In her third season as music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Nathalie Stutzmann released her first recording with the ASO on Aug. 30 as part of a new exclusive recording contract she signed with Warner Classics/Erato. The album of Antonin Dvorak compositions is Stutzmann’s first purely orchestral recording and the ASO’s first major-label album in more than a decade.
Recorded live by the ASO in Symphony Hall last November, the album features Dvorak’s ninth symphony, dubbed “From the New World,” and the “American Suite.” The Czech musician composed both pieces surrounding his brief stint in New York City running the National Conservatory of Music of America in the late 1800s.
While “New World” is familiar to American audiences, the “American Suite” is rarely performed, according to ASO Executive Director Jennifer Barlament. She hadn’t heard a live performance of the work before the ASO took the stage last fall.
Credit: Courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Credit: Courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Stutzmann and the ASO recorded the program live during the November concerts, which marks a departure from how the ASO has recorded in the recent past. Stutzmann helmed live sessions for an audience on Thursday and Saturday but also led a session without an audience that Friday. With a final patch session for a small amount of orchestral touch-ups, which is a normal part of every live recording process, the finished album portrays “the real excitement” of live performance, Barlament said.
The conductor is no stranger to Warner/Erato. The company has cataloged her work as a singer, recording her ensemble Orfeo 55 three times, most recently 2021′s “Contralto.” Her career with Warner/Erato also includes a 2014 reissue of Schubert’s “Winterreise,” among other Schubert songs, with pianist Inger Sodergren.
The ASO released its last recording in January 2020 on ASO Media, though as Barlament points out, the orchestra recorded live frequently during the pandemic for COVID-era livestream concerts. That most recent release marked the 11th recording for the in-house label, which began in 2011 after the symphony’s final recording for the major label Telarc. The Telarc relationship went back to former musical director Robert Shaw and the late 1970s recording of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Firebird Suite.” Atlanta’s orchestra hasn’t appeared on a major classical recording in more than a decade.
Stutzmann’s deal with Warner/Erato is exclusive to her, but Barlament views this as the start of a relationship between the ASO and the label. There are already discussions about what the orchestra and Stutzmann might record in the future.
“We may still release recordings on ASO Media, but in general, if we’re doing anything with Nathalie, it’s going to be on Warner,” she said. “For her to make this her first big artistic statement since having really moved the center of her career to the United States means a lot for her. It’s sort of like a love letter to America.”
While streaming continues to drastically reorganize the recording industry, Barlament said that recording for a major label still brings a significant amount of cachet for an orchestra.
“You just get a lot more attention, a lot more distribution, if you’re recording for a major label. It means good things for the orchestra’s reputation and for the music being spread far and wide,” she said, adding that recording is also beneficial to the musicians. “There are few things that an orchestra can do that more effectively sharpen their artistic muscles than recording.”
Though this is Stutzmann’s first recording leading only an orchestra, she has twice before put concertos to disc. In 2022, she led the WDR Sinfonieorchester and harpist Xavier de Maistre for Sony Classical; her recording of the Beethoven piano concertos with Haochen Zhang and the Philadelphia Orchestra came out on the BIS label later that year. (Mairstre and Stutzmann reunited for the opening concert of the ASO’s 2023-2024 season.)
Barlament said that it is “relatively unusual” for American orchestras to be recording on a major label, but she is thrilled this release will bring Stutzmann’s work with the ASO to a wider audience.
“People in Atlanta have been able to hear and see the special kind of music-making that’s been developing here between Nathalie and the orchestra,” she said. “This is really kind of our coming-out party on a national, international basis.”
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