Martin Achrainer, Maki Namekawa
Philip Glass’ record company Orange Mountain Music is proud to present the new release Philip Glass: SONGS by baritone Martin Achrainer and pianist Maki Namekawa. SONGS presents the world premiere recording of Philip Glass’s 1997 song-cycle SONGS OF MILAREPA about the spiritual journey of Milarepa, a Tibetan poet who lived 900 to 1,000 years ago. Martin Achrainer has quickly become a Glass specialist of a kind, having sung in multiple Glass operas including his breakthrough performance as Kepler, the title role of Glass’s 2009 grand opera. Namekawa is one of the preeminent artists working with Philip Glass today. Chose by Glass in 2014 to be the first pianist to record his Complete Piano Etudes, Namekawa has toured extensively with Glass for years and followed with acclaimed solo piano albums of his music including “The Complete Etudes,” “Mishima for Solo Piano,” and in 2019, the composer composed his “Piano Sonata” for Namekawa – all three albums available on the composer’s label Orange Mountain Music. SONGS concludes with “Three Songs for Baritone and Piano” which is a collection of songs drawn from two sources, Glass’s 1989 song opera Hydrogen Jukebox which was created with Allen Ginsberg, and two songs from Monsters of Grace, a multimedia opera created with director Robert Wilson.
