Recordings

Composer Joseph Summer, who has been fascinated with Shakespeare for most of his life, has composed The Tempest, using a libretto written by his daughter, Eve Summer.

“has something unique to say…(Summer’s) musical language is comfortably tonal but sophisticated, ceaselessly inventive, and often gripping; he’s a vivid musical storyteller. It’s an embarrassment of riches – the marvelous group numbers keep coming, culminating in the penultimate scene which builds to a blazingly celebratory climax… It’s gorgeous.”
– Opera News

Disc 1 Tracks 1-8 Act I: I-VIII 1:03:31
Disc 2 Tracks 1-11 Act II: I-XI 1:18:57

“The best musical setting of scenes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet I’ve ever heard.”
– Art Music Lounge

01 Cello Sonata (20 Variations on a Theme from the “Hebdomad”) 25:26
02 O That This Too Too Solid Flesh Would Melt 6:57
03 Two Nights Together 6:52
04 To Be, Or Not To Be 7:43
05 What A Piece Of Work Is Man 5:42
06 How All Occasions Do Inform Against Me 5:39
07 Gallop Apace 11:30

“A recording that captures Summer’s always exceptional vision of chamber music, the Ulysses Quartet’s unparalleled chemistry makes for a must hear record for those with an inkling towards strings.”
– Take Effect

01 Sea Change #1 “I to the world am like a drop of water”: I. Picasso Trigger; the Forever War Betwixt Rhinecanthus aculeatus and R. verrucosus for the Rubble Reef at Lorenso’s Place II 12:11
02 Sea Change #1 “I to the world am like a drop of water”: II. I can call Spirits from the vasty deep 12:52
03 Sea Change #1 “I to the world am like a drop of water”: III. A thousand Golden Buddhas, a thousand silver Barracudas 11:07
04 Sea Change #2 “unpath’d waters, undream’d shores”: I. The Emperor Periclimenes Astride His Mount, the Wondrous Melibe, Surveys the Domain of Pura Dalem 12:10
05 Sea Change #2 “unpath’d waters, undream’d shores”: II. Brief Glimpses Of the Filamented Flasher Above Squadrons Of Durban Dancers, in Amed 7:45
06 Sea Change #2 “unpath’d waters, undream’d shores”: III. Fiddler Crabs; And Another Front in the Forever War; on the Littoral Plain That Emerges and Submerges Near the German Channel, Palau 15:51

This string quartet by noted American composer Joseph Summer is a musical interpretation of the named stories of the preeminent 20th century fabulist, Jorge Luis Borges. Born in 1956, Joseph Summer studied at Oberlin and Carnegie-Mellon, where he later taught. Summer has written four comic operas based on the stories of The Decameron. These operas are part of a planned seven opera cycle, which follows the exploits of a half dozen characters over the course of a week in an imagined 14th century Naples.

“This passionate music invites you to dance and makes you feel you cannot refuse. It propels all who hear it into Summer’s and Borges’s fantastic world.”
– Fanfare Magazine

01 The Garden of Forking Paths: I, II 15:09
02 The Garden of Forking Paths: III 11:12
03 The Garden of Forking Paths: IV, V 30:05

MUSIC TO HEAR, Joseph Summer’s follow up to WHO IS SYLVIA from Navona Records off his Shakespeare Concerts set, is the result of the composer’s lifelong obsession with poetry. The album pairs the works of contemporary poets as well as Shakespeare with Summer’s music in order to express deeper significance than either words or music are capable of on their own.

Interview: Joseph Summer and The Shakespeare Concert Series
Composer Conversations: Joseph Summer
From the PARMA Recordings Blog

01 Sonnet 4 “For Lydia” 7:03
02 Spring Sonnet 3:55
03 Sonnet 8 7:10
04 Sonnet 110 3:38
05 Sonnet 144 5:32
06 Sonnet 51 4:04
12 Sonnets 97 & 98 9:40
13 Epilogue to the Tempest 5:45

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6283

Joseph Summer’s WHO IS SYLVIA is a collection of Shakespeare’s works set to music that will make you question everything you thought you learned in high school English. Summer believes that the famous playwright’s true identity is not William Shakespeare but rather Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Many of the songs found on WHO IS SYLVIA come from Summer’s aptly-named The Oxford Songs, a collection of scenes, sonnets, songs, and Summer’s original opera version of Hamlet.

Interview: Joseph Summer and The Shakespeare Concert Series
Composer Conversations: Joseph Summer
From the PARMA Recordings Blog

01 Invisible Women: Sycorax 5:27
02 Who Is Silvia? (1) 3:32
07 Come Thou Monarch of the Vine and Hearing Transcript 2:23
17 The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strained 5:52
18 Hath Not a Jew Eyes 7:22
19 The Dumbshow 17:43

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6282

With SUMMER’S DISTILLATION, Joseph Summer, as composer, offers a new look at the timeless texts credited to William Shakespeare. As artistic director, Summer presents settings by Brahms, R. Schumann, and Benjamin Pesetsky, curating an overall impressive collection of works for voice, harp, and horns.

“a beautifully balanced collection of pieces, and it’s surprising, on reflection, to think that the only instruments used are horns and harp.”
– D. Rea

Interview: Joseph Summer and The Shakespeare Concert Series
From the PARMA Recordings Blog

01 Sonnet No. 5 – Sonnet No. 6 5:03
02 Sonnet No. 104 3:49
03 Sonnet No. 91 (2) 3:09
04 Sonnet No. 73 3:39
05 Sonnet No. 133 8:44
06 The Tempest: If By Your Art 6:43
07 O God, That I Were a Man 3:35

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6263

Even the most fearful of the cold will draw warmth from Joe Summer’s comforting NO ENEMY BUT WINTER AND ROUGH WEATHER, the sixth album honoring The Shakespeare Concerts Series, of which he is founder and executive director.

