La Tragédie de Salomé • Musique sur l'eau

Schmitt: La Tragédie de Salomé • Musique sur l'eau 

ARTISTS: Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra; JoAnn Falletta (conductor); Women's Choir of Buffalo; Susan Platts; Nikki Chooi 
COMPOSER: Florent Schmitt 
LABEL: Naxos   |   8574138 (UPC: 747313413874) 

GRAMMY® CATEGORIES SUBMITTED INTO:
Classical Compendium 
Engineered Album, Classical 
Producer of the Year, Classical 

Florent Schmitt was a student of Massenet and Fauré, and winner of the coveted Prix de Rome. His impressionistic style blends influences ranging from Debussy to Wagner, with references to Stravinsky and other contemporaries. Conceived as a ballet but revised as a symphonic poem, La Tragédie de Salomé depicts Salome’s dangerous seductiveness with subtle magnificence. Narrative symbolism also applies to the evocative word painting of the exquisite Musique sur l’eau. The perilous saga of Oriane et le Prince d’Amour contrasts with the poetic tapestry of orchestral colors in Légende, in a version that replaces the original solo saxophone with violin. This is the world premiere recording of the exquisite Musique sur l’eau featuring mezzo-soprano Susan Platts, and Légende in its version for violin and orchestra, marking BPO concertmaster Nikki Chooi’s Naxos debut as soloist.

JoAnn Falletta

GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and music director laureate of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. She has guest conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in America, Canada and throughout Europe, Asia and South America. As music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American ensemble. Credited with bringing the Philharmonic to an unprecedented level of national and international prominence, she is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual GRAMMY® Awards, including the 2021 GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance as Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic in the world premiere Naxos recording, Richard Danielpour’s “The Passion of Yeshua”. In 2019, she won her first individual Grammy Award as conductor of the London Symphony in the Best Classical Compendium category for Spiritualist, her fifth world premiere recording of the music of Kenneth Fuchs. Her Naxos recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan with the BPO received two Grammys in 2008. From 2011 to 2014 she served as principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra, with whom she made her BBC Proms debut and recorded six highly acclaimed Naxos albums. She was the first woman and the first American to fill this post. Falletta is a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has served as a member of the National Council on the Arts, is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards and was named Performance Today’s Classical Woman of the Year 2019.

For more information, visit www.joannfalletta.com.

BUFFALO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Founded in 1935, the GRAMMY® Award-winning Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) is Buffalo’s leading cultural ambassador and presents more than 120 classics, pops and youth concerts each year. Since 1940, the orchestra’s permanent home has been Kleinhans Music Hall. In 2013, the BPO made its 24th appearance at Carnegie Hall as a participant in the Spring For Music festival. In March 2018, it became the first American orchestra to perform at the Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw, Poland. Over the decades, the BPO has matured in stature under leading conductors, including William Steinberg, Josef Krips, Lukas Foss, Michael Tilson Thomas, Maximiano Valdés, Semyon Bychkov and Julius Rudel. During the tenure of JoAnn Falletta, the BPO has rekindled its distinguished history of radio broadcasts and recordings, including the release of around 50 albums of diverse repertoire on the Naxos and Beau Fleuve Records labels. The Philharmonic’s Naxos recording of composer John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (8.559331), featuring soprano Hila Plitmann, received GRAMMY® Awards in the Best Classical Vocal Performance and Best Classical Contemporary Composition categories.

For more information, please visit: https://bpo.org/

Susan Platts 

Susan Platts brings a uniquely rich and wide-ranging voice to the concert and recital repertoire, and is particularly esteemed for her performances of Mahler’s works. She is a Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Fellow, which gave her the opportunity to study with Jessye Norman. Platts has performed with, among others, The Philadelphia, Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, Orchestre de Paris and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She has collaborated with leading conductors including Marin Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis and Osmo Vänskä. Recent highlights include her Royal Opera House, Covent Garden debut in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, John Adams’ Nixon in China for the BBC Proms, and the premiere of a new work by Howard Shore with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Platts features on a Naxos release of the chamber version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (8.573536). She has recorded the full version of the work with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Smithsonian Chamber Players, and the Lieder of Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms on the ATMA Classique label.

For more information, please visit: https://www.susanplatts.com/ 

Nikki Chooi 

Canadian violinist Nikki Chooi has established himself as an artist of rare versatility, receiving critical acclaim for recent engagements at Carnegie Hall and Kaufman Music Center in New York and Place des Arts in Montreal. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras across the world, and has been featured at many international festivals. He has embarked on nationwide tours with Musicians from Marlboro in the US, as a soloist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada, and across New Zealand and Australia. Chooi is currently concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and has previously served as concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He has worked with conductors such as Fabio Luisi, Leonard Slatkin and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and has appeared as guest concertmaster with the Houston, Pittsburgh and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. A passionate educator, Chooi has presented masterclasses at prestigious international institutions. A recipient of prizes at the Queen Elisabeth and International Tchaikovsky Competitions, he released his album of works by Prokofiev, Ravel and Gershwin on Atoll Records in 2013.

https://www.nikkichooi.com/