Winter Lavinia Meijer

• Max Richter (b. 1966): The Departure:
• 1Richter: The Departure02:30
• Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943): All-Night Vigil, Op. 37:
• 2Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil, Op. 37: V. Nunc dimittis03:14
• Reyer Zwart: Amethyst:
• 3Zwart: Amethyst04:12
• Lambert (b. 1982): As Ballad:
• 4Lambert: As Ballad05:02
• Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828): A Winter Interlude (After Schubert):
• 5Schubert: A Winter Interlude (After Schubert)03:15
• Lavinia Meijer (b. 1983): Open Window:
• 6Meijer: Open Window: Part I05:41
• 7Meijer: Open Window: Part II02:38
• 8Meijer: Open Window: Part III04:19
• Erik Satie (1866 - 1925): Pièces froides:
• 9Satie: Pièces froides: II. Danses des travers, No. 2 Passer01:19
• Nils Frahm (b. 1982): Over There, It's Raining:
• 10Frahm: Over There, It's Raining02:06
• George Gurdjieff (1866 - 1949): Song of the Fisherwomen:
• 11Gurdjieff: Song of the Fisherwomen02:19
• Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976): Corpus Christi Carol:
• 12Britten: Corpus Christi Carol03:04
• Philip Glass (b. 1937): The Orchard:
• 13Glass: The Orchard06:55
• Olafur Arnalds (b. 1986): Lag fyrir Ömmu:
• 14Arnalds: Lag fyrir Ömmu03:08
• Lavinia Meijer: Tomorrowday:
• 15Meijer: Tomorrowday03:11
• Philip Glass: Freezing:
• 16Glass: Freezing03:29
• Total Runtime56:22

Info for Winter

Sony Classical is proud to announce the release of a brand-new album from Lavinia Meijer, a pioneering and exciting musician and composer, and one of the most important harpists of her generation. Winter is the culmination of a year-long project taking inspiration from the changing of the seasons, and the effect climate change is having on them. The album, to be released on February 2, 2024, features two new compositions by Meijer alongside interpretations of works by, among others, Max Richter, Philip Glass, and Nils Frahm, and collaborations with violinist Nadia Sirota, the Wishful Singing ensemble, and Alma Quartet.

“Winter for me isn’t just about the cold – it’s also about long stretches of endurance. So the songs I composed for this record have long lines, and go deeper down into this season,” she says. Even with the tone and subject matter of the featured works and compositions – and with the way Meijer wanted to open up “the dark tones of the harp, because without them, you cannot hear the lighter ones as clearly” – Winter is not sad or melancholic. In fact, quite the opposite. “I want the listener to feel alive, and that the music triggers more awareness of everything around them and the beauty that exists in the world,” she says. “I want them to feel inspired.”

Lavinia Meijer, harp

Lavinia Meijer
performs solo concerts in venues worldwide from Carnegie Hall NYC to the Berlin Philharmonie, being one of the most important, pioneering and exciting musicians of our times.

Born in South Korea and adopted at the age of 2, Lavinia Meijer is now based in the Netherlands. At only 9 years old, she started to play the harp. She studied at the conservatories of Utrecht (she was admitted to the conservatory at the age of 11) and Amsterdam, receiving her BA and MA with the highest distinction. Aged only 14, Lavinia Meijer was already performing with symphony orchestras. Her passion to broaden the possibilities of the harp is noteworthy. Not only does Mrs. Meijer search for rare classical solo & orchestral repertoire, she is also always on the alert for contemporary music possibilities, performing together with Òlafur Arnalds and others. She performs pieces by Radiohead in classical venues, to great artistic & critical acclaim and enjoys commercial success for her albums. Ms Meijer tours extensively all over the world in classical and rock venues and at outdoor festivals. Ms Meijer has received numerous awards, including 2 gold discs and a certified platinum disc for the album Metamorphosis / The Hours with pieces by the acclaimed American composer, Philip Glass.

In May 2011 she had the honour to meet Mr. Glass in person, who gave permission for Ms. Meijer to transcribe his 5-piece Metamorphosis for harp. Since then she has transcribed various other works by Philip Glass, including Opening Piece, various movements from the Hours and the main theme from Koyaanisqatsi. In 2014 Lavinia joined Philip Glass again on stage for a sold out concert in Amsterdam. Recently she was invited to perform with Mr. Glass at his Days & Nights Festival in Big Sur, USA. All over the world, Lavinia Meijer mesmerizes audiences with her intense and ground-breaking renditions of Philip Glass repertoire.

Besides performing the classical standard harp repertoire, Mrs. Meijer experiments with electronic music, theatrical music, jazz and avant rock. Composers like Ludwig Ellis-Leone, Garrett Byrnes, Paul Patterson, Carlos Michans, Konstantia Gourzi and JacobTV have all written pieces for Mrs. Meijer. JacobTV wrote her the suite Cities, changing the songs of birds for harp and boombox. This piece, about the poorest in New York society, consisted of music put to samples of conversations from drug-addicted women with criminal records. It caused an instant scandal (some of the audience walked out during the première) and was a sensation among the international harp societies, triggering lengthy and heated debates about the artist’s right to perform “this kind of music” with samples and a boom-box on an instrument like the harp, traditionally considered as ‘angelic’.

Ms. Meijer has performed on international stages such as Carnegie Hall, NYC; Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Paradiso, Amsterdam; Musikverein, Vienna; Carré, Amsterdam; Philharmonie, Berlin, Cité de la Musique, Paris; Bronfman Auditorium,Tel Aviv; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and Seoul Arts Center. As a featured soloist she has performed harp concertos with renowned orchestras such as Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, working with such leading conductors as Andrew Grams, Thierry Fischer, Charles Floyd, Frans Brüggen, Hannu Lintu, and Marco Boni. Ms. Meijer played Bryce Dessner’s exciting piece Aheym as the special chosen guest artist of Kronos Quartet and Mr. Dessner pledged to write her a new composition.

Lavinia Meijer is the only classical artist to have hit the top 10 in the Dutch rock album charts with three consecutive albums. She starred in a TV commercial for the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum in 2015. Her albums Passaggio and Voyage were recorded in Berlin by the noted Tonmeister and 15x Grammy Award winner, Andreas Neubronner. Recently she released both Voyage, her seventh solo album with music by Debussy, Tiersen, Satie and Ravel, a live-recording with bandoneonist, Carel Kraayenhof: In Concert and The Glass Effect, to celebrate Philip Glass’s 80th birthday in 2017.

Booklet for Winter