Catalog

Born in Buenos Aires, Jorge Liderman began his musical studies at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. In 1988, he received his doctorate in composition from the University of Chicago where he worked with Ralph Shapey and Shulamit Ran. A year later, Liderman joined the composition faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. The composer writes: "Continuity and the lack of continuity have been at the center of my musical thinking for nearly fifteen years. By continuity I mean the presence of a musical fabric woven by one or more musical processes that unfold gradually. This leads the listener, "uninterruptedly," from one harmonic idea to another, from a low to a high register for example, or from a clearly irregular and non-metric rhythmic pattern to a regular and pulsating beat. On the other hand, the lack of continuity shapes itself through the abrupt juxtaposition of sharply contrasting brief musical statements. Here the contrast is created by the juxtaposition of far reaching harmonic areas which could also be different in nature. Trompetas de Plata, a collection of some of my most recent chamber works for strings, percussion and piano, was composed with these ideas in mind."

Amos Elkana is a multi-award-winning composer whose music has been characterized as original, guided by unique and delicate taste, and radiating a strong sense of honesty. Born in Boston but growing up in Jerusalem, he returned to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory. He has also studied at Bard College. His music has been performed all over the world by leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists. Apart from concert music, Elkana composes for dance and theater. Also and active performer, he participates in concerts and performances of improvised music where he plays the electric guitar and the computer. This recording of his music contrasts a work for large ensemble with works for single instruments, some of which include electronics.

This release contains reissues of the Nonesuch recordings from the mid-seventies. For those who remember these recordings, the sound is every bit as spectacular as it was on the original and the playing is breathtaking. Donald Martino is one of America's most important composers. Notturno for piccolo-flute-alto flute, clarinet-bass clarinet, violin-viola, cello, percussion and piano won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1974. The greatness of Martino's music is the manner in which it assaults the ear and the imagination. This makes it such a challenging listen. Andrew Porter described Pianississimo, Martino's exuberant celebration of pianistic possibilities, as "an enchanted journey, through circles where transfigured shades of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Ravel sometimes glimmer, in a realm at once welcoming and strange." The Triple Concerto for clarinet, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet with a chamber ensemble of 16 players was composed on a commission from the Group for Contemporary Music and dedicated to the composer Milton Babbitt on the occasion of his 60th birthday. About this piece Mr. Martino has written: "After some months of unproductive effort and frustration, I realized that I was being hindered by a conception of the work which prescribed, if not a full orchestra, at least a substantial string section. Since it was impractical to enlarge the ensemble (The Group for Contemporary Music), I decided to enlarge the soloist. Only then did the drama of the work reveal itself to me and its execution became clear. My plan was to transform the three separate clarinets into "Superclarinet," a six octave gargantuan who would use the concerto as a world in which to romp and play with the superfriends."

This is the second volume in the Albany Records' series devoted to the music of Stephen Dankner (see TROY067 - Songs of Bygone Days). Dankner's music is highly accessible and very well crafted. He studied with Roger Sessions and Vincent Persichetti. Currently he is the chairman of the Music Department at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, which is an arts preparatory high school. He is also on the faculty of Loyola University's College of Music where he teaches composition and electronic-computer music.

The two programs on this double CD were presented at the Pacific Rim Music Festival in 2003. They were offered as part of the Festival's tribute to Chou Wen-chung in honor of his 80th birthday. What brought these works together is their relationship to Chou Wen-chung. Some were students; some associates and in the case of Varèse, Chou's teacher.

Elizabeth Chang comments that "This selection of composers derives its rationale from my own artistic heritage and the profound artistic and pedagogical influence Leon Kirchner had on me when I was an undergraduate Kirchner, in turn was a student of two of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, Roger Sessions and Arnold Schoenberg." Ms. Chang enjoys a multi-faceted career as performer, teacher, and arts administrator. Her performing career has taken her to more than 20 countries. She is on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. She is artistic director and co-founder of the Lighthouse Chamber Players, co-founder of the Five College New Music Festival, the UMass Amherst Bach Festival and Symposium and Musique de Chambre en Val Lamartinien (Burgundy, France). A graduate of Harvard, Ms. Chang was recipient of the Presidential Scholar in the Arts award. She is joined by noted pianist Steven Beck, who shares Ms. Chang's passion for music of our time.

