featuring Carmine Miranda. Listen here or find Fugue for Thought in iTunes.

As mentioned in the first part of my conversation with Mr. Miranda, much of the more successful blog articles and things that I prepare are on more obscure (or in some cases virtually unknown) composers or works, so when it came time to talk about one of the most common cello concertos in the repertoire, I wasn’t terribly sure where the conversation would go. Hasn’t that ground already been covered before?

Well, Carmine has much to say in defense of offering a fresh, new reading of a work, no matter how familiar it might be, and let me say his new release is just that. It’s wonderful, and I’ll even admit a bit of initial skepticism on my part. I was wrong. The album was released (at the time of writing) just over a week ago and already seems to be getting attention. It is deserved.

There were a few “aha” moments for me in this discussion, as Mr. Miranda brings some insight into how the cello concerto is unique among the other works the composer wrote during his time in America, and you can’t miss it when you listen. The things that make this work unique, the parts of himself that Dvorak brought to the work seem also to be things with which Miranda identifies, and the result is a crystal clear, powerful interpretation of a work that you just might hear in a new way. Go listen.

You can find Carmine Miranda at his website and on Facebook, and the album is in iTunes, as well as pretty much everywhere else. Listen, enjoy, share, and stay tuned.