:37
04 A Piece for Denise Herbert Deutsch Ergon Ensemble | Nikos Nikopoulos, flute; Christina Pantelidou, english horn; Christos Sakellaridis, piano 4:27
05 Encounters Herbert Deutsch Nancy Deutsch, piano; Denise Lozano-Healey, flute 5:19
06 For Everett Herbert Deutsch Ergon Ensemble | Alexandros Botinis, cello; Christina Pantelidou, oboe; Christos Sakellaridis, piano 5:31
07 Iceland Invention Herbert Deutsch Belfiato Quintet | Jan Souček, oboe; Jiří Javůrek, clarinet; Kateřina Javůrková, french horn; Ondřej Šindelář, bassoon 5:14
08 All That Tread the Globe Herbert Deutsch The American Chamber Ensemble 5:11
09 Romantic Conversations (Live) Herbert Deutsch Nancy Deutsch, piano; Ben Wolfe, cello 8:12
10 When to Visit Donna Herbert Deutsch Darryl Kubian, electric violin; Paul Hefner, piano 4:16

A Piece for Denise, For Everett
Recorded May 19, 2020 at Dimitris Mitropoulos Concert Hall in Athens, Greece
Session Producer Tasos Rosopoulos
Session Engineer Nikos Espialidis

Iceland Invention
Recorded May 26, 2020 at Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum in Prague, Czech Republic
Session Producer Jan Košulič
Session Engineer Aleš Dvořák

All other tracks recorded between 2001 and 2020, at Hofstra University in Hempstead NY

Executive Producer Bob Lord

Executive A&R Sam Renshaw
A&R Director Brandon MacNeil

Recording Sessions Director Levi Brown
Audio Director, Editing (tracks 4, 6, 7) Lucas Paquette
Mastering Shaun Michaud
International Recording Sessions Manager Jan Košulič

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Patrick Niland, Sara Warner

Artist Information

Herbert Deutsch

Composer

Herbert Deutsch was a composer, author, educator, and performer, and was Professor of Music at Hofstra University for 57 years. He is a composer of music in various media and his work has been widely performed, and commissioned works have been featured at national and regional conferences. In 1972, Deutsch co-founded the Long Island Composers Alliance. During his career at Hofstra, he founded Jazz Ensemble, Electronic Music Studios, New Music Ensemble, and created the B.S. Degree programs in Jazz, Composition/Theory and Music Business. He received the George Estabrook Distinguished Alumni Award in 1996 and the Hofstra Alumni Achievement Award in 2001. The Music Department has established the Herbert Deutsch Award for highest honors in Music Education.

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Ergon Ensemble

Ergon Ensemble

Ergon is an Athens based contemporary music ensemble created in 2008 for performing works by living composers as well as masterpieces of the 20th and 21st-century avant-garde. Noted for its exciting interpretations and meticulous preparation, it has received praise from critics and audiences alike, making it the leading ensemble of its kind in Greece. An extremely flexible and versatile ensemble, Ergon is based on a core formation that is further reinforced, depending on the project, by a great number of guests and exceptionally talented musicians. Directed by a five-member musician team, responsible for planning, and collaborations, its original and adventurous programming includes chamber and orchestral music, musical theatre works, dance, contemporary opera, and cinema.

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Notes

Although I couldn’t resist naming this jazz piece after the great Miles Davis, the music itself is quite different, reflecting my own years of jazz listening and playing. It combines a “classical” type of written jazz harmony and counterpoint with sections which grow from the basic material in order to “open up” for improvisation solos and accompaniment.

— Herb Deutsch

Sometimes the darkness is created by moonlight in the waters of a silent canal. Sometimes it is a mother’s cry. Sometimes it is the sudden joys of life and motherhood. The piece was written to be performed on the opening concert of The American Chamber Ensemble.

— Herb Deutsch

The Long Island Composers Alliance was formed by myself and Marga Richter in 1972. Just weeks before a performance in 2009, Denise Broadhurst, clarinetist and composer, passed away. I composed this piece in her honor and its first performance was played by the brilliant clarinet soloist Naomi Drucker. This is the recording of that performance.

— Herb Deutsch

This piece was composed as a reflection of a long time friend and neighbor from my past home in Baldwin NY. She has performed widely with the L.I. Composers Alliance.

— Herb Deutsch

Nancy and I were long time close friends. We fell in love, back in 1995, and married the following year. During the first ten years of our marriage, I composed this duet as well as everything else on this album except Woman In Darkness.

— Herb Deutsch

Nancy’s son Adam Blau is a musician and a composer of music for film and television. When his first child Everett, was born in 2006, I decided to compose this piece in Everett’s honor and as a love song to his father, Adam and his mother, Rebecca.

— Herb Deutsch

Nancy’s other son Daniel and his partner Eric were married in Iceland. At that time, same-sex marriage was not legal throughout the United States. Many members of both families flew from both East and West United States for the wedding, spending a long happy weekend with each other and travelling that beautiful nation.

— Herb Deutsch

For over 20 years, the L.I. Composers Alliance played an annual performance at the Bryant Library in Roslyn NY. Bryant, a poet and writer of the early 18th Century, was the writer of the poem “All That Tread the Globe” which, I am sorry to say, I have not read.

— Herb Deutsch

When, as Department Chairman, I established a string quartet at Hofstra University, I was again looking for a love song to give to my wife Nancy. Always fond of the cello, I felt it would be a pleasure to write the sense of a romantic relationship between the voice of the cello and piano. The cellist, at that time a member of the Hofstra Quartet was Ben Wolfe, and he and Nancy made this performance in March, 2001.

— Herb Deutsch

In the first year of our marriage, Nancy and I drove across the country in our Porsche roadster. On the return, we had stopped in Indiana and were fascinated by the state having two different time zones. I composed this piece using references to Charlie Parker’s “Donna Lee”. As a joke, I use many frequent beat and tempo changes over the constantly changing harmonies.

— Herb Deutsch