"Duo Orde and Cohen aren't half bad ... Jonathan Cohen is no hack when it comes to accompanying, and ... their synergy is close and comfortingly sympathetic. Having become used to her sound ... one starts to appreciate her nimble way around the tricky melodic lines in something like Faure's Green - she stays impeccably in tune the whole time, and almost entirely avoids reaching toward the notes, hitting them on the nose with considerable accuracy; a quality which I find beyond price." - Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International
I am a singer based in London and Kent.
The first song is Ravel's languid "Le cygne" (The Swan), from his "Histoires naturelles". The next one, from our album of Fauré and Debussy mélodies, is Debussy's setting of Verlaine's "Il pleure dans mon coeur" (There is Weeping in my Heart). The third and fourth songs are by Louis Vierne, a composer better known for his organ works than his mélodies, which have been undeservedly neglected. These tracks (not yet engineered for final sound quality) are "Recueillement" (an untranslatable French concept meaning an inward gathering of thoughts) and "Les hiboux" (The Owls), which are Vierne's most hauntingly beautiful and atmospheric settings. The poems are by Baudelaire. My thanks to Pierre Emmanuel of romanes.com for providing the image of the bell at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. The Vierne album will be released later this year.
You can hear more excerpts from our French song recordings on www.roddard.com, where there are track listings, mp3 audio samples, texts, translations, CD notes and ordering information for our double-album "Bonne Chanson, Belle Epoque" (RDD000). Buy online from the iTunes Music Store, Amazon.co.uk (UK customers) and CDBaby (US and Canadian customers).
In my spare time I run a website for professional classically trained singers and organists in the UK (www.deplist.co.uk).
