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Akin to Fire
"...a lyricism that's disarmingly attractive."
--The Star Ledger
“…Wojcik writes busy, enthusiastic music in an attractive harmonic language that neatly blends consonance and dissonance….a composer of creativity, craft, and imagination.”
--Barry Kilpatrick, American Record Guide, July/August 2007
Albany Records writes, “…His music is emotionally direct and spontaneous, with elements of jazz in the Dance Symphony and a keen understanding of the creativity of young children in The Art Spirit, in which the composer was given the task of creating symphonic movements in response to students’ artwork. Akin to Fire reflects a musical kinship the composer felt to Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue, Op. 133 which he reexamined while in the middle of writing the work. But his comments about Jubilee, commissioned by the New Jersey Youth Symphony, best sum up his aesthetic: “My inspiration for this overture came from the young musicians themselves who possessed a wonderful level of energy, dedication, and love of music. I also could not help but notice a “love” of cell phones, video games and chatting when not engrossed in music making. As a result, I incorporated musical ideas that suggest those things into the compositional fabric.”
$16.99
Pictures and Stories: Music of Raymond Wojcik
"Raymond Wojcik is an American-born composer with extraordinary lyrical gifts. His music holds at its core the song or the melody or the cogent, well-defined lyric, placing him squarely in the heart of contemporary romanticism. I treasure music like this......[Closer To Home is] full of hope, dissappointment, and conflict...Absolutely stunning....Wojcik's creative gifts for concrete melody and cogent lyrical lines are only emphasized by his sculpting abilities as a conductor. Performances are topnotch; sound is even tempered. A keeper." Read the full review>>
--Cook, American Record Guide, Jan/Feb 2009
Albany Records writes, "All of the pieces on this recording tell a story in one way or another. Some are narrative while others are programmatic or cinematic. Visual imagery, both imaginative and concrete is also part of the fabric of these works. These two elements have been part of several of Raymond Wojcik’s works written throughout his creative life and they are brought together here for his second recording with Albany Records. Composer, conductor, and educator Raymond Wojcik received degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver and has served as conductor of the Garden State Philharmonic and the Brunswick Symphony. David Schiff, composer and writer notes: 'At a time of technical gimmicks and stylistic uncertainty, Raymond Wojcik writes music from the heart that speaks directly to an audience in a distinctive voice.'"
$16.99