Catalog

Korean-American composer/pianist/educator Beata Moon embarked on her musical career at the age of eight performing with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Her flight into composing began after she graduated from Juilliard in 1990, where she studied piano under Adele Marcus. Subsequently, the role of the composer as performer and educator became an important one in Moon's life. She performs her own works, in addition to those of both traditional and contemporary composers, and is actively involved in aesthetic education as a teaching artist at Lincoln Center Institute. Curiously, like her name, Beata Moon's music does not betray its origins. The music sounds American, at least no other country's music would contain her mixture of elements. She is self-taught as a composer. Her music is an irrepressible outpouring and sounds like it.

About Mountain Roads, the composer David Maslanka writes: "The music of Mountain Roads is a very personal statement. I feel very deeply about every bit of it. The musical plan of it follows the model of a Baroque cantata, and style and content reflect my years of study of the Bach chorales, and of Bach in general. Obviously there are no words in my "cantata" but the music revolves entirely around two chorale melodies. The title Mountain Roads comes from a dream I had while writing the piece". About his Sax Appeal David Stock writes: "The work was commissioned by the Amherst Saxophone Quartet by Summerfest, a music festival in Pittsburgh, for its 10th anniversary season. The premiere took place in July, 1990. The work is in four movements: Set Up, Blues, Sarabande, and jump. Jazz is clearly the primary influence, as befitting the genre that brought this wonderful instrument into its own". Russell Peck's Drastic Measures is the only piece on this disc that has been recorded before. About it, the composer writes: "During my brief university teaching career I came into contact with excellent saxophonists at Northern Illinois University who had a quartet and wanted a piece from me. That's how I came to write Drastic Measures in 1976. A year later I went to the School of the Arts in North Carolina where James Houlik had a great saxophone studio and a wonderful student quartet that became the New Century Saxophone Quartet. I touched up the piece for them and that became its final form."

Anthony Iannaccone was born in New York City and studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Eastman School. His principal teachers were Vittorio Giannini, Aaron Copland, and David Diamond. During the 1960's, he supported himself as a part-time teacher at the Manhattan School and as an orchestral violinist. His catalogue of approximately fifty published works includes three symphonies, as well as smaller works for orchestra, several large works for chorus and orchestra, numerous chamber pieces, a variety of works for wind ensemble, and several extended a cappella choral compositions. Since 1971, he has taught at Eastern Michigan University, where he conducts the Collegium Musicum in 18th century music for chorus and chamber orchestra. Another disc of his music is available on Albany Records (TROY280), which features his music for wind ensemble.

"When I was accepted as a student at the High School of Music & Art, created in 1934 by Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York, my family decided to move a block away from the school in Manhattan. The move to 492 West 136th Street was significant because it brought us across the street from Lewisohn Stadium, the summer home of what was essentially the New York Philharmonic. It also brought me to within a fifteen minute walk of the old Juilliard School of Music. What precipitated the move was that living in Brooklyn we were one and one half hours by subway from the High School. I came home from school the first day in September 1936 lugging a full size double bass. The next morning my resolute mother paraded me to confront Alexander Richter, head of the music section at the School. Before my mother uttered a word, he calmly took away the double bass and handed me a flute." What an amusing incident from the life of the wonderful American composer Ezra Laderman. Here is another one. "When I reflect over the nineteen thirties and how I was shaped in those early years, the record library at Juilliard looms awfully large. For the first time in my young life I was able to listen to recordings while reading scores of the main body of music. Whether it was Sibelius's Second or the Grosse Fugue, it was absorbed with enormous excitement. I would spend countless hours listening, my ears covered by huge ear phones, my eyes buried in the print. Over and over again, score in hand, I would listen while the librarians, wonderful in helping and guiding me through this newly discovered wonderland looked on with amusement. I was hooked." A fine composer was born and you can now listen to his chamber music on this new CD. What goes around certainly does come around. (Hear also volume 1, TROY399.)

