SARAH PLUM
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Set for release on April 10, Sarah Plum’s new recording grows organically out of a life immersed in new music. The album brings together long-standing artistic partnerships, works that have traveled with her for decades, and more recent collaborations that have quickly become essential to her musical world. Rather than a retrospective, the CD functions as a snapshot—capturing how these pieces sound and feel now, and how Plum hopes they will continue to circulate through performers and listeners alike.
Several works were written specifically for Plum and reflect relationships built over many years. Sidney Corbett’s Canticle extends a deep creative dialogue, while Mari Takano’s Elegy arrived unexpectedly as a gift—an intimate gesture of trust and generosity. Benjamin Fuhrman’s Sirens, which Plum has performed for nearly two decades, is a tour-de-force: physical, virtuosic, and immediately compelling, carried into performances worldwide since its introduction by a former student.
Newer chapters appear alongside these established works. Osnat Netzer’s Olive Cotton, transcribed from its original viola version, allows Plum to inhabit the composer’s voice with unusual closeness. Tonia Ko’s Moves and Remains, discovered soon after both arrived in Chicago, emerges as a quietly striking work deserving wider attention. Jeffrey Mumford’s an expanding distance of multiple voices rounds out the program—a piece Plum returns to here with fresh perspective and personal urgency.
At heart, the album is about transmission: how music is lived with, shaped, and passed forward. As a performer and teacher, Plum treats recording not as documentation, but as continuation.
Plum’s complete solo discography on Blue Griffin Recording constitutes a definitive recorded legacy of contemporary violin performance. All of her solo albums were created in close collaboration with legendary, Grammy-nominated sound engineer Sergei Kvitko, whose ear for structure and timbre has made him a sought-after figure in contemporary recording. Their partnership—built on deep listening, shared standards, and long-term trust—parallels Plum’s relationships with composers, resulting in recordings that function not merely as documentation but as authoritative interpretations. Praised for their sonic transparency and architectural clarity, these recordings continue to serve as reference points for performers, composers, and scholars.
Sarah Plum is excited to announce the release of her new solo CD entitled Personal Noise. This CD is made up of pieces, most written for her, by long term friends and collaborators for violin and electronics.
It is a mix of sounds, styles and technology that is sure to delight listeners.
Bela Bartok: Works for Violin and Piano, Volume 1 (BGR 373) is the first of a two volume set of Bartok’s works for violin and piano with Plum’s longtime duo partner, Timothy Lovelace. “Plum rises to this challenge as to all others on this CD with the result that listeners will surely look forward to the next entry in the Plum Lovelace Bartok survey.” transcentury.blogspot.com
Music for a New Century (BGR 371) features two 21st century violin concertos: Sidney Corbett’s Yaël, which Plum premiered in the US with conductor Akira Mori and Christopher Adler’s Violin Concerto which Plum commissioned and recorded with San Diego New Music and conductor Nicholas Deyoe.
Plum’s first solo release, Absconditus (BGR 325) garnered critical praise and established her as a new music interpreter of note on the international new music scene. Absconditus is a portrait CD of Sidney Corbett and a testament to Plum and Corbett’s long term collaboration. “Absconditus is a gem – precious, lovely and plaintive.” – American Record Guide