“a circular and well-thought cyclic concept behind the project. After listening to the entire album a few times, top to bottom, I had the sensation of a certain peaceful resignation: expressive and deeply emotional.”
– G. Griglio

01 Concert Overture for Piano 5:03
12 Sonnet LX 4:40
13 O, that this too too solid flesh 7:02
14 Beseech you sir, be merry 8:27
15 The quality of mercy 5:26
16 When That I Was and a Little Tiny Boy 2:24

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6134

FULL FATHOM FIVE, the fifth offering in Navona Records’ The Shakespeare Concerts Series, takes the story of The Tempest, from the shipwrecked crew and magical spirits to the imprisoned servants and their questions of identity, and presents a variety of works from the 18th to the 21st centuries that set texts and depict themes from Shakespeare’s play.

“I’ll go so far as to say, mindful that one must never declare ‘genius’ too easily, that the more I experience Joseph Summer’s art, the more I am inclined to apply the term.”
– Fanfare Magazine

01 Full Fathom Five 9:30
07 Where the Bee Sucks 1:48
08 Before you can say Come and Go 0:21
09 I Do Not Know One of My Sex 2:08
14 O Mistress Mine 2:37
15 Love (What Thing Is Love) 2:44

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv5996

On the fourth offering in Navona Records’ The Shakespeare Concerts Series, ORPHEUS WITH HIS LUTE MADE TREES, executive director and composer Joseph Summer presents original works and pieces by composers from the 18th through the 21st centuries that celebrate the myth of Orpheus.

“glowing performances… radiant…”
– American Record Guide

01 You may think of art 5:17
03 Sonata for Violin & Voice: Orpheus with His Lute – Sonnet CIII 6:02
04 Sonata for Violin & Voice: Sonnet CXXVIII 5:03
09 Leda and the Swan 3:53
11 On the Death of Phillips 3:09

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv5995

GODDESSES is the third offering in Navona Records’ The Shakespeare Concerts Series, which presents several works by composer Joseph Summer from his collection of settings of Shakespearean scenes, sonnets, and soliloquies, Oxford Songs.

“amazing virtuoso performances.”
– Fanfare Magazine

01 Honour, Riches, Marriage-Blessing 22:15
02 Sonnet 127, “In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair” 5:16
03 Sonnet 128, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” 5:51
04 Gallop Apace You Fiery-Footed Steeds 12:05
05 If Music Be the Food of Love 8:44
06 There Is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook 4:38

THE FAIR OPHELIA, the second installment on Navona Records’ The Shakespeare Concerts Series, features works by composer Joseph Summer that are inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! With Shakespeare’s texts accompanied with music by Brahms, Strauss, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Schumann, and Joseph Summer, this album for vocal and chamber music consists of diverse settings that present the listener with an opportunity to hear Ophelia in a three dimensional perspective.

“A remarkable recording that contributes to the literary praise of William Shakespeare.”
– Sonograma Magazine

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv5935

SHAKESPEARE’S MEMORY is the first offering in Navona’s The Shakespeare Concerts Series. A salmagundi of selections from composer Joseph Summer’s The Oxford Songs, this album includes previously unreleased recordings spanning the life of the series. This first volume includes Summer’s original chamber and vocal compositions set to Shakespeare’s dramas and sonnets and the poetry of Milton and Yeats, performed by a slew of musicians: the Kalmia String Quartet, baritone Chad Sloan, soprano Andrea Chenoweth, mezzo-soprano Kellie Van Horn, tenor Justin Vickers, pianists Miroslav Sekera and Ian Watson, and harpist Lydie Härtelovä.

“21st-century world of kaleidoscopic influences like a beautifully transformed Schubert.”
– Gramophone

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv5899

The Amernet String Quartet plays major works for string quartet by Beethoven, Benjamin Britten and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Contemporary American composer Joseph Summer contributes a work for string quartet that perfectly complements the rest of this program. The works on this album were recorded at the Florida International University and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center Concert Hall, Miami, Florida, USA in April and May 2015.

*composed by Joseph Summer

The release of So Many Journeys marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s sonnets. This recording, performed by members of The Shakespeare Concerts, contains two of the 26 sonnets set by composer Joseph Summer, an unabashed Oxfordian, as well as pieces from his opera Hamlet. The Sonata is a set of variations based on a baritone aria from Summer’s opera Courting Disaster.

“nothing short of spectacular”
– American Record Guide

FLEETING REALMS is an inviting compilation of chamber music featuring six composers. Though the album obviously mixes different compositional voices, the different pieces share many characteristics. FLEETING REALMS is defined by a pervasive uplifting quality. Many of the album’s works feature driving rhythms and a joyfully relaxed sensibility.

“One never tires of hearing his (Summer’s) subtle, language-sensitive, and deeply expressive settings.”
– Fanfare Magazine

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6107

14 concerts, 12 venues, 4 days. The 2014 PARMA Music Festival featured a diverse range of events, from concert performances of orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, and jazz groups, to an outdoor presentation of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and panel discussions about music licensing and multimedia composition, as well as improvised collaborations between indie rockers and classical instrumentalists.

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6002

FINE MUSIC, VOL. 4 is the fourth compilation of the Navona Records Fine Music digital series. This installment features the works of David Nisbet Stewart, Brian Noyes, Jonathan Little, Daniel Perttu, Curt Cacioppo, Santiago Billoni, Alejejandro Rutty, Joanne Carey, Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Summer, Roger Bourland, Kjell Magne Andersen, and Jan Van der Roost. This collection both highlights some of Navona’s choicest tracks and offers a preview of things to come.

*composed by Joseph Summer
For a complete track listing visit: navonarecords.com/catalog/nv5916