BMOP/Sound Releases 95th Album: 'Samuel Jones Three Concerti'

Approaching its landmark 100th album, BMOP/sound today released Samuel Jones: Three Concertos, the premiere recording of three concerti by Grammy-nominated composer Samuel Jones.  This recording features three different instruments in works that brilliantly showcases each's capacity for expressivity and virtuosity.

Joining conductor Gil Rose and his intrepid ensemble the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) are superb soloists: principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Jeffrey Khaner, former concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Michael Ludwig, and principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic, Joseph Alessi. 

Canadian-born Samuel Jones (b.1935) first came into prominence as a conductor, one of the few Americans to advance through the ranks of the smaller American orchestras to become conductor of one of the major orchestras, the Rochester Philharmonic. He then achieved national recognition for his 24-year tenure at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. It was while serving for 14 years as Gerard Schwarz's composer-in-residence at Seattle Symphony, the longest tenure on record of such a residency with a major orchestra, when Jones wrote his first concerto late in his career.

“Schwarz was a major influence in encouraging and supporting my turning to the composition of concertos,” explains Jones. “Six concertos is the result, an achievement which the authors of my forthcoming biography delightfully refer to as a ‘a cascade of concertos'.”

The concerti presented in this recording—for flute (2018), violin (2014), and trombone (2009)—are all performed by players of virtuoso quality. Concerto for Flute and Orchestra was written for the Philadelphia Orchestra and soloist Jeffrey Khaner. An instrument dating to ancient times, the flute turned out to be the ideal voice to express what was in the heart and mind of Jones at the time of composition as he was grieving over the recent death of his brother. 

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra premiered by Anne Akiko Meyers with the All-Star Orchestra won Jones his sixth award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.  BMOP's performance here features highly sought-after violinist Michael Ludwig. Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra (subtitled “Vita Accademica”) is complete with musical references to a campus carillon, an “alma mater” hymn, and collegiate life.

Drawing on his own experience playing lower-brass instruments in high school, Jones knows firsthand what the trombone can do. He later said he wanted this concerto to show “the entire range of the instrument,” which he confesses makes it “not an easy concerto.” On this recording, trombonist Joseph Alessi takes on the challenge with considerable elan and bravado.

About BMOP

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is the premier orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A unique institution of crucial artistic importance to today's musical world, BMOP exists to disseminate exceptional orchestral music of the present and recent past via performances and recordings of the highest caliber.

Founded by Artistic Director Gil Rose in 1996, BMOP has championed composers whose careers span nine decades. Each season, Rose brings BMOP's award-winning orchestra, renowned soloists, and influential composers to the stage of New England Conservatory's historic Jordan Hall in a series that offers orchestral programming of unrivaled eclecticism.

Musical America's 2016 Ensemble of the Year, BMOP was awarded the 2021 Special Achievement Award from Gramophone Magazine as “an organization that has championed American music of the 20th and 21st century with passion and panache.” The musicians of BMOP are consistently lauded for the energy, imagination, and passion with which they infuse the music of the present era. BMOP.org

About Gil Rose       

Gil Rose is one of today's most trailblazing conductors, praised as “amazingly versatile” (The Boston Globe) with “a sense of style and sophistication” (Opera News). Equally at home performing core repertoire, new music, and lesser-known historic symphonic and operative works, “Gil Rose is not just a fine conductor, but a peerless curator, sniffing out—and commissioning—off-trend, unheralded, and otherwise underplayed repertoire, that nevertheless holds to unfailingly high standards of quality.

In doing so, he's built an indefinable, but unmistakable, personal aesthetic” (WQXR). A global leader in American contemporary music, Grammy Award-winner Rose is the founder of the performing and recording ensemble the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), who “bring an endlessly curious and almost archaeological mind to programming…with each concert, each recording, an essential step in a better direction” (The New York Times), as well as the founder of Odyssey Opera, praised by The New York Times as “bold and intriguing.” GilRoseConductor.com

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 a 2020 Grammy Award for Tobias Picker: Fantastic Mr. Fox as well as eight 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, 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. Launched in 2019, BMOP's digital radio station, BMOP/radio, streams BMOP/sound's entire catalog and airs special programming. BMOP.org

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