Mark Abel

Mark Abel is a California composer who specializes in vocal music -- art songs in particular. He usually writes his own lyrics and his musical style occasionally displays a sublimated rock influence.

Photo: Mark Abel, photograph by Corina Gamma, http://www.markabelmusic.com.

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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 RestlessThe 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 HarborThe 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 Collection

    Mark 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 Collection

    Mark Abel

    Mark Abel

    The Dream Gallery

    Song Collection

    Mark 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 Collection

    Mark 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

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