DEW-DROPS ON A LOTUS LEAF
Marga Richter, composer
William George, tenor
Andrea Lodge, piano

It could be said that Marga Richter is one of American music’s “unsung heroes”: she boasts an impressive catalogue of orchestral recordings, including those by ensembles as illustrious as the London Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony, but her vast and rich catalogue of songs has, until now, remained relatively neglected. Dew-drops on a Lotus Leaf is the first album dedicated exclusively to her vocal music, championed here by tenor William George and pianist Andrea Lodge. A sense of melancholy permeates these songs, from the elegiac civil war letter "Sarah do not mourn me dead" to the despairing resignation of "Sonnet 71" of Shakespeare. But the tour-de-force of this recording is the titular 45-minute, 39-song cycle, where the listener is taken on an epic journey through the five seasons of life (as told by the Japanese Zen Poet/Monk Ryokan). Throughout the cycle, George’s voice soars effortlessly between tenor and countertenor ranges, creating sound worlds that are at once soothing and demanding, ethereal and intense. George and Lodge give benchmark performances of these virtuosic and important contributions to 20th and 21st century American song writing.