The Brazilian String Quartet, affiliated with the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, has a 48 year history as one of the world's most distinguished ensembles. This CD is devoted to four Brazilian composers of the 20th century. Villa-Lobos needs no introduction. Radames Gnattali settled in Rio di Janeiro permanently in 1931. He became conductor of the city's Radio National Orchestra and became well known because of his arrangements and orchestrations of popular songs. His own serious music was inspired by popular music and was very nationalistic. It contained elements of post romanticism. Jose Vieira Brandao studied piano with the great French pianist Marguerite Long and in 1932 became the assistant to Villa-Lobos as he attempted to reform the music education system of Brazil. For many years he was the President of the Brazil Music Conservatory. Cesar Guerra-Peixe graduated from the Conservatory in 1943 with degrees in piano and composition. His early works were written in the 12-tone idiom which he soon abandoned, adopting a more nationalistic approach which he felt better defined his own musical goals. He did a great deal of research on the subject of Brazilian folk music and taught composition privately for over 30 years.

This recording seeks to celebrate the eclectic American music of the recent past. In 1994 John Sampen and Marilyn Shrude initiated a commissioning project designed to represent this diversity. Seven major American composers were invited to contribute "postcard pieces" highlighting their unique musical styles. The resulting collection, which comprises an interchangeable suite for saxophone and piano, demonstrates serialism, aleatory, improvisation, and a variety of other musical languages, styles and genres. In addition to the postcard pieces, this compact disc includes five works complimenting the musical and cultural melange of late 20th century America. Internationally-recognized saxophonist John Sampen has premiered more than 60 works, including commissions by Rands, Subotnick, Cage, Adler and Babbitt. A clinician for the Selmer Company, Sampen has presented master classes at important universities and conservatories in Asia, Europe and North America. Dr. Sampen is presently Distinguished Artist Professor at Bowling Green State University and president of the North American Saxophone Alliance.

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.

Preeminent in the American musical landscape not only as an artist but also as an administrator, Francis Thorne was born in Bay Shore, New York in 1922. A self-taught jazz pianist, he had hoped for a professional career in music but was deterred by active naval duty in World War II, a young family to support and a dismissive appraisal at Yale by the redoubtable Paul Hindemith. So for several years he worked on Wall Street, like his stockbroker father, and kept music essentially a hobby until a serendipitous recommendation from Duke Ellington led to a number of prestigious jazz engagements. With this rekindling of his musical ambitions, he ultimately traveled to Florence, Italy, studying under the American composer David Diamond, and remained there with his family until 1964. Thorne has served as executive director of the American Composers Alliance and helped organize the American Composers Orchestra and served for many years as its president. His many compositions  ranging from symphonies to solo pieces  reveal a love of tonality-based chromaticism, uniting the European musical heritage with the jazz tradition native to America.

JoDee Davis is professor of trombone at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and second trombone of the Santa Fe Opera. She has served on the faculties of Kent State University, where she was a member of the Kent Brass Quintet, and Eastern Washington University. Formerly principal trombone of the Spokane Symphony, Dr. Davis has also performed with a number of other orchestras including the Akron, Canton and Youngstown Symphony Orchestras in Ohio, and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra. She has presented solo recitals and master classes throughout the United States and has performed and given clinics at International Trombone Festivals, the Eastern Trombone Workshop, the Mid-West International Band and Orchestra Clinic, the Arizona Low Brass Symposium, and the Ohio and Texas Music Educators Conferences. She received the Doctor of Music degree in BrassLiterature and Performance from Indiana University, and the Masters degree in Trombone Performance and Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from the University of Northern Iowa. Ms. Davis is a clinician for the Selmer Company, Inc. The compositions gathered for this recording represent some of the best works from the trombone literature, as well as some outstanding transcriptions. Ms. Davis gives the listener a colorful, engaging feast of music and talent.

Horn soloist Eric Ruske has established himself as an artist of international acclaim. Named associate principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 20, his impressive solo career began when he won the 1986 Young Concert Artists International Audition at 22. In 1987, he won the first prize in the American Horn Competition, and in 1988, the highest prize in the Concours International d'Interpretation Musicale in Reims, France. Mr. Ruske gave the 1990 world premiere of Gunther Schuller's Concerto for Horn and Orchestra with the San Antonio Symphony with Mr. Schuller conducting. He has performed as soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony and the Boston Pops. Mr. Ruske was educated in his native Croatia and at Juilliard and the Curtis Institute.

