BERLIN ACADEMY OF AMERICAN MUSIC

Our debut album Transatlantic was recorded at the beginning of 2021 against all odds, in the winter and at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the first signs of life for this new orchestra began coming together with my friend Rosie Salvucci (American bassist and fellow Berliner) six months prior. In the summer of 2020 - simply for the sake of doing so - we decided to organize some impromptu, distanced orchestra readings with chamber orchestra repertoire that could easily be played in a studio in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. We needed something to do, many summer festivals and vacations were cancelled, and musicians were excited to play together again. We invited professional musicians who we thought would enjoy works by composers like Adams, Stravinsky and Copland. Everyone enjoyed the collaborations, and experiencing this repertoire, in these times with these musicians was special.

 

Then in November of 2020 two friends, American composer Craig Urquhart and Greek flutist Stathis Karapanos and I began discussing the possibility of recording Craig’s newly orchestrated Lamentation for Flute and Strings. I had heard Craig’s piano version of the piece and found it deeply touching. Stathis had performed the piano version with Christoph Eschenbach at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, where he was awarded the 2020 Leonard Bernstein Award. Based on the readings we had, I told them that Rosie and I could put together a talented orchestra and then seemingly things were off to the races. There was a flurry of communication, and the idea quickly grew from recording one work into recording an entire album. Just two months after our conversations began, the orchestra was formed, and in January and February of 2021 we rehearsed and recorded Transatlantic in one of Germany’s legendary recording locations, Teldex Studios.  

 

With Craig’s piece set as a cornerstone of the album, Stathis and I began to think of what repertoire would best accompany this. I thought of Craig, an American-now-Berliner and long-time executive of the Leonard Bernstein Office. I was also steeped in life as a Berliner, and I thought perhaps the connection for works could be the fact that they, too, had transatlantic connections. Being an American conductor who is often asked to perform American repertoire, I looked to works by Americans and American immigrant composers, and even to those who wrote works based on American ideals or stories.

 

We were all quite fond of the fact that the transatlantic theme also occurs throughout the orchestra’s personnel. The musicians on this recording are from a tapestry of nationalities spanning five continents. While conversing during the coffee breaks of the recording sessions, we learned from each other that more than half of the orchestra either came from the U.S. or had studied there.

Transatlantic was released with worldwide distribution and streaming by London’s ONYX Classics on October 29, 2021. We are proud to present this recording to an international audience, which rather serves as the debut of the Berlin Academy of American Music to the world. The album features an array of orchestra musicians based in Berlin, soprano Chen Reiss, flutist Stathis Karapanos, Berlin Philharmonic’s concertmaster and principal harpist, Noah Bendix-Balgley and Marie-Pierre Langlamet. BAAM’s first Berlin concert series followed in November of 2021 and a first tour of Europe is soon to be announced for June of 2022.