'A shifting spectrum,
rippling freely
then pulling away,
parting with
a wistful wave.'
Mark Abel’s new album 4.4.2 is a deep dive into the range of his works in the vocal and chamber spheres. He has once again recruited a group of stellar collaborators to bring the music to full flowering.
4.4.2 features the premiere of Abel’s song cycle As The World Turns, written with a nod to the long-running American TV soap opera. The work’s four songs are modeled as episodes in one person’s continuous story or, alternatively, “a gallery of views into the living rooms and psyches of different people at various stages of their relationships.”
As The World Turns is given a powerful performance by rising Swiss-Canadian mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh, a 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World finalist, making her recording debut on the album. She is accompanied by pianist Michael McMahon, a five-time Juno Award nominee hailed by La Scena Musicale as “the singer’s pianist.”
Samantha Sketches, for flute/piccolo and piano, displays Abel’s work in the chamber medium. He wrote the piece after hearing award-winning American flutist Alice K. Dade perform Erwin Schulhoff’s 1925 trio Concertino, and it is Dade who performs the premiere on the album alongside the acclaimed Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute. Abel views Samantha as an episodic journey in the interior life – taking both dreamy and dark side trips.
4.4.2 also introduces one of Abel’s most unique compositions — Symbiotica, for solo violin and organ. Inspired by Frank Martin’s Sonata da Chiesa for organ and viola d’amore, the work combines multiple stylistic planes to form an ever-shifting backdrop for an intriguing outpouring of expression from the violinist. The player up to the challenge is Jennifer Choi, a “soulful, compelling” (New York Times) founding member of the Miró Quartet known for her boundary-pushing sensibilities.
The album’s final work features one of America’s leading cellists, Jonah Kim, in his third collaboration with Mark Abel. Praised by Gramophone in his 2021 recording of Abel’s Approaching Autumn for his ability to “capture the elusiveness that gives the music its substance” and his “incisive and dramatic” playing, Kim similarly locks in to bring forth the debut of A Door Opens.
An extroverted voyage of discovery, A Door Opens swings between poles of sweet lyricism and fervid passion. Partnering Kim is one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most distinguished pianists, Keisuke Nakagoshi. A longtime pianist-in-residence at San Francisco Conservatory of Music and one half of the GRAMMY® nominated piano duet, ZOFO, Nakagoshi anchors Kim from start to finish. The pair gave the piece its world premiere at the San Francisco Music Festival on November 22, 2025.
4.4.2 was recorded over 11 months at WFMT in Chicago; the famed Skywalker Sound in Marin County, CA; St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Belvedere, CA; and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. The album was produced by Mark Abel, Matt Carr and Martha de Francisco, and engineered by Christopher Willis, Dann Thompson, Matt Carr and James Clemens-Seely. The booklet can be found here. Streaming links are here.
4.4.2 features the premiere of Abel’s song cycle As The World Turns, written with a nod to the long-running American TV soap opera. The work’s four songs are modeled as episodes in one person’s continuous story or, alternatively, “a gallery of views into the living rooms and psyches of different people at various stages of their relationships.”
As The World Turns is given a powerful performance by rising Swiss-Canadian mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh, a 2023 Cardiff Singer of the World finalist, making her recording debut on the album. She is accompanied by pianist Michael McMahon, a five-time Juno Award nominee hailed by La Scena Musicale as “the singer’s pianist.”
Samantha Sketches, for flute/piccolo and piano, displays Abel’s work in the chamber medium. He wrote the piece after hearing award-winning American flutist Alice K. Dade perform Erwin Schulhoff’s 1925 trio Concertino, and it is Dade who performs the premiere on the album alongside the acclaimed Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute. Abel views Samantha as an episodic journey in the interior life – taking both dreamy and dark side trips.
4.4.2 also introduces one of Abel’s most unique compositions — Symbiotica, for solo violin and organ. Inspired by Frank Martin’s Sonata da Chiesa for organ and viola d’amore, the work combines multiple stylistic planes to form an ever-shifting backdrop for an intriguing outpouring of expression from the violinist. The player up to the challenge is Jennifer Choi, a “soulful, compelling” (New York Times) founding member of the Miró Quartet known for her boundary-pushing sensibilities.
The album’s final work features one of America’s leading cellists, Jonah Kim, in his third collaboration with Mark Abel. Praised by Gramophone in his 2021 recording of Abel’s Approaching Autumn for his ability to “capture the elusiveness that gives the music its substance” and his “incisive and dramatic” playing, Kim similarly locks in to bring forth the debut of A Door Opens.
An extroverted voyage of discovery, A Door Opens swings between poles of sweet lyricism and fervid passion. Partnering Kim is one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most distinguished pianists, Keisuke Nakagoshi. A longtime pianist-in-residence at San Francisco Conservatory of Music and one half of the GRAMMY® nominated piano duet, ZOFO, Nakagoshi anchors Kim from start to finish. The pair gave the piece its world premiere at the San Francisco Music Festival on November 22, 2025.