Several currents in modern music have contributed to the present body of chamber music that includes trombone. Without question, jazz trombonists have influenced composers with their persuasive presence and ear-catching explorations of the trombone's technical and expressive capabilities. Other influences include academia, producing exceptional brass players, and the instrument's affinity for theatricality and offbeat sounds have led to the increasing presence of the trombone in the music of our time. Naturally, with the prominence of such players as Stuart Dempster, John Swallow and Christian Lindberg, major composers have been prompted to write with the trombone in mind. Hence, the remarkably diverse and striking works on this CD. David Gier began his professional career as a member of the Springfield, Massachusetts, Symphony Orchestra and with orchestras and ensembles in the northeast. He currently teaches trombone and brass at the University of Iowa and has been an active performer and clinician at various venues and workshops. Gier's students have been prizewinners in numerous solo competitions and have won trombone positions with many professional ensembles. Before moving to Iowa, Gier served for six years on the faculty of the Baylor University School of Music.

Born in 1950, composer Tom Flaherty is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His music is performed throughout Europe and North America by some of the best known contemporary music ensembles in the United States A graduate of Brandeis, SUNY Stony Brook and the University of Southern California, he currently is on the faculty at Pomona College. An accomplished cellist as well as composer, Flaherty's compositions reflect his love of this instrument. The music on this recording was written over a seven year span and was inspired by his friends, colleagues and family. His compositions juxtapose simple things in interesting ways. Colliding meters, tempos, modes and levels of dissonance permeate his recent music but the performer's experience remains at the forefront.

Libby Meyer is a composer whose work reflects the natural rhythms and patterns of the world around her. Her music has been commissioned and performed throughout the United States. She has served as composer-in-residence at the Islae Royale National Park and the Visby International Center for Composers. The recipient of numerous awards including the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Composers Forum, she is on the faculty at Michigan Technological University. This recording of her music includes works for vocal ensemble as well as chamber ensembles. Performers on this recording include the Capella Clausura conducted by Amelia LeClair and the Juventas New Music Ensemble.

It's been nearly a decade since the music of the Common Sense Composers' Collective first surfaced on CD. Their first disc challenged the rarified asceticism of the then still-reigning though waning contemporary music orthodoxy with joyous abandon. Even the disc's cover, featuring eight clearly fun-loving folks, already dented the wall of solemnity that is suggested by the ubiquitous dour tweed-suit mug shots on the covers of many contemporary music recordings. But, ultimately, it was the sheer persuasiveness of the music that crashed down those walls. This group is now entering its second decade and so far has commissioned 62 new works. The pieces contained on this new release were originally written in 1996 in collaboration with the members of the Alternate Currents Performance Ensemble. They are joined on this CD by the New Millennium Ensemble, a mixed sextet of winds, strings, piano and percussion founded in 1990. The mission of all the performers heard on this disc, remains one of collaboration and community. They workshop the compositions through a process one would find more in the dance world than in the classical music world. Many of these works, which began with Common Sense, have found a new home with The New Millennium Ensemble, underlining a new collaborative dynamic and sense of joy in music-making.

Crossing folk music and modern serious music has a long tradition. American musical scholar Ketty Nez ventures a fresh take on this concept: Inspired by her own family’s heritage, she artfully blends folk music of Central Europe and Turkey with her own modern compositional language. The result is THROUGH THE LIGHT.

The album’s titular work is a multi-faceted, emotionally fast-paced string quartet, drawing on fragments of folk music recorded by Béla Bartók in the early 20th century. The subsequent piece, 5 fragments in 3 is similarly inspired, but the setup changes to an unorthodox trio of soprano saxophone, viola and piano. THROUGH THE LIGHT is an impressive demonstration that a recentering into tradition can be rather daring.

