ONYX Classics releases TRANSATLANTIC on October, 29!

THE STORY BEHIND TRANSATLANTIC & THE BERLIN ACADEMY OF AMERICAN MUSIC
by Garrett Keast

In November of 2020 two friends, American composer Craig Urquhart and Greek flutist Stathis Karapanos and I began discussing the possibility of recording a new, orchestrated version of Craig’s Lamentation. I had heard Craig’s piano version of the piece and found it deeply touching. Stathis and Christoph Eschenbach had premiered the work for flute and piano that summer at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, where he was honored with the 2020 Leonard Bernstein Award.

Stathis and I recognized the opportunity to produce a high level project, and we became partners in the making of something bigger. We wanted Craig’s piece set as the foundational work, and we began to think of what repertoire could accompany this. I suggested we look for more repertoire that would feature Stathis, and the idea quickly grew from recording just the Lamentation for Flute and Strings into recording an entire album. For weeks there was a flurry of communication between us, with multiple calls a day, back and forth, as we worked together to build a program and develop a concept that would express a unifying theme of connection between our worlds.

I thought of Craig, an American-now-Berliner and long-time executive of the Leonard Bernstein Office. I was also steeped in life as a Berliner, and I thought perhaps the connection for works could be the fact they, too, had a transatlantic theme. Being an American conductor who is often asked to perform American repertoire, I looked to works by Americans and American immigrant composers, and even to those who wrote works based on American ideals or stories. I was excited to find Stathis equally inspired to record works that focused around this idea.

Just two months after our conversations began, we finalized the repertoire together and the orchestra was formed. The album was recorded in January and February of 2021 against all odds, in the winter and at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were able to rehearse and record Transatlantic in one of Germany’s legendary recording locations, Teldex Studios, with an incredible team of musicians, producers, and engineers.

FOUNDING AN ORCHESTRA DURING THE PANDEMIC

The first signs of life for the Berlin Academy of American Music began coming together with my friend Rosie Salvucci (American bassist and fellow Berliner) six months prior to the making of this album. In the pandemic summer of 2020 - simply for the sake of doing so - we decided to organize some impromptu, distanced orchestra readings with repertoire that could easily be played in a studio in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. We invited professional musicians who we thought would enjoy chamber orchestra works by American composers like Stravinsky and Copland. Everyone enjoyed the collaborations, and experiencing this kind of repertoire with these musicians during this time was special.

We are all quite fond of the fact that the transatlantic theme of this album also occurs throughout the orchestra’s personnel. The musicians on this recording are from a tapestry of nationalities spanning five continents. While conversing during the coffee breaks of the recording sessions, we learned from each other that more than half of the orchestra either came from the U.S. or had studied there.