The harpsichordist Mark Kroll has long been recognized as one of the central figures in the field of historical performance and early keyboard instruments. During a career spanning over 50 years, he has concertized worldwide as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, winning critical acclaim for his virtuosity and expressive playing. His many recordings include solo repertoire, violin and keyboard music with Baroque violinist Carol Lieberman, and world premiere recordings of Hummel's transcriptions of Mozart symphonies. As an educator he has served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Historical Performance at Boston University since 1977, and he is frequently invited to teach as guest professor at music academies such as Wurzburg. This is his first recording of a disc devoted to just contemporary music and it is most welcome. How many remember the wonderful recording of the beautiful Trimble piece on Columbia in their modern American music series? This new performance is just as stunning and most welcome.

Cellists don't normally travel in herds. Usually, when playing chamber music, they individually seek out their natural partners. In certain environments, though, they do gather: to comprise the cello section of a symphony orchestra, or to learn as pupils of a master teacher. The development of such groups takes place more naturally in the cello studio of a conservatory teacher. There the teacher may view the ensemble as a vehicle to share musical and technical ideas at once with many of his students. Take the Yale Cellos, for instance. For more than four decades their technique has been refined, their sound shaped by Aldo Parisot, cello professor at the Yale School of Music. The trilogy of works, Aldo, Simoes, and Parisot heard on this recording, comprise the most significant contribution to the cello repertory since Villa-Lobos wrote his two works for cello ensemble. When Laderman composed Aldo, the earliest of his three works for the Yale Cellos, he had heard the group perform with regularity for six years. So he knew already the special capabilities of multiple cellos, with its range of highs and lows approximating the vocal range of a chorus, its center of gravity pitched lower than that of a string orchestra. When Aldo was composed, Laderman did not yet know that he was embarking on a three-work cycle. Only later did Laderman regard the piece as the first in a series, the title for each work drawn from a different one of Parisot's names.

The fascinating career of composer, author, critic, and music professor Marion Eugenie Bauer developed from her initiative and steadfast determination to forge a professional life in music. Born in Walla Walla, Washington, the youngest of seven children of Jacques Bauer, a shopkeeper, and Julie Bauer, a teacher of modern languages. After her father died in 1890, the family moved to Portland, Oregon, where, according to Bauer her oldest sister, Emilie, "became literally the father of the family, working with my mother to give the younger brothers and sisters an education and every opportunity for cultural development. To her I owe the fact that I went into the serious study of music." A music critic for the Portland Oregonian as well as a composer and teacher, Emilie was able to build a career as a critic, first in Boston and then in New York. In 1898, Marion joined her sister in New York where she continued her studies with Henry Holden Huss. In 1906 she sailed for Paris where she studied with Nadia Boulanger. She continued to study both in New York and Berlin and by 1912, had established herself as a composer. At 40 she decided she still needed more training so she returned once again to Paris to study with Andre Gedalge who had taught both Ravel and Milhaud. "As a member of the American Music Guild, I had the opportunity to measure my powers and my limitations with those of my colleagues...The result was a period of study in Europe". In 1926, her sister Emilie became ill and died, so Marion moved back to New York. She was hired by New York University as an instructor of music. She remained at NYU until 1951. She also taught part time at Juilliard from 1940.

More than anything, people probably remember Fisher Tull (he died in 1994) by saying: "He was my friend." Known universally by his nickname, Mickey, he had the warm, honest smile and open-hearted character that bespeak the treasured friendship for which true Texans are known. Born, raised and trained in Texas, his life was dedicated to the cause of music within the state. Tull was a native of Waco and earned his undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees in music from the University of North Texas. He was a faculty member at Sam Houston State University for 37 years until his death. He was chairman of the university's Music Department for nearly half that time (1965-1982) and was a great builder of musical institutions at the university. As a composer, Tull received awards, commissions, appearances, performances and recordings, all of which brought recognition to his name from major musical institutions in Texas, across the United States, in London and continental Europe. His compositional activities grew out of his background as trumpet performer and jazz arranger in the early fifties. During his years in college, he wrote over 100 arrangements for dance bands, radio and television productions and recordings. He was the first staff arranger for the renowned University of North Texas Lab Bands. His first serious compositions were for brass ensembles, followed by several works for symphonic band. As he matured, his works embraced a large segment of the instrumental, orchestral and vocal spectrum.