This disc is a most interesting family portrait. Aaron is the grandfather. He was born in Siberia, educated partly in Switzerland, and spent all of his creative life in China, where he was fascinated by the music and the culture. He was largely self-taught as a composer and his music represents largely a fusion of Chinese elements - scales, colors, legend - with western instruments and forms. While he lived in China, he supported himself as a bookman and for 15 years was the head of the Shanghai Municipal Library. In 1947, he came to the United States. Long associated with the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Jacob is Aaron's son. He studied with Ernst Toch, Bernard Rogers and Aaron Copland. Today he is a most respected man in the field of classical music, recognized across the nation for the work he had done with young people. Many of his Orchestral students play with the best Orchestras in the country and abroad. David, the son of Jacob, is a composer who was educated at Harvard. He was a timpani player who wanted to conduct. He studied with his father and then at Aspen with Morel and Blomstedt. He also studied at Tanglewood with Schuller, Bernstein and Ozawa. Today, he spends most of his time composing. Daniel is his brother and he is a violist who graduated from Juilliard. He has been principal violist for the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra. Today he is the violist of the American String Quartet. All of the music on this disc has either been composed or arranged for him. So here we have a wonderful portrait of a very remarkable family in music.

It might be said that the composers on this recording represent three aspects of what Gilbert Chase called "Boston Classicism." Each composer had close ties to the musical life of Boston, and in his own way, each composer reflected European classical traditions. Typical of turn-of-the-century ideals, the two American-born composers, Parker and Heilman, studied in Germany, then brought back to New England the romantic European style that was then considered more acceptable than less cultured American styles. Paradoxically, Samuel Adler was born in Germany, but he studied in Boston. Even so, his style is solidly based on European classic techniques, especially on his love of Bach and Handel. The Rawlins Piano Trio was founded in the summer of 1987 at the University of South Dakota and named by the trio in honor of their principal benefactors. The trio has dedicated itself to performing works by American composers, as well as the more traditional piano trio literature. Performing throughout the United States, the Rawlins Piano Trio has been invited to perform for the International Sonneck Society for American Music and continues a very active concert schedule.

Looking back over the past 100 years, it would seem that the string quartet has been the most popular outlet for contemporary composers' most intimate thoughts. It may have taken longer for the unique blend of violin, piano and cello to catch up in terms of repertoire, but this remarkable disc displays the diverse voices that can be heard in this form. The Finn Segerstam has been best known as an orchestral conductor and a very prolific composer (as of January 2nd of this year, he had composed 173 symphonies). This Trio is a perfect example of the free-flowing, almost improvisational style he calls "free-pulsative." Needless to say, Hans Werner Henze has now achieved status as one of the world's most significant composers, and his early Kammersonate reflects the neo-classical influences of the post-War era. Both Sharafyan and Mansurian are Armenian. Sharafyan's music is rooted in ancient Armenian culture, while Mansurian's approach is in a more personalized, mystical vein. Finally, the Baird Trio's cellist, Jonathon Golove, has contributed a work using material from an opera based on Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest. The Baird Trio, in residence at the University of Buffalo, performs a wide range of repertoire, devoting particular attention to rarely heard and recent original works for their medium. The members believe the piano trio has a significant role to play in 21st century musical life.

Thoughts and Prayers is an album of tributes that draw upon composer Larry Bell's personal, social, national, and international awareness. The music is drawn from a solemn personal conviction and desire to preserve the lives of others in our memory. It is also a simple act of bearing witness to events that may be all too soon forgotten or too painful to contemplate. Bell offers four works for solo piano interspersed with two works for soprano, cello/viola, and piano. Award-winning composer Larry Bell's music has been commissioned and performed by a distinguished array of musicians, ensembles, and orchestras. He has taught at The Juilliard School, the Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and the Berklee College of Music. He is joined on this recording by mezzo-soprano Jennifer Webb, cellist Sam Ou, pianist Deborah Nemko, and violist David Wallace.

