Pierce / Derham - Sun & Other Stars [CD]

From the exuberant, singular American composer Forrest Pierce comes a collection of glittering major works for strings and voice. His subjects are the sheen of dragonflies, sacred birch bark scrolls, and the cataclysmic nature of ecstatic mystical experience, interpreted by renowned cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman and an all-star roster of musicians. At the center of the album is The Dante Samadhi, the epic setting of Canto XXXIII from Dante's Paradiso, a Western account of enlightenment made vivid with echoes of Monteverdi, Britten, and Pierce's own ecstatic melodic language and searing vision of tonality. Blistering, virtuosic passagework and hankering emptiness share the stage in Silver Birch Scroll for solo cello with Aspen trees, and in the fiery string trio Lord of June. The Sun and Other Stars reveals a masterful, passionate compositional voice in service of a vision of unbridled joy, unlike that of any other composer.