"Inspired", says the San Francisco Chronicle of flutist Barbara Leibundguth. Former Co-Principal Flutist of the Minnesota Orchestra, Ms. Leibundguth also wins praise from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Bright, gleaming tone...evocative...both stylish and adroit." One of the finest flutists of her generation, Ms. Leibundguth was invited by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as by the major orchestras of Atlanta and Houston, to appear as guest solo flutist. She has also held principal positions with the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Opera Theater, and the Omaha Symphony. As a soloist and chamber musician, Ms. Leibundguth has performed at the Marlboro, Grand Teton, and Blossom Music Festivals, and in her hometown of Chicago on the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series. Ms. Leibundguth and award-winning composer/pianist Carl Witt have worked together since 1994, and their musical chemistry creates electric, intelligent performances. In 2002, they received a $25,000 McKnight Performing Artist prize. Visionary Duos was recorded in the world-renowned acoustical space of Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis. This CD presents a collection of passionate and beautifully crafted works, featuring virtuoso counterpoint, radiant melodies, bracing intensity, jazz riffs, and gypsy flair. Here we have an intriguing and expansive view of flute music in the 20th century.

Richard Danielpour writes: "I met Kenneth Fuchs some 20 years ago at the Juilliard School when we were being interviewed for the master's program by an auspicious panel of composers: Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, David Diamond, Vincent Persichetti and Roger Sessions. I was impressed by my initial conversation with him and happy that we each had been accepted into the program. I remember his very first string quartet as one of the few works of substance that I heard by a fellow composer during my six years there. Many years later we found ourselves at another school - the Manhattan School of Music. This time Ken was Dean of Students, as I took my place on the composition faculty. This happy confluence of appointments gave me the opportunity again to become acquainted with his music. The fourth quartet displays a formidable sense of craft and imagination with the utmost economy. It is perhaps the most powerful of all his works. The third quartet, with its undertones of Whitman, is at once the darkest and most virtuosic. Unfolding with great assurance, it has a muscular quality that reminds me of the American composers Ken admired so much when he was a student - Schuman, Mennin and Copland. Nonetheless, this third quartet, like the other two represented here, sings with its own voice from the first moment to the last. The second quartet is almost impressionistic, but it is never without the clarity of purpose that is a hallmark of his writing. The composer who is able to evoke joy, tenderness, humor, wildness and a sense of the tragic coherently within the same work does many of us a great service: he reminds those of us who love music why we continue to embrace it as an integral part of our lives. I have been privileged to know Kenneth Fuchs over the years and will be delighted to give this disc an honored place in my collection of much-loved CDs. That we are fortunate to have such extraordinary performances of these works by the American String Quartet is an added gift."

About this music David Maslanka writes: "In recent years I have developed an abiding interest in the Bach Chorales, singing and playing them daily as warm-up for my composing time, and making my own four-hand settings in the old style. The chorales now regularly find their way into my music, and have become a significant "leaping off" point for me. The first movement of Quintet No. 3 from 1999 opens with the chorale "Your stars, your cavernous sky." The Quintet was first performed on March 14, 2000 in Columbia, Missouri by the Missouri Quintet. Music for Dr. Who from 1979 is a whimsical little piece which takes its title from the British science fiction TV series of the 1970s. The music has no official connection to the TV show, but came about as a result of my watching one particular episode. Little Symphony (1989) was written as part of a birthday offering to composer Barney Childs. Sonata for Oboe and Piano was written in 1992. Its inspiration was a poem of ecstatic vision written by an Eskimo woman." Composer David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He studied clarinet, music theory, and composition, receiving degrees from Oberlin and Michigan State. Today he lives and composes in Missoula, Montana.

