Quiet City

Revisiting the improvisatory practice of jazz icons with highly idiosyncratic techniques can fall flat, but Balsom and the Britten Sinfonia make it work. They are entirely idiomatic and wonderfully... — BBC Music Magazine, October 2022, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 26th Aug 2022
Catalogue No: 5419715059
Label: Warner Classics

Presto Recording of the Week

26th August 2022

Copland: Quiet City

Alison Balsom (trumpet), Britten Sinfonia (chamber ensemble), Nicholas Daniel (cor anglais), Scott Stroman

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

Alison Balsom, Tom Poster (piano), Britten Sinfonia, Scott Stroman

Ives, C: The Unanswered Question

Alison Balsom, Britten Sinfonia, Scott Stroman

Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez: Adagio

Alison Balsom, Britten Sinfonia, Scott Stroman

Weill, K: My ship

Alison Balsom, Britten Sinfonia, Scott Stroman

About
Reviews
Explore

About

Interview, Alison Balsom on Quiet City

14th September 2022

The trumpet-player discusses her new album of music by composers including Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein and Ives, and reflects on the unique qualities of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie...

Recording of the Week, Alison Balsom's Quiet City

26th August 2022

Alison Balsom and the Britten Sinfonia offer a colourful collection of works and arrangements that place the trumpet firmly at the centre of attention.

“This album has been an utter joy to make […] The concept of this project began decades ago, when I decided that Copland’s Quiet City was a work that everyone needed to hear – especially so as Copland reveals the scene so brilliantly via the solo trumpet and cor. There is a true melancholy in this work that only a certain type of trumpet playing can achieve, and across the collection on the album I’ve tried to show that through the unique lens of the trumpet, the wonderful bridge and mutual respect between the classical composers and arrangers, and the jazz greats can be seen. For many of us, the sentiment behind Quiet City is pertinent at the moment, as we emerge from the loneliness of the pandemic and into another chapter of darkness in today’s turbulent world […].” – Alison Balsom

Reviews

October 2022

Revisiting the improvisatory practice of jazz icons with highly idiosyncratic techniques can fall flat, but Balsom and the Britten Sinfonia make it work. They are entirely idiomatic and wonderfully engaging, both here [the Rodrigo/Evans] and in their other sketches of America.

October 2022

To say that Balsom is in touch with the soul of her instrument would be to downplay her artistry...there are technical things she does here so effortlessly that we her listeners can just relax into the phrasemaking as if it’s something she’s made up on the spot.

26th August 2022

From her innate mastery of Copland’s unique language of spacious melancholy to her blend of extroversion and lyricism in the Gershwin and her adept shift into the language of jazz for the Rodrigo, Balsom’s musicianship itself – rather than any reference to a historical moment – is the real unifying thread.

21st August 2022

As an entity it creates a varied album in every kind of mood. It will delight anyone, not only the trumpet expert, who admires Balsom’s eclecticism and musical brilliance...Balsom’s virtuosity is spellbinding throughout.

7th September 2022

I looked forward to Alison Balsom’s album with Britten Sinfonia, Quiet City, and relished her colours in the Copland title track and the beauty of Ives’s The Unanswered Question.

Quiet City

Contents

Interview, Alison Balsom on Quiet City

Recording of the Week, Alison Balsom's Quiet City

Download queue

Quiet City

Vinyl Record

Other available formats

Contents

Download queue