Known as the nation's foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to new and 20th Century music, BMOP/sound today announced its 53rd and latest album release, Wayne Peterson: Transformations: the first-ever commercial recording of Peterson's orchestral work The Face of the Night, The Heart of the Dark, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. Under conductor Gil Rose, the musicians of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) continue to bring seminal contemporary American masterworks out of the shadows.
Despite winning the Pulitzer, Peterson's symphony never received another performance after its 1991 premiere by the San Francisco Symphony. "I am shocked that no one has performed and/or recorded this piece in over two decades," says Gil Rose, Artistic Director and Conductor of BMOP. "We are thrilled to be presenting a landmark in the discography of American modernism."
Peterson's Pulitzer win touched off a debate about the procedures by which the winner is selected. The Pulitzer Prize board overruled the recommendation of its music jury and awarded the prize to Peterson. Peterson told The New York Times: "I had sent the work in as a lark, and I didn't think I had even a remote chance of winning. I have won other awards, but the prestige of the Pulitzer is greater than that of the others. The controversy has made it a little different. I just hope the pall that it has cast will not jeopardize what the Pulitzer could mean in helping circulate my music."
The disc's title work, Transformations, is a study in Peterson's rigorous, inventive compositional craftsmanship and aesthetic philosophy. Peterson describes As the Winds Shall Blow as a "fantasy for saxophone quartet, winds, and percussion"- BMOP is joined by the saxophonists of the distinguished PRISM Quartet.
About BMOP/sound? BMOP/sound, BMOP's independent record label, was created in 2008 to provide a platform for BMOP's extensive archive of music, as well as to provide widespread, top-quality, permanent access to both classics of the 20th century and the music of today's most innovative composers. BMOP/sound has garnered praise from the national and international press; it is the recipient of six Grammy Award nominations and its releases have appeared on the year-end "Best of" lists of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Time Out New York, American Record Guide, Downbeat Magazine, WBUR, NewMusicBox, and others. Admired, praised, and sought after by artists, presenters, critics, and audiophiles, BMOP and BMOP/sound are uniquely positioned to redefine the new music concert and recording experience
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