Releasing on Neuma records January 14, 2022.

What a pleasure to participate in this wonderful consortium! Tyler Kline’s Orchard is a marvelous set of 50 short piano pieces. Perfect for students and professionals alike, these are wonderful works for introducing students to contemporary sonorities.

I commissioned 5 fruits specific to my home state of Minnesota: Blackberry, Cloudberry, Elderberry, Juniper, and Sand Cherry. I play these plus Kiwi on the recording. Thanks to “The Outside” on WYSO 91.3 (Yellow Springs, Ohio) for featuring Kiwi on November 28, 2021.

Reviews of my performances on Orchard include:

‘Ann DuHamel is tart on “Blackberry” and sweet during “Kiwi” ‘ (George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly, March 21, 2022).

‘ …kiwi” is a spikier type of Minimalism (Ann DuHamel giving a very “alive” reading) … It’s interesting that “blackberry” brings about a rather more Romantic response (possibly implying a cherished memory from childhood?) and that “elderberry” (a light, perfumed taste from the flowers) elicits such depth from Kline, with DuHamel performing again, wringing every last drop from the fruit. (Comments like that were inevitable, and I’m sorry; but the point is she finds the aching expression in Kline’s large-interval, post-Webernian lines).’ (Colin Clarke, Fanfare).