Audio
Mark Abel
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About
Mark Abel was born in Hartford, Ct., in 1948 and grew up in the Midwest, Europe, Asia and the East Coast. He briefly attended Stanford University in the late 1960s, and spent the ‘70s and part of the ‘80s as a guitarist, bassist, songwriter and record producer on the New York rock scene. His return to California in 1983 was marked by a vocational shift into journalism for two decades and the gradual development of an approach to serious composition that incorporates certain elements of rock into a wide palette of classical influences that includes Debussy, Duparc, Berg and Janáček, among many others.
Abel’s idiom favors above all the expression of emotion and an untrammeled lyricism. He has produced five major song cycles: The Palm Trees are Restless, The Dark-Eyed Chameleon, Rainbow Songs, and Five Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (all soprano and piano); and the album-length The Dream Gallery: Seven California Portraits (for soloists and orchestra). Other important works include the opera Home Is a Harbor, The True Believers, a meditation on terrorism (for soprano, baritone and orchestra) and One Long Peace (for soprano and orchestra), an elegy for the composer’s mother. Abel’s five song cycles have been recorded for the Delos label. The solo song “The Benediction” appeared in 2013 on a recording by New York tenor Kyle Bielfield.
Related Information
Songs
Adam
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dream Gallery
Breezes Blow and Eagles Fly
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: Rainbow Songs
Carol
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dream Gallery
Cataclysm
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dark-Eyed Chameleon
Crater Light
Mark Abel
Kate Gale
Song Collection: The Palm Trees are Restless
Full Sail
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dark-Eyed Chameleon
Helen
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dream Gallery
It Was an Evening
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: Rainbow Songs
La Sonnambula
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: Rainbow Songs
Lonnie
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dream Gallery
Los Angeles
Mark Abel
Kate Gale
Song Collection: The Palm Trees are Restless
Luz
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dream Gallery
Naomi
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dream Gallery
Premonition
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dark-Eyed Chameleon
Rainbow Songs
Song CollectionMark Abel
Mark Abel
Shura
Mark Abel
Kate Gale
Song Collection: The Palm Trees are Restless
The Benediction
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
The Burned Horizon
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dark-Eyed Chameleon
The Dark-Eyed Chameleon
Song CollectionMark Abel
Mark Abel
The Dream Gallery
Song CollectionMark Abel
Mark Abel
The Great Divorce
Mark Abel
Kate Gale
Song Collection: The Palm Trees are Restless
The Guest
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: Rainbow Songs
The Palm Trees are Restless
Song CollectionMark Abel
Kate Gale
The Storm Drain
Mark Abel
Kate Gale
Song Collection: The Palm Trees are Restless
Todd
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dream Gallery
Your Girl
Mark Abel
Mark Abel
Song Collection: The Dark-Eyed Chameleon
Videos
Recordings
stopping by
(Mark Abel, Samuel Barber, Amy Marcy Beach, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Celius Dougherty, John Woods Duke, Stephen Foster, Charles Griffes and Ned Rorem)
2013
Home is a Harbor & The Palm Trees are Restless
(Mark Abel and Kate Gale)
2011