America Daniel Hope

• George Gershwin (1898 - 1937): Gershwin Song Suite:
• 1Gershwin: Gershwin Song Suite: I. Fascinating Rhythm (Version for Solo Violin, Jazz Trio and String Orchestra)04:24
• 2Gershwin: Gershwin Song Suite: II. Summertime (Version for Solo Violin, Jazz Trio and String Orchestra)04:39
• 3Gershwin: Gershwin Song Suite: III. 'S Wonderful (Version for Solo Violin, Jazz Trio and String Orchestra)03:59
• 4Gershwin: Gershwin Song Suite: IV. The Man I Love (Version for Solo Violin, Jazz Trio and String Orchestra)08:31
• 5Gershwin: Gershwin Song Suite: V. I Got Rhythm (Version for Solo Violin, Jazz Trio and String Orchestra)06:36
• Sam Cooke (1931 - 1964): A Change is Gonna Come (Version for Voice, Solo Violin and Piano):
• 6Cooke: A Change is Gonna Come (Version for Voice, Solo Violin and Piano)03:45
• Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990): West Side Story Suite:
• 7Bernstein: West Side Story Suite: I. America (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)02:44
• 8Bernstein: West Side Story Suite: II. Maria (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)02:55
• 9Bernstein: West Side Story Suite: III. Tonight (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)03:45
• 10Bernstein: West Side Story Suite: IV. Somewhere (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)02:30
• 11Bernstein: West Side Story Suite: V. A Boy Like That (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)01:56
• 12Bernstein: West Side Story Suite: VI. I Have a Love (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)03:24
• 13Bernstein: West Side Story Suite: VII. Mambo (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)02:21
• Florence Price (1887 - 1953): Adoration (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra):
• 14Price: Adoration (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)03:53
• Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990): Old American Songs:
• 15Copland: Old American Songs, Set 1: III. Long Time Ago (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)03:06
• 16Copland: Old American Songs, Set 2: IV. At the River (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)03:05
• Rodeo: IV. Hoe-Down:
• 17Copland: Rodeo: IV. Hoe-Down03:11
• Duke Ellington (1899 - 1974): Black, Brown and Beige: V. Come Sunday (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra):
• 18Ellington: Black, Brown and Beige: V. Come Sunday (Version for Solo Violin and String Orchestra)03:49
• Kurt Weill (1900 - 1950): American Song Suite:
• 19Weill: American Song Suite: I. September Song (Version for Violin and Chamber Orchestra)03:03
• 20Weill: American Song Suite: II. My Ship (Version for Violin and Chamber Orchestra)03:00
• 21Weill: American Song Suite: III. Speak Low (Version for Violin and Chamber Orchestra)02:59
• 22Weill: American Song Suite: IV. Mack The Knife (Version for Violin and Chamber Orchestra)04:08
• Samuel Ward (1847 - 1903): America the Beautiful (Arr. Bateman for Solo Violin and Chamber Orchestra):
• 23Ward: America the Beautiful (Arr. Bateman for Solo Violin and Chamber Orchestra)03:16
• Total Runtime01:24:59

Info for America

Berlin-based violinist Daniel Hope’s latest album takes a deep dive into the rich repertoire of American music, exploring its roots and distinctive qualities. “We know a piece is from America the moment we hear it,” says Hope. “But what makes music sound American?” America provides some answers, presenting works by composers as diverse as Leonard Bernstein, Sam Cooke, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and Florence Price in outstanding new classical and jazz arrangements by Paul Bateman for solo violin in different combinations, with vocals, piano, jazz trio, string/chamber orchestra and percussion.

As on his recent recordings Hope and Belle Epoque, Daniel Hope is joined by the Zürcher Kammerorchester, of which he has been Music Director since 2016. In addition, he welcomes an all-star line-up of guest artists, from German soul and R&B singer Joy Denalane, Brazilian pianist Sylvia Thereza and German jazz guitarist Joscho Stephan to acclaimed American jazz pianist and composer Marcus Roberts and his trio, which also includes Rodney Jordan on bass and Jason Marsalis on drums.

Hope and Roberts have performed together on several occasions, setting creative sparks flying as hosts of a “piano trio battle” that pits Haydn, Ravel and Shostakovich against Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Roberts himself. “Usually the classical and jazz worlds don’t really converge, but we managed to make it happen as a musical dialogue,” says Hope. “Now we’re doing it again on this record.”

He and Roberts are both committed to reviving compositions by African American composers and showing how their work helped make American music what it is today. “One of the crucial things you learn as a musician is the ability to listen to someone else, and learn from them,” says Roberts. “So if we could actually take these people’s music and figure out how and why it deserves recognition – not just because they were forgotten, but because there’s a relevant message in their music from which we can still learn and benefit today – then that would be a great way to elevate them and ourselves as well.”

Noting the way Dvořák stimulated an ongoing political debate more than a century ago, when he cited African American melodies as a source of inspiration, Hope has chosen here to include works by Florence Price, Duke Ellington and Sam Cooke, all of whom made their voices heard in an age of racial segregation and social injustice. As well as jazz, blues and classical music, the wide-ranging tracklist of Daniel Hope – America also features Broadway hits, American folk music and the songs that generations of migrants and refugees brought with them to the New World. Together these pieces help reveal the way American music gained its own unique sound.