Bernard Stevens was born in London and studied at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music. After his service in the Army, he came to national prominence in 1946 with his Symphony of Liberation , which won a competition sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper for a "Victory Symphony" to celebrate the end of World War II. Stevens spent much of the rest of his career lecturing at the Royal College of Music (also, later at the University of London), and became a tireless champion of contemporary music, and that rare being, a born teacher - whose warmth, encouragement and intellectual stimulation is remembered with affection and respect by his many students. He continued to compose, of course. His life's work includes an opera on J.M. Synge's The Shadow of the Glen, two symphonies, three concertos, much chamber music, cantatas and other choral pieces, piano music, songs, and other compositions for instruments as diverse as natural trumpet and guitar. His music impresses the hearer immediately by its downrightness and strength, its commitment to humane musical values, to firm architecture and the traditional crafts of counterpoint and variation. There is nothing flashy about his music; and in the 1950s and 1960s, as Britain strove to catch up with the Continental avant-garde, his robust independence of fashion hardly helped to gain his works prestige. Occasionally, wryly, he spoke of himself as one of an "almost lost generation" of British composer; yet as a craftsman and a musical mind he must be judged one of that generation's leading figures. Since his death in 1983 after several years of crippling illness, there has been a remarkable upsurge of interest in his output: this disc of chamber music for strings follows our issue of his opera and song cycle (TROY418).

Eric Ewazen was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied at Eastman and the Juilliard School. He has been vice-president of the League-ISCM, Composer-in-Residence with the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, lecturer for the New York Philharmonic's Musical Encounters Series, and is currently a faculty member of The Juilliard School. Eric Ewazen writes: "With its versatility, impressive range and amazing colors, the bass trombone is an instrument capable of such a variety of emotional expression. Having been a friend of David Taylor since 1980, I have long known of his legendary playing in so many different musical styles - from classical to jazz to popular to experimental. With my Concertino, I wanted to write a work for him which captures many of his musical personalities. The piece was premiered in 1996. Ballade for Bass Trombone, Harp and String Orchestra began life as a work for clarinet. I made the arrangements for Charles Vernon, to whom the piece was dedicated in 1996. Stefan Sanders, whom I am proud to count as one of my music theory students at Juilliard, won the low brass competition held at the school in 1997, resulting in his premiere performance of my Concerto for Bass Trombone (or tuba) and Orchestra. Stefan's commanding sonority and his heartfelt expression resulted in a premiere performance both riveting and soulful. John Rojak has been a friend for almost 25 years, since we were students together at Juilliard. As the extraordinary bass trombonist of the American Brass Quintet, he has performed on some of the most celebrated brass chamber music recordings of the 20th, now 21st century. Equally adept as a terrific soloist, John approached me about writing a piece for him in 1996. This resulted in the Rhapsody for Bass Trombone and String Orchestra which he premiered in 1997. The final work on this CD, the Capriccio for Bass Trombone and Trombone Choir was written for David Taylor as a companion piece for his Concertino which opens the CD."

Leo Kraft is active as a composer, educator, and author. After receiving degrees from Queens College and Princeton University, he joined the faculty of Queens College in 1947, and retired in 1989. While the bulk of his work consists of chamber music, he has written orchestral, piano and vocal music as well. The composer writes: "About the Six Pieces for Violin and Piano Obbligato, as the title implies, these pieces feature the violin, while the role of the piano is more than an accompaniment, but less than an equal partner, hence the term obbligato. Imagining the violin as a great actor capable of portraying many roles, I found a different kind of expression in each piece. Line Drawings was written for Paul Dunkel, who gave the first performance with Richard Fitz in 1972. The linear nature of the music suggested the title. Paul Maynard was an outstanding performer and scholar in Renaissance and Baroque music. He was a major presence on the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music, and it is to his memory that The Garden of Memory for harpsichord (on which he performed so marvelously) is dedicated. The poetry of e.e. cummings has delighted me since my student days, but only recently did I feel that I had the means to do justice to some of my favorite poems. I heard a tenor voice and a small group of instruments. My aim was to get beneath the surface of the elegant lines to the deeper meaning below. My second chamber symphony is indeed a symphony in the classical sense, which is to say that the work is highly developmental, spacious in gesture, and ambitious in scope."

