North of Niagara

1. Cootes Paradise

2. Ravensview

3. Remember Summer

4. Old Mail Road

5. Mount Nemo

6. Silent Lake

7. Avening

8. Crook's Hollow

9. Headwater Trail

10. Crawford Lake

11. Green River Formation

12. Lookout Point

North of Niagara,Mychael Danna and Tim Clément,Hearts of Space,Ambient,Electronic,Jazz Music,Neo-Classical,New Age / Meditation,Pop,Progressive Alternative

Average customer rating:

UFO: The Music of Michael Daugherty

Manufacturer: Klavier
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Symphonies | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

Marches | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Classic Big Band | Swing Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

Classical | Indie Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Daugherty: Metropolis Symphony/Bizarro
Michael Daugherty: Philadelphia Stories; UFO
Sojourns
Recollections
Wind Dances

ASIN: B00005Y8K8
Release Date: 2001-11-06

Tracks:

Daugherty: The UFO Concerto
Daugherty: Desi
Daugherty: The Red Cape Tango
Daugherty: Motown Metal
Daugherty: Niagara Falls

Average customer rating:

A Beautiful Album
Silent Lake
??????
Life-Changing, Heartbreaking, Haunting Music !
A masterpiece of reflective and wistful music

North of Niagara
Danna & Clément
Manufacturer: Hearts of Space
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Ambient | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Electronica | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Styles | Music

Meditation | New Age | Styles | Music

General | New Age | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B000000X6Q
Release Date: 1995-02-07

Tracks:

Cootes Paradise
Ravensview
Remember Summer
Old Mail Road
Mount Nemo
Silent Lake
Avening
Crook's Hollow
Headwater Trail
Crawford Lake
Green River Formation
Lookout Point

Product Description

1. Cootes Paradise
2. Ravensview
3. Remember Summer
4. Old Mail Road
5. Mount Nemo
6. Silent Lake
7. Avening
8. Crook's Hollow
9. Headwater Trail
10. Crawford Lake
11. Greeen River Formation
12. Lookout Point

Format: CD

Customer Reviews:

A Beautiful Album.......2006-02-11

It's been almost eight years from the time I first heard "Cootes Paradise" on a Hearts of Space compilation to actually buying the album it comes from, but I'm glad I didn't do it earlier as this CD will now remind me of the 2005/2006 transition, a time of contemplation, winter's chill and optimism that this music reflects perfectly.

I enjoy the synthesizer-produced ambient tracks more than the piano pieces (other than "Cootes Paradise," which is remarkable in its minimalism), with "Ravensview" and "Green River Formation" being two gems in particular that I wish were longer than just a few minutes.

"Remember Summer" seems out of place as it is more heavily layered and structured than the other tracks, and includes an accordian which unfortunately gives it the feel of a 1950s Parisian cafe, but it's still listenable. The slide guitar of both this track and "Crawford Lake" are less intrusive than on the Danna album "Sirens" where they take on an almost Hawaiian sound.

I've had this album in my car's CD player for over two months now and listen to at least part of it every day -- normally I grow bored with music after this much air time and might not listen to it for months or even years after, but I've yet to have that happen with "North of Niagara." Somehow it seems to fit every environment or mood I'm in, and it will stay on heavy rotation.

Silent Lake.......2005-11-03

"Silent Lake" was the name of the HOS program where I first met this recording. Although concurring with the general feeling of melancholia addressed by other reviewers, I always saw this audio landscape as more of a reflection of solitude, amplified by the subdued ambient wilderness sounds, much as one would hear along the Bruce Trail.

Of the tracks, "Remember Summer" strikes a particular chord with me. The steel guitar of Kim Deschamps and Gene Goral's accordian add to the reflective nature of the piece.

Highly recommended.

??????.......2003-11-14

This is a very interesting album released by the canadian duo Danna & Clement.North of Niagara was inspired by Canada's oldest footpath, the one called Bruce Trail.Well, I 've never been there but this music evokes in me colorful pictures of winter and fall; it makes me dream of magenta seas and gives me a clue of what this particular landscape is like.Who said that music can't talk?... Really nice work.I love it. :-)

Life-Changing, Heartbreaking, Haunting Music !.......2001-01-10

You ask how an album of mere music can change a person's life? Well, try this one. Sometime, during the summer, go on a journey, somewhere you have never been before, and take this album with you. You will come back transformed. This music will weave incredible magic into any journey, whether it is to the Bruce Trail or simply to the wild outback of your own home state. Heartbreaking, haunting, timeless music. Anyone who loves contemplative music will treasure this album. One of the greatest albums of "new serious music" from the 90's.

A masterpiece of reflective and wistful music.......2000-06-16

North of Niagara is easily one of the best somber and melancholic works of ambient music around. Mychael Danna and Tim Clement have combined forces once again and this time produced a work so sublime, so rich with emotional power, that it is near essential for any fan of new age or ambient music.

The music itself combines the "feel" of acoustic music (thanks to piano and some other instruments) with the textures of ambient, since electronic keyboards as used as well. The results are tone poems that are sad, starkly beautiful and immensely compelling.

The inspiration for the music comes from the "Bruce Trail" a very long hiking path through the Canadian forest "north of Niagara" (hence the title). One can easily feel transported (helped along by very discrete use of nature sounds on the CD) to the walking path in late summer or early fall. The mood of the music is grey and somber, so I usually picture the scene as mid to late autumn.

