Recordings and Videos

Just Before Sunrise by Gene Scheer, John Bucchino, David Cullen, Billy Joel, and Ben Moore

As Gunn reveals in the recording’s liner notes, it is this “in-between time” before sunrise that he sought to capture musically. The songs included here are also a direct expression of his own personality—a kind of musical autobiography. “I think you have to have a certain amount of experience behind you before you go off in this direction,” says Gunn. “This is like the kind of recording that singers made in the 1920s—lovely, well-crafted songs written by composers who were still alive. I wanted songs you could listen to in the context of modern life—songs that you could listen to while you’re commuting to work and that you could finish listening to at the end of the day, while you’re lying in bed.” Songs, in other words, for life’s quietest moments.

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Prokofiev - War and Peace / Bertini, Gunn, Kit, Mamsirova, Gouriakova, Brubaker, Paris Opera

When Sergei Prokofiev started work on a new opera, having just finished his opera Betrothal in a Monastery, he could not have envisaged that the theme, borrowed from Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace, would very soon become dreadful reality. It was just two months later that the German invasion of the Soviet Union began. By way of the conscious parallel to Napoleon’s historic invasion of Russia, Prokofiev’s opera became an attempt to strengthen the defense morale of his fellow countrymen in this "patriotic war," as Soviet historians of the Second World War call it. Prokofiev’s opera is divided into two separate parts. The first seven scenes depict the carefree, splendid life amongst the Russian aristocracy and put the love story, which ends through Natasha’s deception, into the centre. The seventh scene ends with the announcement that war has begun. The following six scenes of part two are dedicated to events during the war, beginning with the battle of Borodino and! ending with the escape of the Grande Armee and the liberation of Moscow. Although the first draft of the opera was meant to have been performed in two parts, on two seperate evenings, the opera was eventually trimmed down to fit into a single performance. However, Prokofiev would not live to see his opera performed in its entirety. SPECIAL FEATURES: The Making Of…

Nathan Gunn - "American Anthem" from Ragtime to Art Song / Kevin Murphy

Nathan's debut album with Kevin Murphy at the piano. A critic in Washington D.C. once wrote, "Nathan Gunn can make an art song sound like a folk song and vice versa." That describes this collection of American songs perfectly.

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Britten: Peter Grimes

Nathan sings the role of Ned Keene on this 2005 Grammy nominee for Best Classical Album.

This new recording of Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes was released on the London Symphony Orchestra's own label LSO Live with Sir Colin Davis conducting a performance at the Barbican in January 2004. The cast is led by Glenn Winslade, Janice Watson and Anthony Michaels-Moore. This second recording by Davis has won plaudits for conductor, orchestra and chorus, Gramophone describing the performance as "a stunning achievement".

Adams: Shaker Loops/Wound Dresser/Short Ride in Fast Machine

Nathan sings John Adam's "The Wound-Dresser" on this recording with Marin Alsop and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Shaker Loops written in 1978 in the heyday of American minimalism, helped to earn John Adams (b.1947) a place as one of the most famous living composers and continues to be one of his most frequently peformed works; its technique of looping fragments of melody is borrowed from Steve Reich's early tape experiments. Short Ride in a Fast machine is four minutes of pure aural adrenaline, and The Wound-Dresser, is a pensive adaptation of Walt Whitman's poem about his experiences as a nurse during the Civil War.

Bernstein - Symphony No, 1 'Jeremiah'; Concerto for Orchestra, 'Jubilee Games'

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: James Judd
Label: Naxos
Release date: February 2004

Brahms: A German Requiem

Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Conductor: Craig Jessop
Label: Telarc
Release date: September 1999

Barber: Prayers of Kierkegaard/Bartok: Cantata profanna/Vaughan Williams: Dona nobis pacem

1999 Grammy Winner - Best Classical Album & Best Choral Performance

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
Conductor: Robert Shaw
Label: Telarc
Release date: March 1998

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