This setting of Austrian Expressionist writer Georg Trakl’s poems by composer and conductor Fabrice Bollon is the first ever composition for classical singers and solo electric cello. As a result the work’s striking sonorities open unexpected and fascinating new directions for contemporary music. Evocative imagery and colourful writing for electric cello can also be heard in The Secret Garden of the Cordania – a work dedicated to Bollon’s cellist wife.

This is our second release of music by Fabrice Bollon, the first of which (8574015) included Four Lessons of Darkness which is the first ever concerto for electric cello, also composed together with Johannes Moser. American Record Guide described the recording as ‘high-octane eclecticism with excellent, committed performances all around’.

Bollon has achieved international acclaim as a conductor, his Naxos recordings including a remarkable interpretation of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane in 2018 (866041012), and as a composer his opera Oscar und die Dame in Rosa was highly praised by both critics and audiences.

German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser has performed with the world’s leading orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, and BBC Philharmonic at the BBC Proms, alongside eminent conductors. He has a multi-award-winning discography, with releases on the Pentatone and Hänssler Classic labels among others. A dedicated chamber musician, he is a regular at international festivals.

Soprano Irina Jae-Eun Park joined the ensemble at Theater Freiburg in autumn 2018 after two seasons in the opera studio, collaborating with Fabrice Bollon (music director) in productions of Madama Butterfly (title role) as well as Falstaff (Alice Ford) among others. Passionate about art song, she was awarded Third Prize at the 2018 International Art Song Competition Stuttgart (Hugo-Wolf-Akademie) and the Art Song Prize at the 2017 Gwangju Vocal Music Competition.

Tenor Nutthaporn Thammathi has performed in opera houses across Europe since 2015, appearing in numerous leading roles such as Rodolfo (La Bohème), Tito (La clemenza di Tito), Alfredo (La traviata), Cavaradossi (Tosca) and the titular role in Faust. In 2019 Thammathi became a member of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe.