The Most Important Recording Projects Ever: Bridge Records' Complete George Crumb Edition

From Bridge Records:

On March 3, 2024 Bridge Records will release Volume 21 of its Complete Crumb Edition, a recording project begun in 1982, and completed 42 years later with this final installment. The Crumb series documents the late American composer's complete catalog of works, spanning Crumb's seventy-five year compositional career. Project producer David Starobin writes that "the series benefited tremendously from George's participation in the recording and post-production of these documents." Over the decades Crumb also made appearances on the series as pianist, percussionist, narrator, and video commentator.

Series annotator Dr. Steven Bruns writes: "Since the founding of Bridge Records in 1981, the Complete Crumb Edition has been an integral part of the label's mission. This final installment includes composi tions from the beginning, middle, and end of Crumb's long and distinguished career."

Volume 21 features the world premiere recording of the composer's penultimate composition, the percussion quintet Kronos-Kryptos (Time-Secret), performed by a quintet of percussionists from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. (Crumb's final work, Metamorphoses, Book 2 can be heard on Volume 20 of the series, performed by Marcantonio Barone). Volume 21 also includes Crumb's second acknowledged composition, the Sonata for Solo Violoncello (1955), performed by cellist Timothy Eddy, as well as two performances of Crumb's piano solo, Processional (1983), played by pianists Gilbert Kalish (keyboard version) and Marcantonio Barone (version with inside piano additions).

Bridge's Complete Crumb Edition has been awarded numerous international awards including the Cannes International Critics Award, two Grammy nominations, and a Grammy Award for Crumb's largest work, Star-Child. Critic David Hurwitz wrote that "Bridge's decision to embark on a complete edition of George Crumb's music remains one of the most significant recording projects currently in progress, as well as one of the most artistically successful." (Classics Today.com)

A shy and warmly eloquent personality, George Crumb was honored with numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize (1968), and a Grammy Award (2001). Festivals devoted to his music have taken place across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia. George Henry Crumb was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1929. He made his home in Pennsylvania, in the same house where he and his wife of more than 70 years raised their three children, and where he died in February of 2022.

George Crumb's music is published by C.F. Peters Corp. The Complete Crumb Edition recordings will be available at www.BridgeRecords.com