In the seventies and again in the eighties, Ezra Laderman had issued weighty statements, entire worlds for two violins, viola and cello. The first was his three-movement Fifth Quartet, composed in 1976; it lasts three quarters of an hour, incorporates historical models including a sonata form and a Baroque dance suite, and draws on "a rich palette of composing: tonal, serial, aleatoric." But its size makes the Laderman Fifth Quartet impractical to program in its entirety. More often, quartets program the work's movements individually, finding each to be a coherent and satisfying statement. This performance history of the Fifth Quartet led Laderman to re-think his approach to the medium and to multi-movement compositions. A trilogy of single-movement quartets - the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth - comprised the next such weighty statement. The Sixth Quartet was complete by December 1980; the double bar line was put on the Eighth almost five years later, the composer having reached sixty-one years of age. The composer regarded these three quartets as "the payoff from this mother lode" of the Fifth. Each of the three was performed many times before the first performance of the entire trilogy took place, in May 1989 at Merkin Concert Hall's Music Today series in New York City. There the performers - the Audubon, Blair, and Colorado Quartets - gathered to celebrate Laderman's 65th birthday.

Eric Salzman writes: "The first impression that Michael Dellaira's work gives is that of simple beauty, no small virtue in and of itself. But listen again. Repeated hearings reveal a musical world of depth and subtlety, marked by the kinds of surprises that are the mark of a sure and confident ear. Michael has something to tell us. He has created a personal musical language that combines the harmonic vocabulary and rhythmic interest of rock music with the technical rigor of the best modern classical music. It is this combination and synthesis of seemingly contradictory elements which points to the direction of new American music in a new century and which gives both surface tension and excitement, and deeper value to Michael's music." Michael Dellaira was born in Schenectady, N.Y. A passable clarinetist, violinist, and chorister as a child, he also performed as a drummer, singer, and guitar player in rock and folk groups. After graduating from Georgetown University with a degree in philosophy, he pursued a career as a guitarist and songwriter and at the same time began the formal study of music theory with Robert Parris, Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Goffredo Petrassi and Franco Donatoni. During the 1980s, he withdrew into a private period of musical self-examination and re-evaluation, exploring styles and genres he had previously considered off-limits, simple-minded, or too abstract. This period lasted until 1995, the year he completed Three Rivers. That work, a turning point, employs the vernacular rhythms and harmonies characteristic of Dellaira's musical voice.

Bernard Jacobson, the former program annotator and musicologist for the Philadelphia Orchestra writes: "From where I sit, as a freelance critic living in Philadelphia, the Network for New Music looks like the brightest hope for the continued health of contemporary musical creation. Over a period now approaching two decades, it has established itself among the finest institutions of its kind anywhere, a success that can be attributed to a number of causes. One is the simple but crucial mission of the organization: 'To present, encourage and commission a great diversity of new works of the highest quality by established and emerging composers, and to build a broader appreciation for new music.' More than 400 such works have so far been performed - a "great diversity" indeed, and an array of talent such as few organizations in the field, anywhere in the country, could match. Along with this enlightened openness of mind in the choice of repertoire, another essential quality is the sheer dedication and initiative of NNM's artistic director, Linda Reichert, one of the area's leading exponents of contemporary music as a pianist, who often appears in that capacity in Network concerts. Still another is the expert counsel of an artistic advisory committee whose membership includes Milton Babbitt, John Harbison, Joan Tower and George Walker. To my mind though, the single most vital element in NNM's supremacy is the sheer quality of its performances. It is a sad truth that contemporary music suffers almost more on occasion from the ministrations of those who perform it as of those who don't. The complexity and technical demands of many modern scores too often frustrate even the best-intentioned efforts of conductors, players, and singers caught up in the seemingly inevitable trap of inadequate rehearsal time, insufficient familiarity, and overtaxed skill. As a result, a public that is itself facing the challenge of new and unknown works can be forgiven for ascribing to the music what are actually weaknesses in its presentation. This has never happened, in my experience, at a Network concert. It is just such a combination of informed programming and masterful presentation that is to be encountered on this CD."

