Violist Rose Wollman Releases New Album Celebrating 100th Anniversary of Ligeti's Birth

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of composer György Ligeti in 2023, violist ROSE WOLLMAN's newly released album weaves the past and present together to cast Ligeti's monumental Sonata for Viola Solo (1991-1994) in a new light.

GRAMMY-nominated producer, GEOFFREY SILVER, executive producer for the label said, "When Rose approached me with this concept, I was bowled over by her vision and the depth of her research. She, her producer, Daniel Stein, and multi-GRAMMY-winning audio engineer, Bill Maylone, have recorded an album that will bring a towering genius of the twentieth century to a new audience, with his epic viola sonata contained within the warm embrace of six baroque and six living composers-including Rose herself."

Conceived as a set of 6 triptychs, the innovative program contextualizes Ligeti's Sonata as both inspired by the past and inspirational to composers of today. Each of the six movements is paired first with a baroque work, and then a newly commissioned work that draws inspiration from its baroque-Ligeti pairing.

ROSE WOLLMAN says, "Ligeti enjoyed writing for the viola, and described its tone as, 'unique...with the aftertaste of wood, earth, and tannic acid.' It has been an honor developing and recording this program, and bringing so many composer friends together to celebrate Ligeti's centenary."

SILVER continues, "The sound of Rose's viola reminds me of the very best recordings of the Bach cello suites, and Ithink it is this warmth that makes for such a compelling listening experience that makes one want to enjoy the wholesweep and story of the album again and again. It's a really stunning project."

Wollman's program also features works by:

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), Domenico Gabrielli (1659-1690), Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704); and Garth Knox (b. 1956), Alexander Mansour (b. 1997), Rose Wollman (b. 1982), Atar Arad (b. 1945), Melia Watras (b. 1969), and Natalie Williams (b. 1977). Wollman has published her transcriptions and arrangements of the baroque pairings, and they are available to purchase as a suite: www.vlatutti.com

One of the leading composers of the avant-garde, GYÖRGY LIGETI was a Hungarian-Austrian composer who was born in Transylvania, Romania, becoming an Austrian citizen in 1968. Later becoming professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in the early 1970s, Ligeti died in Vienna in 2006. He became more widely acknowledged after his music was incorporated into significant cinematic art, most notably in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A champion of new music, Dr. Rose Wollman (Indiana University Jacobs School of Music) was recently hailed as "innovative" and "stylish" by the Chicago Classical Review, and has performed in Carnegie Hall, the Krannert Center, Constitution Hall, Suntory Hall (Japan), and KKL (Switzerland). This is her Acis debut.

The album drops on October 4 and will be entered in next year's classical GRAMMY awards. Acis is the classical imprint of Acis Productions LLC.