Tracks:

Young: Tempered Steel (1997)
-5. Grantham: Southern Harmony (1998)
Gillingham: Concertino for Four Percussion (1997)
Sousa: Easter Monday on the White House Lawn (1928)
-9. Welcher: Symphony No. 3 'Shaker Life' (1997)
Hagen/Spede: Wedding Dances from "Bandanna" (1998)
Daugherty: Niagara Falls (1997)

Customer Reviews:

Standout!.......2003-04-19

Wow! I listened to this CD today and thought that the "Wedding Dances from Bandanna" were just amazing! The piece was being played by a band, but it seemed to me that the composer was treating the band as though it were an orchestra -- so many wonderful colors, so many avoided cliches! It made me want to hear the full opera, which, like "The Good Soldier Schweik," utilizes only winds in the pit. I hear that Arabesque may be releasing it next year under Hagen's baton and I'll be looking out for it.

Klavier release sports generally "good" band music.......2000-05-23

One of the aims of the Klavier Wind Recording Project is the promotion of new music for wind ensemble. The North Texas Wind Symphony scores big with this release (save for the Sousa march, which seems oddly out of place), featuring substantial works by several "returning" Klavier composers.

Sojourns opens with a rousing performance of young composer and saxophonist Charles Young's "Tempered Steel," a 1997 Big 12 Band Director's commission that explores some of the more metallic band sonorities. Granted, this percussion-heavy work is not mind-blowingly cerebral but it does feature some memorable melodies and interesting interplay between various solo instruments. University of Texas professor Donald Grantham's "Southern Harmony," based on tunes from an 1835 American song collection of the same name features some inventive wind writing within its multi-movement, flavorful band settings. Grantham has found great favor with audiences everywhere and his other works for wind ensemble are also highly recommended. The jazz-tinged "Bum's Rush" and his brilliant "Fantasy Variations" are available on the Klavier discs Tributes (KCD 11070) and Soundings (KCD 11098), respectively. This autumn, his "J'eu ete au bal" will be released on an upcoming Klavier disc. David Gillingham's 1997 "Concertino for Four Percussion and Wind Ensemble," commissioned by Oklahoma State University, begins with a dark and brooding introduction, gradually revealing its thematic material only to ebb away to prepare for the colorful and furious allegro. North Texas turns in an excellent performance here, but the recording of the premiere by the Oklahoma State University Wind Ensemble at the 8th annual WASBE Conference will likely remain the one by which all others are judged.

At this point, the listener will encounter the first of two oddities on the disc. While marches are a necessary and valuable part of any band's repetoire, the choice of march king and Marine bandsman John Philip Sousa's rarely-heard "Easter Monday on the White House Lawn" is a bit strange. Intended to replace a coronation march within a suite that had been rejected by King George V (if I understand the liner notes correctly), and rehashed for an annual egg-rolling White House festivity, "Easter Monday" sounds more like a light two-step than a typical Sousa march. If a march had to be included here, I would have personally prefered, say, his much more rousing "Pathfinder of Panama" or another lesser-known march to be sandwiched between the Gillingham and Welcher works.

Dan Welcher, another UT-Austin faculty member, has established himself with many works for varied ensembles, including his wind band works such as "Yellowstone Fires," "Zion," and the one presented here, "Symphony No. 3 'Shaker Life.'" Having expressed an interest in religious practices outside the American mainstream, Welcher quotes several Shaker tunes in his two-movement work. Richly-scored, deep, moving, and very satisfying, this is one of this album's center-pieces. Daron Hagen's "Wedding Dances" from his opera "Bandanna" (which is the first opera to utilize full wind ensemble rather than orchestra) follows. This is the other oddity on this disc after Sousa. While the music is interesting, beginning with an effervescent sound and progressively becoming more agitated, its place on this particular program just doesn't quite jive with this listener. The opera itself from which the "Dances" are derived take place in a 1968 Texas border town, and this particular section in the second act captures the jealousy one man harbors against his wife and her innocent dancing at an "all-but-happy" wedding reception. Fans of Michael Daugherty's music will enjoy seeing his 1997 "Niagara Falls" on this Klavier disc. While not completely idiomatic of the wind band idiom, this work is definitely a tour de force for it. An impression of the composer's many trips to Niagara Falls, the entire work is built on two motives (one derived from the mere four syllables of the words "Niagara Falls"), and the other a bluesy riff. Those listeners familiar with Daugherty's "Metropolis Symphony" can look forward to the band transcription of the fifth movement, the "Red Cape Tango," on an upcoming Klavier disc this autumn.

All-around, this is an enjoyable compact disc furnishing works that would otherwise wait sometime to be recorded. North Texas turns in superlative performances here. While the merit of the actual sonics in these Klavier recordings have been debated before, for those interested, there exists a live recording of Daugherty's "Niagara Falls" and the world premiere of Donald Grantham's "Fantasy Variations." It is on the Mark Custom label with the University of Texas Wind Ensemble under Jerry Junkin at Carnegie Hall. I highly recommend this one, for all the nuances of Daugherty's work, sometimes not at all apparent in the North Texas disc, are fully realized in this brilliant performance and the recording of the Grantham premiere is, in my opinion, the definitive one. Do look for Sojuourns if you're interested in quality music for wind band or simply wish to add to your Klavier collection. And no, I'm not a UT student.

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