A native of Detroit, Paul Schoenfield began musical training at age six. He holds a degree from the Mellon University, as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Arizona. A man of broad interests, he is also an avid scholar of mathematics and Hebrew. He held his first teaching post in Toledo, has lived on a kibbutz in Israel, was a free-lance composer and pianist in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and ultimately moved to Cleveland and then to Israel. Schoenfield and his family now divide their time between Israel and the United States. He has produced a large body of work for soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestra and recently completed a full-length folk opera, The Merchant and the Pauper, commissioned by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Six British Folk Songs, a six-movement suite for cello and piano, was written in the summer of 1985 as a tribute to the cellist Jacqueline du Pre. It was commissioned by the Sewell family and premiered by cellist Laura Sewell, who had been a student of Du Pre. Sparks of Glory was written in 1995 for the Sea Cliff Chamber Players. It was commissioned by the Tilles family, who had specifically requested a work for narrator commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. For this purpose, "I could think of nothing more fitting than the accounts written by the Polish-Israeli journalist Moshe Prager."

Eric Moe, composer of what the New York Times calls "music of winning exuberance," has received numerous ,grants and awards for his work. As a pianist and keyboard player, he has performed works by hundreds of composers, from Anthony Davis to Stefan Wolpe. He was educated at the University of California at Berkeley and at Princeton University. He is currently Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh, where he directs the graduate program in composition and the department's eclectroacoustic music studio. He is equally skilled at writing and performing new art music. At the core of his "maximal-minimalist" compositional technique is the ability to look at musical material as one would a complex crystal. Although trained and rooted in classical music, Moe's rhythmic and melodic conception draws as much from West Africa and Bud Powell as it does from Stravinsky and Chopin.

Leonard Salzedo was born in London and was descended from the Sephardic Jews who left Spain at the end of the 15th century. In 1944, while he was still a student at the Royal College of Music, he was commissioned by Marie Rambert to write his first ballet score "The Fugitive" which, after its first performance in November of that year, was performed more than 400 times by the Ballet Rambert in England and abroad. It was also seen on BBC Television. The most successful of his 17 ballet scores is undoubtedly "The Witch Boy" first produced in Amsterdam in 1956 and subsequently performed more than 700 times in over 30 countries. The world premieres of all the works on this CD were given by Pavel Burda in Milwaukee with the composer in attendance. A common thread for the Salzedo works is the use of over two dozen chromatically tuned gongs in all five works. Burda first encountered gongs made by the Paiste Company while recording with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg and was immediately entranced. This experience led directly to his commissioning the composer. It was Burda's idea to have a series of works in which the compositional focus is the interaction of the unique timbres of these gongs with different ensembles such as string quartet or choir.

Ned Rorem composed his End of Summer during the late summer of 1985 in Nantucket. "The trio follows in the wake of my septet, Scenes from Childhood. The pieces are about the same length and are formed from souvenirs. But while the septet contained 12 movements describing geographical landmarks of my youth, the trio is in but three, each suggested by musical works of yore. There are suggestions of Satie, Brahms, hopscotch ditties and Protestant anthems." An Oboe Book was commissioned for the 30th anniversary of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society and premiered in July 1999 by the guest soloists on this CD. Ariel, Five Poems of Sylvia Plath was composed in New York during May 1971 and was presented as a gift to Phyllis Curtin. The poems that make up the text are among Plath's last writings and vividly reflect that tumultuous period in her life and the suicide that soon ended it. In assembling a set of songs for clarinet, double bass and piano, Gotham Ensemble music director Thomas Piercy asked composer Rorem if he had any songs whose vocal line seemed particularly suitable for the clarinet. Piercy wrote: "Ned suggested any number of his songs would be appropriate. Playing through more than fifty, we settled on the four heard here. After listening to a rehearsal in preparation for the recording, Rorem decided to title the set Four Poems without Words."

The youngest of eight children raised by a widowed mother, Lawrence Dillon grew up in Summit, New Jersey, just outside of New York City. In 1985, he became the youngest composer to earn a doctorate at the Juilliard School, winning the coveted Gretchaninoff Prize upon graduation. He studied privately with Vincent Persichetti, and in classes with Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, David Diamond and Roger Sessions. Upon graduation, he was appointed to the Juilliard faculty. In 1990, he was offered the position of Assistant Dean at the North Carolina School of the Arts where he is now Composer-in-Residence and conductor of the contemporary music ensemble. "The three compositions on this album grew out of my increasing dissatisfaction with post-modernist techniques. Connected to so many surfaces, I found myself longing for depths. I began composing works that contained clear connections with Western musical tradition, both because of my love and respect for the greatest accomplishments of Western music and because I felt a growing number of people had lost touch with that amazing heritage. The result was a series of works that combined Western music traditions and popular idioms in nontraditional ways. Unlike the shocking disjunctions of postmodernism, however, the works on this recording aim for a seamless fusion, a common ground between genres where similarities convey specific meanings, and distinctions become irrelevant."

