Kansas City Symphony To Awaken the Sleeper: Works of Joel Thompson CD

Reference Recordings proudly presents a landmark recording, the first commercial project to feature Joel Thompson's music exclusively. It brings together this ascendant composer and the Kansas City Symphony led by Michael Stern. Joining them are some of the most important performers of today focused on the same crucial topics: cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and the Sphinx Organization's vocal ensemble Exigence led by Dr. Eugene Rogers. This is powerful music of profound insight and uncompromising conviction, brought to life by the passion and artistry of eminently skilled collaborators.

The career of composer Joel Thompson has seen a meteoric rise since the premiere of his breakout choral work Seven Last Words of the Unarmed in 2015. Each of its seven movements sets to music the last words of an unarmed Black man before he was killed. Since 2015, Thompson has received multiple prestigious awards, been commissioned by America's top orchestras and ensembles, and taken the post of Houston Grand Opera's first-ever composer-in-residence. Today, Thompson's compositional voice is one of the most powerful and incisive in the country, centering the concerns and desires of the voiceless and historically marginalized.

The Kansas City Symphony, founded in 1982, has seen a similar rise since the appointment of Michael Stern as music director in 2005. Stern took the orchestra from a regional group to being one of the top 25 American orchestras over the course of his remarkable 19-year tenure, raising both its national and international profile. Throughout his time at the orchestra's helm, he demonstrated an unwavering commitment to new music, to American composers, and to works dedicated to the pressing issues of our time.