Butterfly Dance: Music by Americans

David Gompper is Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. Butterfly Dance represents a response to and a re-imagining of a native-American Hopi Indian tune of the same name. Noel Zahler is director of the School of Music at the University of Minnesota. In his Trio, Zahler draws upon a conventional ensemble in order to create a composition with an intense drive, and possessing a full and varied sound palette. Marilyn Shrude is a faculty member at Bowling Green State University where she chairs the Department of Musicology/Composition/Theory. Secrets is a setting of nine Emily Dickinson poems, each of which are associated with one or more of the seasons of the year. Joseph Dangerfield is Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Theory at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Waves Roll On...is drawn from the Russian lyric poet Fedor Tyutchev (1803-73), whose vivid imagery served as the impetus from which Dangerfield crafted his melodic, rhythmic and formal structures. Finally there is a major chamber work, Vox Balaenae, by one of America's most important composers, George Crumb. Founded in 1993, the Studio for New Music is one of the leading contemporary music groups in Russia. As a project initiated by Joseph Dangerfield, this CD showcases not only the varied styles of these American composers but highlights the universal nature of contemporary music.