Reflections upon a September morn features poetry by Walt Whitman and is the composers remembrance of the events of 9/11. Featuring Kate Maroney, mezzo-soprano; Virginia Brewer, oboe and English horn; and James Adler, piano, this 8-minute work is released by Albany Records as a digital single available for download only.
Employing words from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” from “Leaves of Grass,” that, though written a century-and-a-half earlier, sound hauntingly prescient in their pertinence to the present-day disaster…As set by Adler, Whitman’s lines—“I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken,/Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,/Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,/I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,/They have clear’d the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth”—resonate chillingly anew in the recording. — Bruce-Michael Gelbert, [Q]onStage.com
The performance is wonderful; Kate Moroney sings with fervor, Virginia Brewer and James Adler accompany brilliantly. The whole is recommended, a fine, moving piece. — Paul Turok, Turok’s Choice