“Denial and “Anger” are the first and second movements in Michael Leonharts, The Normyn Suite #1: (Soundtrack to the Five Stages of Grieving), which is both a requiem and celebration, inspired by the life and death of Leonharts 15-year-old dog, a female mini dachshund named Normyn.

Suite #1 first appeared on the Michael Leonhart Orchestra 2022 album “The Normyn Suites” (Sunnyside Records) and was inspired by The Kbler-Ross Grief Cycle, a model introduced by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. The Five Stages of Grief is a critically acclaimed study on how humans handle loss.

For Leonhart’s suite in five parts, he expands the MLOs live performance palette of brass, woodwinds and strings to include choir and found percussion over gritty breakbeat drums from Nick Movshon. Leonhart shares, I wanted Denial and Anger to have an emotional tension and raw quality, almost a whiplash effect…”
The Normyn Suites is an elegy; to listen is to spend time in that space of loss, reckoning, questioning, and mourning. At the same time, though, with each note, each phrase, we are propelled back into life, reflects author Alexandra Horowitz in the stirring liner notes.