"A high level of artistry from an impeccable soprano. This is very fine. Her voice is a lyric soprano of considerable body, even throughout its range, and her diction is impeccable...her interpretations can stand comparison with the very best - Auger, Soderstrom, Studer, Te Kanawa...an enchanting hour and a quarter in the presence of someone who...was obviously a major artist"
THE GRAMOPHONE, SEPTEMBER 2005

"You will not be disappointed... [Bramson has] a huge stylistic range...This is singing of beauty, power and a genuine vocal presence. Bramson's voice has power and warmth, a rare combination...She sings with sensitivity to the text...and a thorough  feel for the shape of the line...an extremely gratifying recital. This is a superb recital of songs...I hope there might be more of Ms. Bramson in the vaults."
FANFARE, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2005

"I listened. I listened to it again. Wow. Berenice Bramson was a major talent...These recitals reveal of woman of tremendous ability and skill. Her voice is rich and full. Allied with her fine execution and able technique is her sensitivity to the dramatic possibilities of the texts...Bramson was a real pro."
AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2005

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This is the first full length CD featuring soprano Berenice Bramson, whose career spanned more than forty years, during which time her performances received stunning reviews one after another.

"An auspicious debut" is how The New York Times headed its review of the 24-year-old singer’s first New York concert in 1953. The Herald Tribune’s reviewer, composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks, wrote "Berenice Bramson, a young soprano who gave a recital at Carnegie Recital Hall last evening, is an artist in every real sense of that word. Born with a beautiful and appealing voice, she has built upon this asset such artistry that she can get right inside many kinds of musical thought and expression, and bring forth in presentation their full and exact content and value." A few years later, Raymond Erickson in the Times wrote "she sang…music of high quality…with a thorough insight into its varying styles and with unusual technical security." In an even more glowing review in The New York Times in 1973, Peter G. Davis wrote "On the basis of her concert Sunday night, Berenice Bramson can match talents with any soprano recitalist before the public today…Ms. Bramson’s unerring stylistic instincts and interpretive gifts are even more remarkable. She has the rare ability to convince and audience that while she is singing a specific song there is simply no other way to do it, so totally has she entered the composer’s world…The German songs...were especially spellbinding…a singer one would gladly hear in the entire song repertory from Machaut to Maxwell Davies." Later, in 1984, Allen Hughes wrote in The New York Times: "Ms. Bramson – almost without trying, it seems – lures listeners ineluctably into the rich experience of lyric art…Technique, intelligence, insight and sensitivity were fused into an order of expressive achievement realized by few singers." It is surprising that with such rave reviews, Ms. Bramson, who died in 1995, has until now, has never been the featured artist on a recording. With the exception of appearances on several LPs, long since out-of-print, she has not appeared on disc. Now, several re-discovered tapes have been digitally re-mastered for this release, featuring performances that, except for the Gerhard Spanish folk songs, were taped live at a recital given at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City on April 4, 1984. Listening to the opening track, "Let the florid music praise" from Benjamin Britten’s cycle "On This Island," you will hear why Allen Hughes wrote: "She was singing along very simply when a vocal flourish in the line "Let the sun shine on" came along, and suddenly one was galvanized by the authority with which the soprano delivered it."

Berenice Bramson was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, where she began serious piano studies. She traveled to New York at age eighteen to continue her studies at New York University, Hunter College, and Columbia University. Very quickly she found the teacher who realized her vocal potential and who became her life long friend, the Russian Cantor Boris Voronovsky. He introduced her to the wonderful vocal literature of Russia, of which we hear five songs of Sergei Rachmaninov. Her vast repertoire of German and French song was acquired with the help of such masters as Arpad Sandor, Emanuel Balaban, Pierre Bernac, and Paul Ulanowsky. She also studied with such greats as Estelle Liebling and Fausto Cleva. Orchestras she appeared with included the Denver Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic and the Caramoor Festival Orchestra. She made her opera debut with the Vancouver Opera Company with Richard Bonynge conducting. John Corigliano chose her as soloist for the world premiere of his " A Dylan Trilogy" at the Washington Cathedral. Ms. Bramson devoted much of her time as a teacher herself, not only with private students, but also in concerts and master classes at such schools as Skidmore, Cornell and SUNY Binghamton.

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