The album opens with a Gershwin Song Suite, which includes such classics as “Fascinating Rhythm”, “I Got Rhythm” and, from the pioneering opera Porgy and Bess, “Summertime”. Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” (1964) recalls the singer-songwriter’s role in the Civil Rights movement, while Florence Price’s hauntingly beautiful Adoration shows why it was she who broke through barriers of race and gender to become the first African American woman to have her music performed by a major U.S. symphony orchestra. Other highlights of Hope’s new release include “Come Sunday” from Duke Ellington’s jazz suite Black, Brown and Beige, written for his band’s Carnegie Hall debut in 1943; the “Hoe-Down” from Copland’s ballet Rodeo, which celebrates the American West; and a suite of pieces by the German-Jewish composer Kurt Weill, who found refuge in America from Nazi persecution. Daniel Hope dedicates the album to his great-aunt, who, like Weill, escaped persecution in Germany and settled for the rest of her life in the United States. Four decades later, Hope’s father, a writer, liberal publisher and opponent of the apartheid regime, fled South Africa for London.

Hope and the Zürcher Kammerorchester will perform music from the album early next year on an eight-concert tour of Germany, opening on 1 February at Die Glocke in Bremen. Their itinerary also includes dates at Munich’s Prinzregententheater (2 February), the NDR Sendesaal in Hanover (4 February), Konzerthaus Berlin (5 February), Staatstheater Braunschweig (6 February), Elbphilharmonie Hamburg (9 February), Tonhalle Düsseldorf (11 February) and Frankfurt’s Alte Oper (12 February).

Daniel Hope’s work as musician, communicator and champion of humanitarian causes reaches far beyond the classical concert hall. In October 2021 he received the Opus KLASSIK jury’s Special Achievement Award for his Hope@Home concerts: 150 events, livestreamed daily from his living room during the early months of the pandemic, which gave a platform to nearly 400 musicians. Described by Classic FM as “one of the most charismatic violinists in the world”, he became an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist in 2007. His award-winning discography comprises more than thirty albums. Hope served as Associate Artistic Director of the Savannah Music Festival from 2003 to 2019, sharing the post with Marcus Roberts. Today, as well as being Music Director of the Zürcher Kammerorchester, he is also Artistic Director of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra, Artistic Director of the Frauenkirche church in Dresden and President of the Beethoven-Haus Bonn.

Zürcher Kammerorchester
Daniel Hope, violin, musical director
Marcus Roberts Trio
Joy Denalane, vocals

Daniel Hope
British violinist Daniel Hope has toured the world as a virtuoso soloist for more than twenty years, and as the youngest ever member of the Beaux Arts Trio during its last six seasons. He is renowned for his musical versatility and creativity and for his dedication to humanitarian causes. Hope performs as soloist with the world’s major orchestras and conductors, directs many ensembles from the violin, and plays chamber music in a wide variety of traditional and new venues. Raised in London and educated at Highgate School, Hope earned degrees at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with renowned Russian pedagogue Zakhar Bron.

London’s Observer called Hope “the most exciting British string player since Jacqueline du Pré,” and recent New York Times reviews summarized his unique attributes: “... a violinist of probing intellect and commanding style... In a business that likes tidy boxes drawn around its commodities, the British violinist Daniel Hope resists categorization.’

Daniel Hope, an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007, has earned numerous Grammy nominations, a Classical BRIT award, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and five ECHO Klassik Prizes. He previously recorded for Warner Classics and Nimbus, playing Bach, Britten, Elgar, Finzi, Foulds, Ireland, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Penderecki, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Tippett, Walton, and Weill. His recording of the Berg Violin Concerto was voted to be the “best available of all time” by Gramophone Magazine in 2010. His Mendelssohn CD for Deutsche Grammophon featuring the Violin Concerto and Octet was voted one of the finest Mendelssohn recordings by the New York Times in 2009. His recent release for Deutsche Grammophon was a tribute to the great and highly influential violinist and composer Joseph Joachim (1831- 1907) and centred around the Bruch concerto, a work with which Joachim was closely associated. The Bruch was recorded with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. "Four Seasons Recomposed" – the newest release in DG’s “Recomposed” series presents Daniel Hope with the Berlin Konzerthaus Chamber Orchestra, conducted by André de Ridder, in a world première recording of British composer Max Richter’s." Spheres" – which is Hope’s own project, due out in early 2013 – is a curated collection of repertoire celebrating the idea, first brought forward by Pythagoras, that planetary movement creates its own kind of music. This idea has fascinated philosophers, musicians, and mathematicians for centuries. The CD’s program includes music in a variety of styles, from Baroque to minimalist, by Bach, Faure, contemporary masters like Arvo Pärt and Michael Nyman, and younger composers who have specially composed new works for Hope, based on the idea of spherical music. These include Gabriel Prokofiev, Ludovico Einaudi, Alex Baranowski and Aleksey Igudesmann. Hope is joined by the Berlin Rundfunk-choir under the direction of Simon Halsey on this disc.

Hope regularly directs chamber orchestras as violin soloist with ensembles including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Camerata Salzburg, and Lucerne Festival Strings. He has performed at the world’s most important festivals, such as the BBC Proms, Hollywood Bowl and the Lucerne, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Tanglewood festivals. Daniel Hope has performed in all of the world’s most prestigious venues and with the world’s great orchestras. Highlights include the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, as well as the major orchestras of Berlin, Birmingham, Dallas, Detroit, Dresden, Israel, London, Moscow, Oslo, Paris, Stockholm, and Vienna. He is Associate Music Director of the Savannah Music Festival and Artistic Director at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Summer Festival in Germany. He has also published three bestselling books.

Daniel Hope plays the 1742 “ex-Lipiński” Guarneri del Gesù, placed generously at his disposal by an anonymous family from Germany. The instrument carries the name of its owner, the 19th century Polish violinist Karol Lipiński, who shared the stage with Paganini, Schumann and Liszt.

Booklet for America