Among composers of so-called serious music over the last 50 years, few have realized the term "serious" as uniquely and powerfully as has Alvin Singleton. With many contemporary composers the seriousness of their work has been concerned with musical structure; Singleton throughout his career has answered the call of allowing his music to address crucial matters of his time. But this has always been accomplished through eloquent crafting of his musical materials. Singleton was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940, the son of warm, witty, devoutly Christian parents. Abandoning a career as a CPA after falling in love with a Mahler symphony, Singleton studied composition at both New York University and Yale before working with Goffredo Petrassi as a Fulbright Scholar in Rome. He remained in Europe for nearly a decade and a half before returning to the U.S. to serve as composer-in-residence with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Extension of a Dream, written in 1977 and revised in 1987, memorializes the brutal beating death of South African freedom fighter Steve Biko by South African police. Argoru is a word from the Ghanaian Twi language meaning "to play" and both works heard on this disc, ArgoruVII and Argoru VI are scored for solo instruments (vibraphone and marimba). Between Sisters (1990) is a musical setting of "The House Slave," a poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Rita Dove.

Robert Baksa is one of America's most prolific composers with more than 500 works to his credit. He was born in New York City in 1938 but grew up in Tucson, Arizona. Baksa attended the University of Arizona, then returned to New York to live after spending a summer at Tanglewood. Currently he serves as Resident Composer and Coordinator of New Music for the Pleshakov Music Center in Hudson, New York. The Octet for Woodwinds was completed in 1972 and takes its inspiration from the wind serenades of the early classical period. The Quintet for Flute and Strings, written in 1973, was premiered at the National Flute Association Convention. The 1974 Nonet for Winds and Strings was commissioned by the Chamber Music Conference of the East at Bennington, Vermont. It was written to be presented during the period of the composer's tenure as Composer-in-Residence that summer and was later taken up by other chamber ensembles across the country including the Bronx Arts Ensemble, which has premiered and recorded more than a dozen of Baksa's chamber works.

Rodney Rogers has written music for a wide variety of media, including orchestra, chorus, wind ensemble and chamber groups. He first gained national recognition as a composer while in college with BMI Awards, the ASCAP Foundation Grant for Young Composers and a fellowship to Tanglewood. Named "Distinguished Composer of the Year" in 1989 by the Music Teachers National Association for his composition Riffing in Tandem, he has also received a NEA Consortium Commission and residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Yadoo Artist Colony. Today, he is on the composition faculty at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

For five decades Ezra Laderman has been privileged to be performed by the musicians of Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Symphony has collaborated with him a number of times; in 2003 the orchestra will feature its bass clarinetist, Richard Page, in a new Laderman concerto that it has commissioned. Other of the city's ensembles over the years have been equally staunch supporters of the composer's work. The newest of them, The Pittsburgh Chamber Music Project, commissioned and premiered Laderman's 1997 Sextet for English horn, bass clarinet and string quartet. Laderman is an attentive collaborator. He gets to know the musicians as people, and in composing his works often chooses the performer's personalities as a point of departure. Certainly he has done so in a number of his string quartets, a genre for which he is deservedly celebrated. The composer's Violin Duets were composed in 1998. Like the works by Bartok and Berio, they are miniature meditations, each composed in a single session, a day, a few hours, that performed together accumulate artistic weight through comparison and contrast. A year after graduating from Columbia University in 1952, Laderman began work on a Concerto for Bassoon and Strings. He completed the concerto in 1954, and it was given a reading by Bernard Garfield (who, later, for many years, was the principal bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra) and the National Symphony under Leon Barzin. But, aside from a student performance at Juilliard, the work remained on the shelf for more than forty years. Laderman completely overhauled the work in 2000 and the result is what is recorded here.