Gramophone Award WINNER 2009 - Contemporary
To mark its 20th Anniversary in 2009 NMC Recordings has commissioned the NMC Songbook. Nearly 100 composers, ranging from the country’s most highly regarded figures to the younger generation of emerging talents, have each written a song, loosely themed on ‘Britain’ and scored for single voice or duet and a range of accompanying instruments. Songs are interspersed with instrumental interludes from an arrangement of a Galliard by Thomas Morley, specially made for the Songbook by NMC’s Executive Producer, composer Colin Matthews.
The songs have been set to text chosen by the composers and cover a vast array of subjects, from traditional poems by Blake and Byron through to a list of the Kings and Queens of England, extracts from a National Trust brochure, chants from the Leyton Orient terraces, a whisky recipe, and a colourful rant about our consumerist society. · The first recording to be made at the new state-of-the-art concert hall at Kings Place, London.
4-CD set with special packaging and a 60-page booklet.
Reviews
“…anyone listening to these discs will find many things to savour… It is, inevitably an eclectic mix, but, as in any well-planned song recital, the progressions and juxtapositions are continually stimulating,” BBC Music Magazine, May 2009
“Unpredictable, audacious, exhilarating and continually fascinating the Songbook is an outstanding project” International Record Review
“The performances are uniformly superb...The more one listens, the more one gains from this set.” The Guardian, 17th April 2009
“Composer Bayan Northcott gives an invaluable overview of British music in a programme essay. Recorded in London's Kings Place and beautifully sung and played by more than two dozen top performers.” The Observer, 12th April 2009
