Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Confessions (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Soprano Laura Strickling returns to the Yarlung family with Confessions, a personal triumph and journey into contemporary art song repertoire. The album opens with Laura’s haunting interpretation of Clarice Assad’s vulnerable and intimate song cycle Confessions and Gilda Lyons’ evocative Songs of Lament and Praise written to anonymous Irish poems and prayers from the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries.

Yarlung fans know Laura well from her spectacular concert recording of James Matheson’s Times Alone, which she performed with Tom Sauer at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Many of you joined us for this concert. It remains one of my favorite musical memories.

And now with Confessions, join Laura as she explores her personal strengths and weaknesses through songs written by leading 21st Century composers, many of whom are close personal friends. We travel with Laura through a complex psychological landscape as we lament the death of a child, fight the temptations of yet another helping of coffee or pistachio ice cream, or hope for redemption through love. Laura takes us on a terrific journey. (Bob Attiyeh)

I love singing and I love song. Not a surprising declaration for a singer, you might think. But why song, in particular? First: Words matter. When a composer sets beautiful and important words to music, we hear, understand, and internalize them in a different way than we do when we read them or hear these words as speech. In the course of any recital the audience learns something about who I am as a singer, but also who I am as a person – what I believe, what moves me, my insecurities, my struggles, my fears, my hopes, what makes me happy.

“…brought a flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence…” (The New York Times)

Tracklist:
01. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Confessions: No. 1, What Will They Think? (05:53)
02. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Confessions: No. 2, Fixation (05:05)
03. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Confessions: No. 3, Turn Back the Clock (03:27)
04. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Songs of Lament & Praise: No. 1, Eve’s Lament (01:18)
05. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Songs of Lament & Praise: No. 2, Deirdre’s Lament (02:25)
06. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Songs of Lament & Praise: No. 3, Hymn to the Archangel Michael (03:13)
07. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Songs of Lament & Praise: No. 4, A Mother’s Lament (05:04)
08. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Songs of Lament & Praise: No. 5, An Even-Song (03:16)
09. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – How to Get Heat Without Fire: No. 1, Why I Wear My Hair Long (01:27)
10. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – How to Get Heat Without Fire: No. 2, Saying Goodbye (02:17)
11. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – How to Get Heat Without Fire: No. 3, The Pocketbook (04:42)
12. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – How to Get Heat Without Fire: No. 4, How to Get Heat Without Fire (05:15)
13. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – To See What I See (06:22)
14. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – 3 Teasdale Songs: No. 1, I Would Live in Your Love (02:37)
15. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – 3 Teasdale Songs: No. 2, Absence (02:37)
16. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – 3 Teasdale Songs: No. 3, Spring Rain (03:04)
17. Laura Stricking & Joy Schreier – Righty, 1966 (03:13)