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Stay tuned for two new releases in 2009!
www.ravencd.com
FIESTA! from The Cathedral Church of St. John, Albuquerque, New Mexico, includes world premiere recordings of works by Fredrik Sixten and Gerald Bales and also includes the Boellmann Suite Gothique, the Yon Humoresque, the Preston Alleluyas, works by Gigout, Langlais, Messiaen, Vaughan Williams, and Vierne.
L'orgue magnifique from Girard College Chapel, Philadelphia, includes world premiere recordings of organ works by John Burge, Jeanne Landry, and Martin Stacey. The disc also includes Louis Vierne's Third Symphony in F# minor, Sur le rhin, Stèle pour un enfant dèfunt, and Méditations. |
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My Dancing Day – Music for Christmas
Christmas joy radiates from Las Cantantes, the Women’s Choir of the University of New Mexico, directed by Maxine Thévenot, in beautiful traditional favorites, most in recent or new arrangements including three which are recorded here for the first time. The choir is joined by organist Iain Quinn, harpist Lynn Gorman DeVelder, oboist Claudia Giese, and percussionist Jeff Cornelius.
Click here to order this CD from Raven. |
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| Reviews: My Dancing Day |
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| December 12, 2008 – Pasatiempo,
Santa Fe New Mexican
Craig Smith, music critic
This debut recording by Las Cantantes, the women’s choir of The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, is a little gem in many ways. First off, the group itself, which had 19 members during the 2007-2008 academic year, sounds well schooled and well prepared, and the actual singing laid down during the May 2008 recording sessions is solid for an amateur/student ensemble. More...
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| Missa Orbis Factor – New Works for the Liturgy
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The Cathedral Choir of the Cathedral Church of St. John (Episcopal),
Albuquerque, New Mexico, beautifully sings attractive and accessible works of
high quality which were composed 1992-2008. For solo organ, the Liturgical Suite
on Missa Orbis Factor was composed by Peter Togni in 1985, and is played by Maxine Thévenot on the Cathedral’s fine-sounding 2002 Reuter organ of 65 ranks and are interspersed among the sections of Gerald Near’s setting of the Mass Missa Orbis Factor as sung by the choir directed by Iain Quinn, with Maxine Thévenot accompanying on the organ.
Also for solo organ, Iain Quinn composed, and plays on this recording, his Toccata on Victimae Paschali Laudes.
Iain Quinn directs The Cathedral Choir in David Hogan’s beautiful setting of the Magnificat composed in 1985 for the Washington National Cathedral’s completion in 1990 and performed there at the Festival Evensong of Thanksgiving, September 28, 1990, and also directs Stephen Paulus’ New every morning is the love with Maxine Thévenot accompanying.
Maxine Thévenot directs, and Iain Quinn accompanies on the organ, the new works by Judith Bingham and David Arcus.
Click here to order this CD from Raven. |
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Without Boundaries
Maxine Thévenot, organist
Without Boundaries features a broad range of music, including several premieres, for this debut CD released in 2006 on the Raven label.
Click here to order directly from Raven. Canadian customers may wish to click here.
Click here to see program details. |
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Reviews: Without Boundaries |
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January 2008 – The Diapason
David Wagner, Detroit, MI
"Listening to this recording on the newly rebuilt Reuter organ at the Cathedral Church of St. John reminds me that the level of organ playing in the United States is truly astounding...to not only have a fine instrument but have the ability to find musicians of the caliber and artistry of Maxine Thevenot......The success of an album like this,....depends obviously not only on the playing involved, but in the arrangement of the pieces and the various moods that they create...the 'rhythm' of the music order....which for me seems to be near perfect.