Composer, concert presenter, educator and arts administrator, Theodore Wiprud has played many important roles in American musical life since the 1980s. His ongoing work with musicians, students, and communities -- currently as Director of Education at the New York Philharmonic and host of the Philharmonic's Young People's Concerts -- corresponds with music described as "rewarding to perform," "warmly received by audiences," and "destined to set a high standard." Theodore Wiprud came of age as a composer as the rigorous precepts of both serialism and classic minimalism yielded to a flowering of musical plurality. His works characteristically employ a freely tonal approach to harmony, convey specific emotional climates, and often reflect aspects of spiritual experience. This is the first commercial recording dedicated to his music.

Theodor Berger was born in the village of Traismauer-on-the-Danube on May 18, 1905. He was a pupil of Franz Schmidt at the Academy of Music in Vienna. His compositions include a number of works for large orchestra, chorus, string quartet and music for radio, television and film. His style and technique vary according to the nature of the individual work at hand. The titles of his compositions are almost always organic, conveying the nature of each work with clarity. One of his works, Malinconia, written in 1933, brought admiration from Richard Strauss. The list of conductors who promoted Berger's music includes Furtwängler, Kleiber, Krips, Ormandy and Steinberg. However, this recording is the only one of his music that is available today. This compact disc presents the first recordings of the orchestral compositions of Miguel Del Aguila. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1957, Del Aguila moved to the United States in 1978 and studied at the San Francisco Conservatory and in Vienna where he has lived since 1982. The rhythmic propulsiveness in much of Del Aguila's music derives from Latin American sources. Another influence is American blues. Beyond these influences, there is a very personal sense of drama in his music, which is partly the result of "programs" or stories of the composer's own devising - which is the case for the works on this recording.

Michael Horvit is Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Houston Moores School of Music. For 25 years he served as music director at Congregation Emanu El in Houston. During his studies at Yale University, Tanglewood, Harvard University and Boston University, Horvit's teachers were Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, Walter Piston, Quincy Porter and Gardner Read. In other words, Horvit is one of the last links between the great American Symphonic School and today's music. Not surprisingly one can hear echoes of this illustrious past in such works as the Cullen Overture and Concerto for Brass Quintet and Orchestra (on TROY265, works for orchestra), resplendent pieces which conjure up great open vistas and exuberant optimism. This exceptional disc of chamber music further reveals his traditionalist style, particularly in the String Quartet No. 2, "The Wide Missouri," whose thematic material is mostly based on one of his favorite folksongs, Shenandoah. This is truly heartfelt American music. More of Horvit's music can be heard on TROY134 and TROY533.

New York-born Sylvia Glickman earned bachelor's and master's degrees in performance from the Juilliard School where she was a piano student and received a Licentiate in Performance from the Royal Academy of Music. Her performance and composition awards include the Loeb Memorial Prize from Juilliard, a Fulbright Scholarship, the Hecht Prize in Composition from the Royal Academy and a Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her music, for keyboard, voice, chamber groups, orchestra and chorus, has been performed throughout the United States, in Europe and in Israel. Carved in Courage commemorates the fortitude of the Danish people who helped to save Denmark's Jews from the Nazis. Am I a Murderer? is a cantata for voice and chamber ensemble. The singer speaks and sings the text written by Frank Fox, translator of the diary of Calel Perechodnik, a Polish Jewish policeman. Perechodnik was promised by the Nazis that his family would be saved if he helped to round up Jews for deportation. He assisted the Germans, but lost his family. His diary was found after he committed suicide. The Walls are Quiet Now reflects emotions evoked by the sight of a memorial wall outside the Grnnwald S-bahn station in Berlin, Germany. This wall honors the memory of the Jews of the city, transported from that station to concentration camps.

