Content:

Alfred Momotenko:

Creator of Angels

(Choral Works)



Artists:
Latvian Radio Choir
Sigvards Klava, conductor

Genres:
Contemporary
Choral

Features:

Sleeve notes in English, sung texts with English translation.

World première recordings

Format:
CD

Released:
November 2022

Catalogue No.:
ODE 1413-2

EAN/UPC Code:
0761195141328

Track listing

CD 63:07
Alfred Momotenko-Levitsky (1970)
1 Creator of Angels (Angelov tvorche) (2021) 8:55
Three Sacred Hymns (2019) 12:39
2 Ave Maria (Bogoroditse Devo, raduysia) 3:39
3 O Lord, Jesus Christ (Isusova molitva) 3:42
4 Our Father (Otche nash) 5:15
5 Lullaby (Koliskova) (2021) 5:19
6 On the Passion (Na strastnoy) (2017) 18:57
7 Mystery of Silence (Tayna molchanya) (2019) 8:33
8 Miracle (2022) 8:30



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Complete description

Latvian Radio Choir’s new album conducted by Sigvards Kļava marks the international debut of composer Alfred Momotenko (b. 1970). Momotenko was born in Lviv, Ukraine, in 1970. He studied at the Sochi College of Arts and later percussion at the Moscow State University of Culture and Art. In 1990, the political situation having changed, Momotenko moved to the Netherlands where he continued his studies at the Brabant Conservatory and at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. Momotenko’s timeless choral works continue the centuries old great tradition of choral works combining them with contemporary language, a blend most recently exemplified by the likes of Alfred Schnittke.

 

Surrounded by choral music in his youth, Momotenko has returned to the world of choral music at a relatively late period: all the works on this album have been written between 2017 and 2022. Many of his enigmatic choral works are religious and could be described as poems or chants – larger than a miniature but less extensive than a fantasy, a narrative, a ballad or a story. Often there are two contrasting musical languages that are present: the ancient, pristine Znamennyj Chant and the modern one. Besides liturgic texts, Momotenko’s choral works include settings to poems by Boris Pasternak and Joseph Brodsky. The largest work, Na Strastnoy (On the Passion), is a companion piece Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil.

 

The Latvian Radio Choir (LRC) ranks among the top professional chamber choirs in Europe and its refined taste for musical material, fineness of expression and vocal of unbelievably immense compass have charted it as a noted brand on the world map. The repertoire of LRC ranges from the Renaissance music to the most sophisticated scores by modern composers; and it could be described as a sound laboratory – the singers explore their skills by turning to the mysteries of traditional singing, as well as to the art of quartertone and overtone singing and other sound production techniques. The choir has established a new understanding of the possibilities of a human voice; one could also say that the choir is the creator of a new choral paradigm: every singer is a distinct individual with his or her own vocal signature and roles in performances.

 

Sigvards Kļava is one of the most outstanding Latvian conductors, also a professor of conducting and producer, music director of the Latvian Radio Choir since 1992. As a result of Sigvards Klava’s steady efforts, the Latvian Radio Choir has become an internationally recognized, vocally distinctive collective, where each singer possesses a creative individuality. Under Sigvards’ guidance, the choir has recorded a number of choral works by little known or completely forgotten composers of the past, as well as formed a friendly collaboration with a number of notable Latvian composers. Sigvards Kļava is a professor at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music. Kļava is a multiple winner of the Latvian Great Music Award.