Artistic Director Announcement, Conducting Debut and Grammy voting!

Sweetwater Classical and Jazz Music Festival
Edwin Huizinga Artistic Director
September 18 - 20th 2020
A year to remember

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:
It's time for the first round ballot for the Grammy Awards! Both recent ACRONYM releases, below, are on the ballot. We'd love your vote, if you are a member of the Academy, and please have a listen and help us spread the word. Thank you!

THE BATTLE, THE BETHEL, & THE BALL
Reviews of this album full of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber are saying
"[ACRONYM] absolutely throw themselves into this wild world and relish every note", and describe "a warm sonic cocoon", "ecstatic solos" and "stormy energy". The disc features special appearances by Molly Quinn, soprano, whose voice "blooms like ink in clear water" and Jesse Blumberg, baritone, singing with "deep feeling, precision, and keen attention to text".

LE MEMORIE DOLOROSE
ACRONYM joined forces with TENET Vocal Artists to make the first commercial recording of a sumptuous work by composer Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (1623-1680), a sepolcro set in the tomb of Christ.

ALBUM RELEASE

October 4, 2019
Available for digital download on iTunes, Amazon
(pre-order: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WV6DY81)
Available on Spotify and all other streaming sites
for purchase wherever CDs are sold
Distributed by NAXOS of America
Recorded at Oktaven Studios
engineered, produced and mastered by Ryan Streber
Olde Focus Records

During the late 1700's Edinburgh music collector and publisher George Thomson embarked on a mission to amass a body of repertoire from Scotland's rich folk song tradition and make it available to the wider public. With the help of his friend and colleague Robert Burns, whom he employed to tidy up the language of much of the poetry, Thomson sent hundreds of Scottish songs across the channel to Vienna, where they were arranged for string ensemble by composers such as Beethoven, Haydn, Weber, and Hummel, among others. This now little-performed repertoire enjoyed a moment in the sun for some thirty years in the early 1800s, as these arrangements were celebrated around the parlors and halls of Europe.

In honoring both the traditional roots of this music, and the Classical treatment it was accorded, we blended folk and art song practices to create an ancient yet fresh take on some of our favorites from this charming collection of airs, ballads, and pub songs.

My guest directing and solo violin debut with the Guelph Symphony Orchestra
February 9th, Guelph, Ontario
at the River Run Centre
A dream of mine...