The tradition of performing the repertoire on this recording came directly from French wind instrumentalists who were brought to New York in 1905 by Walter Damrosch to join the New York Symphony. The arrival of these performers, trained at the Paris Conservatory, was a turning point in the development of woodwind playing in this country. Flutist Georges Barrère was a key figure in this evolution. He became a tireless advocate of the music of his adopted country, insisting that all programs of his Wind Ensemble include at least one American work. He consistently promoted new repertoire and was responsible for the premières of more than 150 works. The Sylvan Winds are heirs to this rich heritage, one established by Barrère and his French colleagues, and are dedicated to preserving and continuing it. This recording will help listeners to appreciate our inherited classical music tradition. The Sylvan Winds, established in 1982, are an integral part of New York City's cultural offerings and have earned both critical and audience acclaim for their spirited performances and innovative programming.

Larry Nelson was born in Broken Bow, Nebraska in 1944. Since 1971 he has served on the faculty of the School of Music at West Chester University, where he teaches theory and composition. He is also co-director of the Evenings of New Music Series that has served since 1972 to bring new music to the college campus. He has established close ties with musical audiences throughout the country but with a particular focus around Philadelphia and throughout Pennsylvania. He has composed works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra and the electronic medium. In describing his music Nelson says, "I utilize mathematical strategies or formal systems and I use computer technology in the creation of my music while, at the same time, my music is very much grounded in traditional concepts of lyricism and harmonic motion." A reviewer described Nelson's music as "having an open and easy approach to tonality- neither insisting on it nor rejecting it. Musical intuition is supplemented by the exploration of formal systems but always in a songful manner." Here's another, specific description of one of the works on this new release, Danceable Haze: "This one movement work expresses some of my recent explorations of body-felt rhythm, our natural foot-tapping connection to the music. The music moves from fast, highly syncopated ensemble chords to slow vamp-oriented music under virtuosic solos and duos."

Jeffrey Mumford was born in Washington, D.C. and has been conspicuously active in that city's musical life. His music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad and the present CD was preceded by one on the CRI label, similarly devoted to his chamber music. Honors, awards, fellowships and commissions have come to him from many prestigious sources. Following a year as composer-in-residence at Bowling Green State University's College of Musical Arts, Mumford joined the faculty of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2000. Two of Mumford's orchestral works - the celebratory fanfare Within a cloudburst of echoing brightness (1995) and Amid the light of quickening memory (2003) were commissioned and introduced by the National Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. These titles are characteristic for Mumford. He has shunned traditional sonatas and symphonies in favor of music that tends to define its own shape and substance, and his titles allude to the impressions or moods behind the creative impulse. References to light, radiance and resonance are as abundant in his titles as references to angels in the works of Einojuhani Rautavaara and Augusta Read Thomas. Mumford has stated that his music in general is "inspired by cloud imagery, light and the unique aspects of the energy that characterize the various times of day." While his works are generated from such impressions, they are not tone poems in the conventional sense of "painting pictures" or delineating action, and listeners would be well advised to avoid seeking or expecting specific images in them.

To celebrate their 100th anniversary, the Pro Arte Quartet commissioned works from four distinguished American composers (Walter Mays, Paul Schoenfield, William Bolcom and John Harbison), which were given their world premiere performances in 2011-2012. The Pro Arte Quartet was founded in 1911-12 by teenage prodigies who were students at the Brussels Conservatory. Stranded in the USA in 1940 by the outbreak of World War II, the Quartet became established at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where they became the first professional string quartet in residence at an American university. In all, the Quartet has commissioned more than 100 new works so it was fitting that the centerpiece of their centennial celebration include commissions, performances and recordings of these new works.

North America's foremost wind quintet, the Prairie Winds, combines the artistry of five virtuoso musicians from the Chicago Symphony and the faculties of the University of Illinois, Oklahoma State University, and Wheaton Conservatory. The music in this collection represents some of the finest wind quintet music written by North American composers. The richness and diversity of the past century's music is evident through the warmth and lyricism of the quintets of Barber, Persichetti and Copland, the mischievous tongue waggling and technical challenge of John Harbison's writing, and the pathos of Jacques Hetu's Quintette. All the music is powerful, comical, and personal, but most of all, it is the sounds of 20th century North America.

