Guitarist/composer Ben Verdery’s new album “A Giant Beside You” features the award-winning Ulysses Quartet
World premiere recordings include music by Bryce Dessner, Leonard Bernstein, Verdery himself; plus music by Javier Farías
Release date: June 16, 2023 on ReEntrant/New Focus
"[Verdery is] an iconoclastic player" - The New York Times
Ben Verdery plays classical and electric guitar with the award-winning Ulysses Quartet on his new album, “A Giant Beside You” (rel. June 16 on ReEntrant/New Focus). The recording features a work written for him by Bryce Dessner, a longtime friend and collaborator. Also on the album – the 17th title in his discography – is Verdery’s arrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata for classical guitar and string quartet, Chilean composer Javier Farías’ “Andean Suite,” and two of Verdery’s original compositions. Nearly all are world premiere recordings.
About his “Quintet for High Strings” Bryce Dessner says, “The work was composed for my dear friend, Ben Verdery, who has been a part of my life for nearly twenty-five years. This quintet brings me back to my primary instrument — the guitar — and my relationship with Ben, which was so formative in my development as a musician. In this new piece, I am exploring my relationship to the instrument in a new way.”
The two original compositions on this album by Verdery are related: a theme in “About to Fall” is heard in the opening motif of “A Giant Beside You.” The former is an homage to the late composer Ingram Marshall, a close friend of Verdery's. The latter takes inspiration from Sly and the Family Stones’ classic song “Stand!”. Verdery also puts his compositional prowess to use in an arrangement of Bernstein’s Clarinet Sonata. “It was evident from the outset that the clarinet part simply played on the guitar would not be musically satisfying,” he said. His solutions included having one of the violinists play in unison with the guitar from time to time, and giving passages with sustained notes to the cello or viola. Also, said Verdery, “to my utter delight, several of the piano passages played beautifully on the guitar.”
The album closer, “Andean Suite” by Javier Farías, evokes Andean folklore, from the Peruvian Yawar Fiesta (a symbolic fight celebrating the power of the indigenous people over the Spanish), to an Andean music form called huayno, and the Bolivian dance Diablada.
Contact ClassicalCommunications@gmail.com to request a physical CD or digital copy of this recording.
A Giant Beside You
Ben Verdery, guitar
Ulysses Quartet
(Christina Bouey and Rhiannon Banerdt, violins; Colin Brookes, viola; Grace Ho, cello)
ReEntrant/New Focus Records (REN04)
Release date: June 16, 2023
TRACKS
Bryce Dessner
[01] Quintet for High Strings* 18:02
composed for and dedicated to Ben Vedery
Leonard Bernstein
Clarinet Sonata (arr. string quartet and guitar by Ben Verdery)*
[02] Grazioso 03:36
[03] Andantino-Vivace Leggiero 07:15
Ben Verdery
[04] About to Fall* 03:12
[05] A Giant Beside You* 06:47
Javier Farías
Andean Suite
[06] Yawar Fiesta 05:42
[07] Huayno 07:19
[08] Diablada 03:30
Total: 55:23
*indicates world premiere recording
Recommended tracks for classical radio:
[02] Bernstein: Clarinet Sonata – Grazioso
[07] Farías: Andean Suite – Huyano
[08] Farías: Andean Suite – Diablada
BIOGRAPHIES
Hailed for his innovative and eclectic musical career, Benjamin Verdery tours regularly throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia, performing at major venues and festivals. As a recording artist, Verdery has released more than 17 albums, some featuring works composed especially for Verdery by Martin Bresnick, Roberto Sierra, Aaron Jay Kernis, Hannah Lash, Christopher Theofanidis, Ezra Laderman, Bryce Dessner, Ingram Marshall and others. Verdery has recorded and performed with scores of diverse artists, including Andy Summers, Leo Kottke, Anthony Newman, Jessye Norman, Herman Prey, Paco Peña, John Williams, hip-hop artist Billy Dean Thomas, Jiji, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. A prolific, published composer, many of Verdery’s compositions have been performed and/or recorded by John Williams, David Russell, the Assad Duo, Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and Guitar Trek. He has been commissioned to compose works for guitar solo, duo, large ensembles, and film. Since 1985, Verdery has been guitar professor at the Yale School of Music. From 2007-2019 he served as Artistic Director of 92NY’s Art of the Guitar series and has been Producer of the Maui Summer Master Class since 1999.
The Ulysses Quartet has been praised for its “textural versatility,” “grave beauty” and “the kind of chemistry many quartets long for, but rarely achieve” (The Strad). Founded in the summer of 2015, the group won top prizes at the Fischoff National Chamber Music, Schoenfeld, Vietnam, and Osaka international chamber music competitions. Violinists Christina Bouey and Rhiannon Banerdt, violist Colin Brookes and cellist Grace Ho hail from Canada, the United States and Taiwan and hold degrees from The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory and Yale School of Music. Ulysses Quartet was the Juilliard Graduate Resident String Quartet as Lisa Arnhold Fellows (2019-2022)
Javier Farías’ music has been performed and recorded by guitarists Eliot Fisk, Ben Verdery, David Tanenbaum, Ricardo Cobo, Carlos Perez, Andy Summers (legendary rock guitarist of The Police), jazz-fusion guitarist Mike Stern and others. In 2014 Farías was awarded a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University. He won first prizes for his compositions in the Andrés Segovia Contest, the Michele Pittaluga Competition for Classical Guitar, and the 2 Agosto International Competition.
Bryce Dessner is a vital and rare force in new music. He has won Grammy Awards as a classical composer and with the band The National, of which he is founding member, guitarist, arranger, and co-principal song-writer. He is regularly commissioned to write for the world’s leading ensembles, from Orchestre de Paris to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and is a high-profile presence in film score composition, with credits including The Revenant, for which he was Grammy and Golden Globe nominated, Fernando Mereilles’s The Two Popes, Mike Mill’s C’mon C’mon and Bardo, by Alejandro González Iñárritu.