Nancy Braithwaite, clarinetist
Review in the New York Music Daily by delarue
A Brilliant New Album of Haunting Works by Obscure Composer Edith Hemenway
"Clarinetist Nancy Braithwaite‘s new quintet album To Paradise For Onions: Songs and Chamber Works of Edith Hemenway (streaming at Spotify) isn’t just darkly delightful obscurities. It’s a major achievement, the first-ever recording of Hemenway’s compositions. What an incredible find. While there are echoes as diverse as the French early modernists, Messiaen, Berg and Bernard Herrmann in her work, her sound is unmistakably her own. The thirty picturesque pieces on this deceptively epic album, many of them miniatures, pack a great deal into a little space. They’re accessible but acerbic, often troubled and melancholy, sometimes macabre. To call much of this material Lynchian is an understatement. It is astonishing that such impactful music has been overlooked for so long – and kudos to Braithwaite for having the vision to release it."
Review by Raul de Gama in World Music Report
"This is music of ravishing beauty, played with aristocratic grace and masterful psychological ambiguity. It is also music performed with insolently effortless and debonair virtuosity, and with appropriate deference evoking the language of the requisite poetry as few could even hope to try."
Review from A tumblelog by C. Michael Bailey
"Hemenway’s music is art music that stands side-by-side with Charles Ives, Edward McDowall, and Walter Piston. This recital tests the miscibility of the human voice with instrumental music. Braithwaite is impressive throughout; her labor of love fully realized and presented."
Review in All About Jazz By HRAYR ATTARIAN
"Edith Hemenway wrote some of the most sublimely impressionistic music of the 20th century. Yet, outside of a small circle of aficionados and admirers, she remains virtually unknown. Unfortunately, despite her long career, To Paradise with Onions is the first time her work has been released on disc. Produced by longtime collaborator, clarinetist Nancy Brathwaite, this exquisite album consists of six of Hemenway's literature-inspired suites."
The American Prize
We entered this CD in The American Prize competition in 2021.
Edith Hemenway won Honorable Mention for the composition of Vocal Chamber Music for her work" A Child's Garden of Verses" for soprano, clarinet and piano.
In addition Claron McFadden, soprano; Roberta Alexander, soprano and Vaughan Schlepp, piano won 3rd prize for their performance of "Four Poems of Langston Hughes.
The ensemble also reached the semi-finals of the competition for their performances of "Questions of Travel", "Asian Figures" and "A Child's Garden".