Joseph Blaha is currently assistant professor of music and director of bands at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. In 1983, he enrolled as a doctoral student in composition at the University of Oklahoma and studied with Michael Hennagin earning a DMA in 1991. Raymond Helble, a native New Yorker, studied at the Eastman School of Music with Sam Adler, Wayne Barlow and Joseph Schwantner. A highly polished finish, elaborate motivic development, contrapuntal dexterity, and a concentrated intensity of expression, mark Helble's work, whether he uses tonal, serial, modal, or atonal materials to fashion his work. Born in The Dalles, Oregon, Michael Hennagin composed in virtually every medium including music for film, television, and stage. His broad repertoire includes instrumental and vocal solos, various chamber ensembles, symphonic band, orchestra, and a large body of choral music for which he is widely recognized. He joined the faculty of the University of Oklahoma in 1972 and retired in 1992 to devote full time to his active composing schedule. He died suddenly in June 1993.

This second volume of compositions by Friedrich Nietzsche begins with works he wrote in 1864, just before his twentieth birthday. During this year, he completed his schooling and commenced studies in philology and theology at the University of Bonn. It was the most productive year in his career as a composer, at least if one considers the quantity of finished works. These include his only completed piece of chamber music, a fantasy for violin and piano, and a song cycle. With the beginning of his university studies, his desire to express himself through music diminished. During his studies in Bonn and later in Leipzig, he wrote only a few occasional compositions: one song, a few small choral works, and some incomplete sketches for larger works. His connection with music took another, more fateful turn through his encounter with Richard Wagner. It was in Leipzig, in November 1868, that Nietzsche met Wagner for the first time. The ensuing friendship with the master and his wife became a matter of pivotal importance for his life, and really provided the impetus for his literary career. On his further development as a composer, however, this relationship seems to have had little influence. After a hiatus of several years during which Nietzsche did not write music at all, there followed a relatively short period, between 1871 and 1874, when he again took up composition. At that time, he had established himself as Professor of Philology at the University of Basel.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was fully conscious of his significance as a thinker who would deeply influence the direction of philosophical inquiry of future generations. His reputation as a philosopher is firmly established, but before he engaged himself fully as a philosopher, he had already created a substantial output as poet and composer. Musical composition preceded his involvement with philosophy and is therefore usually considered to be of little importance for an understanding of his thought. Nietzsche himself, however, considered it important that at least some of his music should be known in order to avoid misunderstandings of his basic intentions as a philosopher. In a letter from October 1887, he wrote: "...there has never been a philosopher who has been in essence a musician to such an extent as I am." However, when it came to his music, he did not display his usual assertion of superiority. In the same letter he says: "Even so, it is possible that I might be a thoroughly unsuccessful musician." During his lifetime, his compositions were not accepted as significant, either by his friends or by a wider public. Even after his name had become universally known, his compositions have either remained unknown or have only been accepted as biographical curiosities. Most of his music was written between the ages of 13 and 22. It is the purpose of these recordings to make the sound of these compositions accessible, so that a judgment concerning their style and their value can be made by the listener without having to rely on the judgment of others, even if those others are of the stature of Richard Wagner and Hans von Bulow. This first volume contains music Nietzsche composed before the age of 20. This disc contains a very detailed commentary on his emotional and intellectual development. Since he composed without a teacher, without regular instruction, and with very little external encouragement, this music is also a vivid demonstration of his innate impulse for self-expression, of his independence and of his willingness to accept risk and potential failure.

