Classical Recording Foundation Honors 2012 Award Winners at Carnegie Hall, 11/20

The Classical Recording Foundation (CRF) has announced the 2012 winners of its eleventh annual Classical Recording Foundation Awards.

Four prizes will be presented at the Foundation’s Annual Awards Concert and Benefit at 7:30pm on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. The event, for which the public may purchase tickets, will feature CRF Young Artist of the Year harpist Bridget Kibbey performing music by Paquito D’Rivera, Kinan Azmeh, and David Bruce; soprano Elizabeth Futral and pianist Margo Garrett in selections from CRF Composer of the Year Philip Lasser's Les Visages de L’Amour from his album Colors of Feelings (Delos; October 30); Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artists Award winners Barbara Govatos and Marcantonio Barone in selections from their new recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Violin and Piano (Bridge; December 2012); and Classical Recording Foundation Award winner harpsichordist Gerald Ranck performing selections from J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (Cantilena, forthcoming). The proceeds from the 2012 Classical Recording Foundation Award Ceremony and Benefit will go toward the 2013 Awards.

The Classical Recording Foundation (CRF) was formed to address the growing needs of classical musicians who have found it increasingly difficult to recording their musical visions. The Foundation applies the universal model of philanthropically supported live concerts to the recording of new classical performances. Since 2002, when it was founded by Grammy Award winning producer Adam Abeshouse, CRF has supported more than 40 new recordings. Criteria for Classical Recording Foundation Awards include artistic merit of the project, historic significance, strategic value to the artist’s career, and breadth of interest. CRF encourages artists to release performances of their choosing, of music about which they are passionate.

CRF’s Young Artist of the Year harpist Bridget Kibbey is being honored for her forthcoming album, Music Box. Music Box features virtuosic pieces for solo harp that celebrate the cultural fabric which shapes the U.S., as well as Kibbey’s compelling, communicative power and diversity as an artist. The album, which also includes a guest appearance by soprano Dawn Upshaw, re-defines the role of the harp as each international composer uses the instrument to dialogue about his/her cultural inspiration and move to America. Lauded for her artistry and ability to captivate audiences, harpist Bridget Kibbey “makes it seem as thought her instrument had been waiting all its life to explode with the gorgeous colors and energetic figures she was getting from it” (The New York Times). She is a recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, a winner of Concert Artist Guild's International Competition and Astral Artist Auditions, and a former member of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS II. Bridget's debut album, Love is Come Again, was named one of 2007's Top Ten Releases by Time Out New York. She can also be heard on Deutsche Grammaphon with Dawn Upshaw, on a recording of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ayre and Luciano Berio’s Folk Songs. Kibbey's solo performances have been broadcast on NPR's Performance Today, on New York's WQXR, WNYC's Soundcheck, WETA’s Front Row Washington, WRTI’s Crossover, and A&E's Breakfast with the Arts.

CRF Composer of the Year Philip Lasser is being honored for his forthcoming release on Delos, Colors of Feelings, due at retail on October 30. Colors of Feelings includes three new vocal works performed by sopranos Elizabeth Futral and Susanna Phillips (CRF Young Artist of the Year 2011) that span across continents and epochs. On November 20, Futral and pianist Margo Garrett will perform selections from Les Visages de L’Amour, a song cycle comprising six varied love poems from important French poets such as Gérard Nerval, Paul Verlaine. Philip Lasser’s musical and personal background are colored by both the French and American cultures. His musical career began as a teenager at Nadia Boulanger’s Ecole d’Arts Americaines in Fontainbleau, where he studied with pianist Gaby Casadesus. After graduating from Harvard College, Lasser studied in Paris with Boulanger’s colleague Narcis Bonet. His music is heard frequently in a myriad of settings, from Simone Dinnerstein’s (CRF Awards 2006 and 2007) The Berlin Concert album on which she performs his Twelve Variations on a Chorale by J.S. Bach, to concerts by the Seattle Symphony and New York Chamber Symphony, as well as on CDs from New World Records and Crystal Records. He has also recently published a book, The Spiraling Tapestry: An Inquiry into the Contrapuntal Fabric of Music, which offers a pioneering view on Bach's compositional world.