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Ah, Frank Wallace's Joy: Carols and Songs for a Season of Light is an instrumental album for guitar connoisseurs. Armed with tremendous talent and a classical guitar, Wallace works his way through nearly a full hour (59 minutes!) of spectacular holiday fare, smartly sprinkling the familiar with the lesser known, and including several Wallace originals as well. The artist excels on all levels. As an accomplished classical guitarist, he brings great depth and virtuosity to every track. His own record label, Gyre Music, provides a flawless recording with acoustics that are both clean and warm. This is the sort of album that makes a great companion while I work on endless projects, both personal and professional, as the holidays approach.

The album embodies quiet elegance, yet never projects formality. Although Wallace's musical expression is complex, the tracks embrace the intrinsic pleasures of simple things, the everyday marvels that make life a treasure. I love the intimacy and immediacy of music like this; indeed, it should have universal appeal across many audiences.

Everything works very well. From the first bars of the opening Joy to the World, which Wallace takes to a whole new level, to the album's closing moments Venite a Laudare/Per Nadal, I was enthralled. Of the Wallace originals, my favorite is probably the somewhat exotic and incredibly delicate A Shining, which makes me feel as though I hold starlight in the palm of my hand.

Frank Wallace and his Joy deserve a standing ovation. The classical guitar's gently expressive voice has never been more alive than in Wallace's capable hands. Bravo!

--Carol Swanson
(Reviewed in 2007)

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From the liner notes:

Joy: carols and songs for a season of light
arranged, composed (Carillon; A Shining; March; Descent of the Doves) and performed on classical guitar by Frank Wallace

The compositions and arrangements on this CD are collected in a book of the same name, published by Gyre Music, available at www.gyremusic.com.

For biographical information, please visit www.frankwallace.com.

Recorded summer 2007 at Hillsborough (NH) Center Congregational Church


From the Website:

Joy, carols and songs
Original songs and fabulous new arrangements of traditional and ancient carols for the season for guitar solo.


NOTES:

One of my fondest memories of childhood in California is the Christmas Eve service at our stucco church. We arrived at 11:00pm to miraculous blazing sentinels that stood guard all around the top of the flat-topped building and lined the stairs and benches of the patio. Each of these warm luminarias was nothing but a paper lunch bag with sand and a candle. We would sing carols outside carryied more candles as we exited the service at midnight.

Those lights had been all but extinguished by time until some mysterious match rekindled their memory in a new form last November. My annual search for better arrangements of carols became a creative marathon. I spent two months exploring many old carols and writing new ones. Each piece came to me practically in the order you hear here and created a progression of keys, moods and textures that speak of the joy and solitude of winter and the hope of re-birth that the season brings to us.

I have chosen music from my childhood, my favorite songs sung on those nights of light, as well as medieval songs to Mary, renaissance part songs, French, Sephardic, English and Catalan folk songs. The story unfolded with little effort on my part. Simple Joys...and may peace reign at last, at long last.

Frank Wallace

Joy: Carols and Songs for a Season of Light

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Track List