The opening sound of the recording literally explodes from your speakers with a spirited performance of Mulet's Carillon-Sortie, which Dr. Thevenot plays with panache and excitement and which is an excellent beginning.....Acting as a musical center of this well-planned disc is the Prelude and Fugue in G major by Bach, Thevenot plays the piece with audition-winning panache, and this American classic-style instrument handles the music remarkably well.... The Mendelssohn sonata is also beautifully played....the disc concludes with what to my ears is one of the best and most exciting recordings of Dupre's Cortege et Litanie, op. 19 that is available on any recording......For a debut recording by a first-rate artist, with an imaginative program and beautiful playing, this project can be summed up in one word: Brava!" |
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Maxine Thévenot: Without Boundaries
Raven
Maxine Thévenot has been Associate Organist-Choir Director at Albuquerque since 2005 having grown up in Canada. The organ was built in 2002 using part of an instrument dating from 1950. This CD features a number of first recordings as well as several well-known works. Tempi are more mainstream on Maxine Thévenot's disc (than Iain Quinn's recording on the same instrument). The Carillon Sortie by Mulet setting a cheerful note for the whole disc, which is continued by Bach's G Major Prelude and Fugue. Iain Quinn's arrangement of Early One Morning explores some of the organ's softer and pleasing registers. The five Togni Inventions are all in different styles, mirroring the mood of the plainsong upon which they are based and plainsong again features in the Dupré piece, which brings the disc to a fine conclusion. |
Cathedral Music – UK publication for Friends of Cathedral Music, May 2007 |
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I'm very, very happy! Your performance is superb! A model performance, in fact. You made the music fit the organ exceedingly well (or is it vice versa?), and you caught the style of the piece right on. What I liked best of all is your rhythmic precision, without which the piece doesn't wok. Congratulations! and sincere thanks! Many thanks once again for including my sonata on your CD, and for playing it with such understanding and musicianship. |
Barrie Cabena (Sonata Giojoso) March 2007 |
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Maxine offers the Five Litugical Inventions for Organ of Victor Togni (b.1935), Iain Quinn's brief Continuum, and the Hommage à Messiaen by McNeil Robinson (who was her principal teacher). The Togni works are charming and would fit nicely into service settings as well as recitals. She opens with an unusually solid, unhurried performance of the Mulet Carillon-Sortie and also includes familiar works of Bach, Mendelssohn, and Dupré. The Sonata Giojoso of Cabena and one of Calvin Hampton's Dances complete her program. Maxine has secure technique, clear musical sense of a wide variety of idioms, and creative use of the large three-manual Reuter organ (2002). The recorded sound is spacious and clean.
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The Journal of the Association of Anglican Musicians (January 2007) Victor Hill
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This disc was recorded this past April on the Reuter organ in Albuquerque’s Cathedral Church of St. John. The largest pipe organ in the state, the Reuter is both a good instrument for service playing and has the tonal resources needed for concert music from all periods. Thévenot, a Canada native and St. John’s associate organist and choir director, is a musician of experience, taste, integrity, and flair — the kind of admirable player who can be faithful to the spirit of a composition as well as the letter of its score. Her version of Mulet’s energetic Carillon Sortie is broadly conceived, energetic, and fills the cathedral with magnificent sound, while Mendelssohn’s Fifth Sonata is appropriately grave without being stuffy, then explodes into its majestic Allegro fireworks. Iain Quinn’s Continuum — a knotty, probing yet very rewarding work that Thévenot premiered at Notre Dame in Paris — gets a passionate but balanced performance, and Thévenot goes on to give Australian-Canadian composer Harold Barrie Cabena’s Sonata Giojoso just the right kind of joyous exuberance. The interpretation of Dupré’s Cortége et Litanie is one of the most insightful and refulgent I can recall, and a perfect example of the Latin canticle Surge, illuminare — rise, shine, for thy light has come. Special kudos for Raven engineer Peter Nothnagle, who has kept the organ sound clear while being true to the cathedral acoustics.
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Craig Smith – The Santa Fe New Mexican |
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Your CD is splendid!! Bravo on the Liturgical Inventions!!!!! I love what you have done. You have captured the spirit of the chant, and given the music space. You play them with much grace and such a lyrical line. I feel you are singing the chants as you play them. Your registrations are very beautiful, very clean and clear, just the way Dad would have liked it. What a treasure for us to have this very wonderful and important recording.
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Peter Togni (son of the late Victor Togni) November 2006
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Peter brought me over a copy of your CD "Without Boundaries" last evening. What a thrill! I would just like to tell you that I love it and thank you so much for falling in love with these Inventions as is so evident your playing of them. I love them all but I particularly like what you did with the Ave Maria and the Laudate Dominum. The Alleluia always thrills me and Victor takes the organ bench again. What a wonderful CD. |
Margaret Togni Fox (wife of the late Victor Togni) November 2006 |
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