Lamenting Earth, the latest release from GRAMMY® Award-winning tenor Nicholas Phan, in collaboration with The Jasper Quartet and his long-time performing partner pianist Myra Huang, explores humanity’s interaction with nature as expressed through composers of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Franz Schubert’s songs evoke images of water, stillness, and solitude as mirrors of human emotion. Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge, drawing on A. E. Housman’s poetry, places the individual within vast cycles of time and landscape – hills, wind, and earth – which persist beyond human joy and grief alike. Ives’s Housatonic at Stockbridge memories, hymns, and the river blend together into a shimmering meditation on transcendence, where nature becomes a spiritual threshold rather than a backdrop.

21st century responses include Patrick Castillo’s Skyline Palimpsest, an homage to New York City, once his hometown, that reflects on how nature’s effects may shape the future of the metropolis. The title track by Canadian-born composer Vivian Fung, pairs American writer Claire Wahmanholm’s poem “O” – which has been described as a lament, an elegy, and a clarion call to action – with Gen Z-ers urgent written responses to climate change.

Nicholas Phan’s burnished tone and passion for vocal chamber music bring vivid beauty to the range of repertoire that shares a central theme.

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828)
1. Auf dem Wasser zu singen D.774 [2:20]
2. Wandrers Nachtlied D.768 [2:11]
3. Am See D.746 [4:06]

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872–1958)
On Wenlock Edge
4. I. On Wenlock Edge [3:55]
5. II. From Far From Eve & Morning [1:58]
6. III. Is my team ploughing? [3:41]
7. IV. Oh when I was in love [0:48]
8. V. Bredon Hill [7:18]
9. VI. Clun [3:27]

CHARLES IVES (1874–1954)
10. The Housatonic at Stockbridge [4:26]

PATRICK CASTILLO (b. 1979)
11. Skyline Palimpsest [10:17]

VIVIAN FUNG (b. 1975)
Lamenting Earth
12. I. November Blooming [2:55]
13. II. Lament [3:51]
14. III. O [7:45]
15. IV. Vast, Green [3:31]

On a recording that explores humanity’s interaction with nature as expressed through music, it opens on works of SCHUBERT: first we get the dutifully flourishing Auf dem Wasser zu singen D.774, then comes the decadently ornate Wandrers Nachtlied D.768, closing on the emboldened Am See D.746.

Next is the work from WILLIAMS entitled On Wenlock Edge: which opens on the spirited fare of On Wenlock Edge, the opulent From Far From Eve & Morning and the elegant Is my team ploughing? and then we get gifted the strident Oh when I was in love, the veritably cinematic Bredon Hill, rounding out on the formidably structured Clun.

We next get the stoic IVES’ The Housatonic at Stockbridge; then comes CASTILLO’s rivetingly sculpted Skyline Palimpsest; the set culminating on FUNG’s Lamenting Earth: which opens on the sumptuous November Blooming, the pensively jagged Lament, then we get the atmospheric O, closing on the emotively impassioned Vast, Green.

Lamenting Earth is released to coincide with World Earth Day (22nd April 2026).

Official Purchase Link

www.nicholas-phan.com

www.jasperquartet.com

Myra Huang @ Instagram