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| NYC Vocalist Valerie Ghent Releases "The Angel" by Natasha Ghent & Mikhail Lermontov NYC recording artist Valerie Ghent releases The Angel, a classical cantata written by Natasha Ghent and set to the famous Mikhail Lermontov poem of the same name, written in 1831. Featuring Natasha Ghent on violin and viola, and her daughter, Valerie Ghent, soprano, The Angel was recorded by mother and daughter in 1988. The Angel is the only existing recording of Natasha's beautiful and emotive expression on both violin and viola. After retiring from American Ballet Theatre and Queens Symphony, Natasha and Valerie went into the studio, with Valerie singing soprano as well as engineering Synclavier/Direct to Disk, one of the only digital recorders available at the time. Valerie recalls, "I remember my mother playing with such passion that she kept swaying back and forth - and away from the microphone! I had to move the mic to capture her expression." Natasha and Valerie recorded all the tracks on an August afternoon, including the ethereal soprano part which Valerie sang in Russian, and Natasha's viola and violin parts. Both played synclavier, including harp, marimba, piano and 'angels'. "I had never sung in Russian before, " says Valerie. "My mother wrote out the words phonetically and coached my pronunciation. She had written, by hand, a complete score for all the parts." The original recording of The Angel was never officially released during Natasha's lifetime. After her mother's unexpected death, Valerie promised she would one day release The Angel in her mother's honor. In the following decade, Valerie launched a solo career, releasing five albums of her own music after years touring with music luminaries including Ashford & Simpson and Debbie Harry. During the coronavirus lockdown in 2020, Valerie was inspired to return to projects close to her heart, including The Angel. "With my mother's violin and viola moving me to tears, I restored the audio and mixed it in my home studio. I felt as though she was there, she was The Angel, carrying me in her arms and guiding me through the lost world we now found ourselves in." Receiving rave reviews, The Angel and its captivating story is flying into the hearts of listeners around the world. Thirty-three years after Valerie and Natasha Ghent recorded The Angel, mother and daughter alone together in the studio for a day, more than fifty years after Natasha began composing the cantata, and 15 years after Natasha's passing, Valerie has lovingly restored and mixed The Angel for release on all platforms. Natasha Ghent (1933-2006) was born in Paris to Russian parents who fled St. Petersburg after the Russian revolution. Nathalie's early violin and theory studies took place at the Russian Conservatory in Paris where her meeting master pedagogue Ivan Galamian led to later violin studies in America. Emigrating to New York City, Natasha attended Music and Art, Juilliard, Sarah Lawrence College and City University of New York, becoming a violist with American Ballet Theatre and Queens Symphony, co-founder of the SoHo Ensemble, composer of multiple works and a beloved teacher to hundreds of violin, viola and piano students. A musical setting for Mikhail Lermontov's poem, The Angel, was a life-long ambition rooted in her trilingual childhood. In 1995 Natasha wrote, "My recently published Cantata, The Angel, through the auspices of the Hildegard Publishing Company, is dedicated to my daughter, Valerie, whose voice I knew would evoke and embody the beauty of Lermontov's Russian verse." Recording artist Valerie Ghent is a multi-talented singer, songwriter, musician, producer and engineer from New York City. An outstanding live performer, Valerie weaves together blues, soul and jazz into a breathtaking tapestry of "soul-stirring, uplifting songs full of vitality and joy." Longtime keyboardist/ vocalist/engineer with music legends Ashford & Simpson, Valerie has worked with music luminaries and icons Debbie Harry (Blondie), Nina Simone, Dr. Maya Angelou, Roberta Flack, Sir Cliff Richard and Billy Preston, among many others. As solo artist Valerie has released five albums, including Day to Day Dream, with her #1 hit song, Love Enough for a Lifetime. Her album Velours, named Soul Tracks Top 50 Albums of 2016 with hit song New York City Streets, hailed by critics as a "New Anthem for NYC". Valerie tours and records in France, where her popularity in Europe resulted in The French Sessions, her first album on a French label, and her single Feelin' Alright hit #1 on Jazz Radio France. write your comments about the article :: © 2021 Jazz News :: home page |