Harold Farberman's career as a conductor has overshadowed his achievements as a composer. In fact, while a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Farberman turned first to composition as a further creative outlet, which in turn led to his more visible conducting career. From the mid-fifties onward, when he composed his first work, Evolution, for soprano, French horn and seven percussionists, Farberman has never stopped creating music. Harold Farberman was born on November 2, 1929 on New York City's Lower East Side. Coming from a family of musicians (his father was the drummer in a famous 1920s Klezmer band led by Schleomke Beckerman; his brother was also a drummer) it seemed inevitable that he pursue music as a career. After graduating from the Juilliard School of Music on a full scholarship in 1951, he immediately joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra percussion section and became the youngest member of the orchestra at that time. Incidentally, Farberman has the distinction of being the only Juilliard instrumental graduate who has been invited back as a conductor of its various orchestras and as a composer - he was commissioned to write an opera for the opening of The Juilliard Opera Theater (The Losers). With a performer's knowledge of percussion instruments and a dissatisfaction with their conventional treatment, Farberman became an early advocate for the use of percussion sonorities as a major voice in compositional structures. His very first work, Evolution, written in 1954, before he began formal studies in composition, is scored for over one hundred percussion instruments and has been recorded four times, once by Leopold Stokowski. After hearing Evolution, Aaron Copland invited Farberman to study with him at Tanglewood in 1955. That short involvement with Copland strengthened Farberman's resolve to acquire more compositional skills, and during his twelve year tenure with the BSO, he earned a Masters Degree in composition from the New England Conservatory.

Born in 1934 in London, American composer Godfrey Winham died at the age of 40. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and later attended Princeton where he studied with Roger Sessions. He worked at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center writing for the RCA Sound Synthesizer, which fostered his interest in this medium. From 1964 until his death in 1975, he was a pioneer and authority in the field of computer music. He also wrote music criticism and contributed to journals like Music Review and Tempo. The bulk of his writings on music, theory, logic and philosophy are at the Firestone Library of Princeton. His short life limited his actual number of music compositions, but the works on this recording are representative of his output. This is the first recording devoted exclusively to his music. Every musical work by Winham was an essay on music, showing by example the content and implications of his complex evolving philosophy of music. The music is performed by some of the best-known exponents of contemporary music, including soprano Tony Arnold and pianist Alan Feinberg.

George Edwards graduated from Oberlin and then did graduate study at Princeton, where he studied with Milton Babbitt, Earl Kim and Edward T. Cone. He taught at the New England Conservatory and then moved to Columbia University in 1977 where he taught composition and theory until 2004 when he retired. George Edwards' longtime friend and colleague, the composer and theorist Fred Lerdahl, identifies three basic strands in Edwards' music. First, it is relentlessly contrapuntal. Second, Lerdahl notes that while the music is not truly serial, the works of twelve-tone composers have had a profound effect. Finally, the music shows a strong affinity for the lyrical intensity and harmonic richness of the late Romantic Austro-German repertoire. These three strands coalesce in important ways to form the essence of George Edwards' unique compositional voice. With the release of this recording, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to engage with a composer of the first order.

Gardner Read was born in Evanston, Illinois and has enjoyed a prolific and varied career as composer, conductor, teacher and author. As a high school student majoring in music he studied piano and Organ privately and took lessons in composition at Northwestern University's School of Music. During the summers of 1932 and 1933, he studied composition and conducting at the National Music Camp, Interlochen, Michigan, where in 1940, he taught composition and Orchestration. In 1932, he was awarded a four-year scholarship to Eastman, where his principal teachers were Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. In 1938, on a Cromwell Traveling Fellowship to Europe, he studied with Pizzetti in Rome and briefly with Sibelius in Finland, just before the outbreak of World War II. He also studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in1941. From 1941 to 1948 Read headed the composition departments of the St. Louis Institute of Music, the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. In 1948, he was appointed composer-in-residence and professor of composition at the School of Music, Boston University, retiring as Professor Emeritus in 1978. The major work on this disc, the Piano Concerto, although composed in 1973-78, had to wait until January 31, 1996 for its premiere. The performance on this disc is of that wonderful performance. Randall Hodgkinson does a terrific job.

Laderman comments, "This ninth cd with Albany Records brings me to the end of a musical exploration started October 1, 2000. This culminating cd, the final three string quartets I will ever compose represent the most recent evolution of my compositional esthetic...The excitement, the fun, the joy that composing has afforded me is due in no small measure to the unknown path traveled each morning as I sit before the blank sheet of music paper. It's a great way to spend a life. I recommend it without reservation."