Mount Mundane is undoubtedly one of Emmer's most opulent and personal works. The project was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, with a lineup of over 30 musicians and in collaboration with international music stars such as Anthony Weeden, Andrew Dudman, Grammy Award-winning choral conductor Nigel Short, pianist Ben Dawson, and treble Joshua Davidson.
Mount Mundane invites listeners into a personal (musical) tale about the life-journey each one of us has to make by overcoming daily grief, sorrow, distraction, disease, troubles and limitations as if climbing a huge mountain to finally reach a state of happiness, love and achievement and where you can loose your own consciousness into something greater then you are without social comparisons.
"For this album I started a musical dialogue with my younger self and found back some old melodies I wrote about 45 years ago but at that time still was unable to embed in a matured musical setting or context. They were simple one finger notes which I could now enrich with deep harmonisation and intricate arrangements. For the latter I was inspired by the very colourful music of postimpressionist composers."
"The extra limitation here was that I recently partially lost my hearing in one ear in all those years that I carried these melodies with me in my mind. But I somehow managed to overcome this and was now even able to do deeper musical introspection then before and so this personal journey has come to be a meaningful achievement which shows there is always hope if you’re willing or able to climb that mountain."
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Mt Mundane Quotes
I would sincerely recommend that you check out Stephen Emmer’s newest opus. For sure. He is a true Maestro of both instrumentation and orchestration. His melodies are rich, haunting.
This is how music is supposed to be.
I enjoy the richness of the orchestration together with the powerful voicing in particular of the lower range instruments. Your solos for flutes but also the violin have a very distinct flavour and certainly the high quality performances of the orchestra could give your compositions the rightfully deserved results! Bravo my friend!
15 very beautiful gems, I am speechless.
It is lovely and powerful.
I listened to it and I understand where you’re going, though the road is long yet very interesting, let that be said! The Ogerman connection is clear. Beautifully worn pieces.
What a brilliant record. It’s just wonderful and I think you did a brilliant job. The orchestration is perfect. it’s got, as I would say, a lot of triumphs in it. I also love your titles. Will listen to it again in even more detail later on, but think it’s incredible. I would’ve loved to have you put some of my poems to music. You’re such a gifted talent.
I think you are a master of melodic writing! I am glad that you can and do that because melody has been neglected for far too long in contemporary composing. And yes, the cello is an excellent instrument to bring your lyricism to great heights. Congratulations and kudos with this new album.
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