4.4.2 was recorded over 11 months at WFMT in Chicago; the famed Skywalker Sound in Marin County, CA; St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Belvedere, CA; and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. The album was produced by Mark Abel, Matt Carr and Martha de Francisco, and engineered by Christopher Willis, Dann Thompson, Matt Carr and James Clemens-Seely. The booklet can be found here. Streaming links are here.
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ABEL'S 6TH FOR DELOS
A CAREER LANDMARK Spectrum is a harvest of compelling music performed by a distinguished group including singers Hila Plitmann, Isabel Bayrakdarian and Kindra Scharich, and instrumentalists Carol Rosenberger, Dominic Cheli, Jonah Kim, Sean Kennard, Dennis Kim, Jeff Garza, David Samuel, Adam Millstein, Max Opferkuch, Christy Kim and Jeffrey LaDeur. The album showcases two major vocal works. Trois Femmes du Cinema is an homage to departed film figures Anne Wiazemsky, Pina Pellicer and Larisa Shepitko. Two Scenes from "The Book of Esther" dramatizes episodes from the biblical saga, which has long been viewed as a precedent-setting depiction of female empowerment. Bayrakdarian, Plitmann and Scharich give powerful and emotional readings of the texts, which were written by Abel and poet Kate Gale, respectively. The recording also includes the short song cycle 1966 and three striking chamber pieces – Reconciliation Day (for viola and piano), Out the Other Side (violin, cello and piano) and The Long March (flute, horn and piano). The instrumental works build on ground Abel set out in his previous release, The Cave of Wondrous Voice. Spectrum was recorded from fall 2021 to summer 2022 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Belvedere, CA, and Silent Zoo Studios in Glendale. The album was produced by Matt Carr and engineered by Carr and James T. Hill. The booklet can be found here. A playlist that includes all six Spectrum videos is here. The album has received considerable media acclaim. Gregory Berg of the Journal of Singing called Abel "a composer who has a lot to say and has some very intriguing ways of saying it. ... Everything here is deeply engaging and unfailingly fresh." Textura's Ron Schepper wrote: "He is his own man, who brings his sensibility and highly developed command of craft to a particular idea and illuminates it in a strikingly imaginative manner." Donald Rosenberg of Gramophone said of Spectrum: "Abel’s affinity for setting words is in appealing bloom in songs of diverse atmosphere and feeling." CultureSpot LA's Henry Schlinger declared: "Abel brings his unique history of rock, jazz and literary influences to his classical compositions, and the result is a refreshingly distinctive approach to contemporary music." For other video clips and audio, see this site's Recordings and Videos tabs. |
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"SPECTRUM": A CLOSER LOOK
AND LISTEN
New York publicist/music journalist Max Horowitz interviews Mark and soprano Hila Plitmann about the album and their series of collaborations over an eight-year period. Enjoy the podcast at this link
RADIO INTERVIEWS AND ARTICLES
Mark's fifth album for Delos, The Cave of Wondrous Voice, received much attention from classical radio. WWFM's David Osenberg aired a lengthy two-part interview in July 2020 that covered the entire span of Mark's output up to that point. Here are the links for each 59-minute show -- WWFM1 and WWFM2.
Around the same time, Julie Amacher of Minnesota Public Radio included a 23-minute interview in her New Classical Tracks series -- the program is here. In February 2021, Rob Kennedy of WCPE The Classical Station put together an hourlong feature on Mark's music journey. An excerpt is here.
The Chicago-based online arts magazine Stay Thirsty published an extensive email interview with Mark covering a wide range of topics -- read it here.
There have also been two feature articles on the creation of the Marina Tsvetaeva cycle -- from the online magazine Russian Life and the Bowdoin College newspaper.
The eminent David Shifrin connected with Ken Field of WMBR, MIT's radio station, to discuss Cave, his first encounters with Mark and other matters pertinent to clarinetists -- WMBR
The most fun of the radio interviews is probably the one by Dacia Clay of Houston Public Media for the charming and informative podcast "Classical Classroom." In it, Mark and Dacia define art song and discuss its value, listen to some music along the way, and rehash some of Mark's musical history. Check it out here.
Two years later the irrepressible Ms. Clay, having moved over to KING-FM's Second Inversion site in Seattle, interviewed Mark again after the release of "Time and Distance." Their conversation is here.
In 2016, the opera "Home Is a Harbor" was aired in its entirety on KCBX, the NPR station for California's Central Coast. Excerpts from Mark's interview with program host Bettina Swigger can be found here. Ryah Cooley of the New Times of San Luis Obispo wrote this look at the origins and making of "Home Is a Harbor."
Los Angeles' venerable KCET, America's largest independent public television station, published in 2014 a long piece on Mark's work by Sarah Linn, arts writer for The Tribune of San Luis Obispo, Ca. It can be viewed here. Ms. Linn also wrote a profile of Mark for The Tribune at the time of release of "Terrain of the Heart."
Mark had wide-ranging chats about "Terrain of the Heart" with Ted Peterson of Estero Bay Community Radio in Morro Bay, Ca., and Jim Cross of WGDR, community and public radio for Central Vermont. An earlier interview takes "The Dream Gallery" as its subject. Mark was the guest of Charles Sepos of KRCB, the NPR affiliate for California's Sonoma County. Hear it here.