The internationally awarded Dutch composer Stephen Emmer presents his most personal work with the new album ‘Mt. Mundane’. The album, recorded with orchestra, piano and choir at Abbey Road Studios in London, addresses crises and personal challenges and conveys hope and confidence with 15 symphonic pieces.

The orchestra, conducted by Anthony Weeden, features soloists from the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

It is a personal story of a struggling composer who overcame medical setbacks with his hearing and emerged stronger by making more meaningful music and decided to dedicate a new album to this with 15 cinematic adagios for piano, orchestra and choir with the aim of inspiring others to never give up and to try taking something ugly and converting it into something beautiful.

Or as Karlheinz Stockhausen once said: ‘The role of the arts is to explore a person’s inner space; to find out how much and how intensely someone can vibrate, through sound, through what he hears, whichever it is. The arts are a means to expand a person’s inner universe.’

As a source of inspiration, Stephen Emmer cites the music of the lesser-known French Impressionist composers such as Lili Boulanger, André Caplet and Maurice Duruflé and pays further tribute to Ravel and Debussy.

The album has already received critical acclaim from the international press and many positive responses.

‘A new masterpiece’

(Die Zeit, Germany)

‘He was forced to redefine his relationship with music’

(Classical Music, UK)

‘It’s lovely and powerful’

(Emma B Clark – presenter BBC Radio 3 Saturday Breakfast show, UK)

‘The meaning and pureness of the album is something that goes once again beyond limits’

(Aurelio Fernandes – Urbans magazine, Spain)

‘Music in tune with the times, pleasant above all’

(Opus magazine, France)

‘He knew how to reinvent himself’

(De Telegraaf, Netherlands)

‘Emmer’s richly colourful orchestrations draw inspiration from the legacy of the great French composers Debussy and Ravel’

(Opus magazine, Germany)

‘Very soothing, will listen to it more often’

(Kathinka Pasveer, Director of the Stockhausen Foundation for Music)

‘Stephen is a true maestro of both orchestration and instrumentation’

(Cynthia Wilson – former artistic director, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra)

Now available on all streaming platforms in stereo and Dolby Atmos and on CD. www.stephenemmer.com