New 3-CD set: Logan Skelton songs based on texts by Walter Anderson, George Ohr and Emily Dickinson

LANSING, Mich. - Sept. 6, 2013 - PRLog -- A new set of three CDs from Blue Griffin Recording offers the songs of American pianist/composer Logan Skelton, who sets to music the literary works of American artists such as Walter Anderson, George Ohr and Emily Dickinson, dedicating an album to each. An hommage to American poetry and the American artist in general, the three CDs feature baritone Stephen Lusmann and soprano Jennifer Goltz, with the composer himself at the piano.

Logan Skelton’s career as a pianist, teacher and composer has received much international acclaim.  Prolific in his work, Skelton has produced well over a hundred songs, possessing a special affinity for the genre. His songs combine highly idiomatic vocal and piano writing with an unusual sensitivity to text. As Martin Katz, the great song accompanist, states, “Writing songs well requires many talents, and Skelton seems to possess them all. He has insight which allows him to get into the psyche of the mind behind the words… a superb and complete songwriter.” Notably, the song cycle included in this set – Anderson Songs: The Islander, received the Music Composition Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.

Each CD offers complete song-cycles dedicated to and based on the literary works of specific American artists. As Skelton writes: “Over the years I have found inspiration in… the lives of unusual, often intensely private artists. What seems to fire my imagination most is the private work they do … so much of it behind closed doors.” He goes on to say: “In my song cycles, I try to bring the authors to life.  Through the expressive language of music and song, I invite you to peer with me into these magical and incandescent worlds, and into the lives of the individuals who made them.”  The three CDs are:

Walter Anderson: “The Islander” – Commissioned by the Walter Anderson Museum of Art as a contribution toward the centennial celebrating of 2003, the ANDERSON SONGS cycle pays tribute to an eccentric, reclusive American artist who was a brilliant painter, writer and naturalist. The texts used for ANDERSON SONGS come from journal entries as well as various fragments Anderson wrote during his extended sojourns on Horn Island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In addition to art songs, the cycle includes four spoken narrations over evocative piano writing that convey Anderson’s highly personal and quasi-religious purity of spirit. Infused with references to nature and Anderson’s deep understanding of it, the songs are paeans to flowers, animals and the unity underlying all of life. The CD includes additionally a smaller collection of songs, Skelton Songs: “Into Deep Waters,” movingly set to poetry of Skelton’s own father, Zan Skelton.

George Ohr: “The Mad Potter” – Another eccentric genius from the American South, Ohr referred to himself as “The Mad Potter of Biloxi.” A revolutionary ceramic artist, the likes of which the world had never before seen, Ohr was underappreciated in his own time, and a visionary artist in the truest sense of the word.  The cycle includes humorous songs that evoke early 20^th century America as well as Ohr’s larger-than-life, self-promoting personality (complete with a two foot long moustache, no less), lyric art songs that express his profound inner life as an artist, as well as solo piano interludes which represent the revolutionary, experimental and creative side of Ohr’s personality.  The texts used for OHR SONGS come from various signs made by Ohr, writings he attached to photographs and other literary creations by the self-proclaimed “Mud Wizard.” The CD also includes a smaller cycle, Clyburn Songs: “A Kind of Weather,” set to colorful poetry of New Orleans native, Marshall Clyburn.

Emily Dickinson: “An Intimate Nature,” “The Unknown Peninsula” – Dedicated to the words of one of America’s greatest poets, Skelton’s DICKINSON SONGS divides into two books. The first set tells the story of a life progressing from the young innocence and excitement of exotic romance, to the darker and more troubled tones that follow. The second set is more reflective, as Dickinson looks back on her earlier relationship, retreating into an inner world in which nature itself becomes her most intimate and enduring companion. In the service of Dickinson’s poetry, Skelton here achieves an extraordinary concentration of expression. The songs, almost religious in their intensity, treat Dickinson’s poetry with reverence, each word set like glistening drops of precious metal. Skelton writes about his relationship with Dickinson’s work: “It has never ceased to amaze me how such a vast and powerful world of expression can be contained within the modest bounds of her poetic forms.”

The CDs were recorded at Blue Griffin’s Studio The Ballroom in Lansing, MI, and produced and engineered by Sergei Kvitko.  It is available at www.BlueGriffin.com, iTunes, Amazon, as well as other online and physical retail outlets.