Catalog

This recording of music for piano, flute, and flute and piano offers a panorama of classically trained Peruvian composers and a Peruvian-American composer whose music was inspired by Andean Indigenous melodies, rhythms, and traditions. The compositions range in date from 1927 through 2002. The performers include pianist Carmen Rodríguez-Peralta and flutist Orlando Cela. Rodríguez-Peralta has appeared as piano soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Peru, and Mexico. A winner of the Artists International Young Musicians Auditions, Ms. Rodríguez-Peralta has performed in noted concert halls throughout the United States. A graduate of Temple University, Catholic University and The Juilliard School, she is chair of the music department of Middlesex Community College. Orlando Cela has premiered more than 200 works, both as a conductor and flutist. He is music director of the Lowell Chamber Orchestra and the Arlington Philharmonic Orchestra. He is on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music and Middlesex Community College.

Daniel Palkowski is a composer, pianist/synthesist, educator, audio engineer and creative designer. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia. He has taught at both of those schools as well as at the Tisch School of the Arts and Music at New York University. He works for Ernst & Young as a creative designer, specializing in audio and video production. His music has been commissioned by organizations such as the Westchester Philharmonic, Music from China, and MacMillan Digital. The compositions on this recording were created in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Pianist ShiLing Shih has performed throughout the U.S. and in Taiwan and has collaborated with husband Daniel Palkowski on many works and performances. Recognized as the world's premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator, and composer who has given her instrument a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Macedonian pianist Elena Atanasovska has performed in numerous concerts in Macedonia as well as festivals in Bosnia, Portugal, Spain, Serbia, and Kosova among others.

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.

Johannes Brahms began his musical training as a violinist and cellist, although at his core, he was a pianist. He collaborated closely with violinist Joseph Joachim, and the violin sonatas reflect their association. Violinist Limor Toren-Immerman has won numerous competitions and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras throughout the U.S., Israel, and Russia. She enjoys an international career as a recitalist and chamber musician and has received numerous awards, including the Baroness Leni Fe Bland Award, the H.I.A.S. Award, and the Jascha Heifetz Endowed Violin Scholarship, among many others. Ms. Toren-Immerman began her musical education in Russia at the Gnessin State Music College. She also has degrees from the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance and the University of Southern Calfornia Thornton School of Music. She is on the faculty of the California State University Fresno and was a founding member of Trio Accento. Pianist Hatem Nadim has performed extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East, Korea, and the U.S. He is recognized as one of the leading chamber music pianists of our time. Born in Egypt, he studied at the Cairo Conservatoire and the University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Flutist Don Bailey and harpist Laura Logan Brandenburg offer a charming program of music for flute and harp that includes works from the standard repertoire as well as newer works by British and American composers. Don Bailey has enjoyed a diverse career as a performer, professor, festival planner, and board member of several arts organizations. He was solo flutist for Cunard Cruise Lines and has performed at festivals in Aspen, Nice, and Spoleto, among many others. His discography includes recordings on the Summit, Genuin, Parnassus, International, and Albany Records labels. Laura Brandenburg served as harp instructor at Texas Christian University School of Music. A highly regarded freelance harpist, she enjoys a wide variety of collaborative performance opportunities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Active as a camp clinician specializing in harp ensemble repertoire, Laura presents workshops locally and nationally. The duo has been performing together since 2017 and are committed to exploring and transcribing new music for flute and harp that expands the boundaries of the repertoire while feeding the artistic soul.

It is the supreme love of memorable seminal melodic ideas placed in contrapuntal settings and immersed in warm harmonies inspired from popular, blues, and jazz genres that characterize the piano pieces of Alec Wilder. His short piano works, of which this recording consists, are most often conceived in ternary, binary or rondo forms, and sets of these smaller pieces are combined in suites to create a larger musical form. Pianist John Noel Roberts has collected many of Wilder's short works for piano in this second volume of his works for solo piano. Roberts studied at Eastman and Yale and has an impressive career as an orchestral soloist and recitalist, having appeared at major venues around the world. Currently on the faculty at Our Lady of the Lake University, Roberts has served on music faculties at Furman, UNC-Charlotte, Mercer, Concordia College, Stephen F. Austin State University, and the Western Australian Conservatorium of Music.

Cellist Gregory Sauer and pianist Heidi Louise Williams perform a program of works for cello and piano by North and South American composers, including world premiere recordings of works by André Mehmari and Daniel Crozier. Both performers are on the faculty at Florida State University and enjoy careers as recitalists, soloists with orchestras, and chamber ensembles. Ms. Williams appears on three previous Albany Records releases, all of which have received critical acclaim. She has also recorded for Naxos, Neos, and Centaur. Sauer’s discography includes recordings with MSR and Mark Records.

The eighth volume of New Music from Bowling Green includes orchestral compositions by Aaron Jay Kernis, Marilyn Shrude, Richard Cornell, Dalit Warshaw, Martin Kennedy, and David Liptak. Conductor Emily Freeman Brown has been the driving force behind this series, which now has recorded more than 40 works by American composers. Brown has appeared as conductor with orchestras in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. In addition to her work for Albany Records, she has recorded for Naxos, Linn, and Opus One Records. Soloists include violinist Ioana Galu, a native of Romania and now on the faculty at the University of South Dakota, and trombonist Brittany Lasch, who is on the faculty at Bowling Green State University.

George Rochberg's Caprice Variations were composed in 1970, and incorporated musical elements that ignited his passions. The work began to germinate in 1969, during an accidental encounter with Brahms' Opus 35 variations on Paganini's famous caprice and this led directly to his Third String Quartet. Eight variations of the Caprice are expanded and revisited elements of this string quartet. Requiring considerable musical, artistic, and technical prowess, the Caprice Variations are very rarely performed. Born in 1995, French violinist Léo Marillier studied at the New England Conservatory and the Paris Conservatory, as well as the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. The winner of numerous competitions, Marillier has performed with noted chamber musicians and ensembles in the U.S., Europe, and the U.A.E. and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Europe. He is the artistic director of the Inventio Festival in Paris. He is a member of the Diotima Quartet.

Clarinetists Jessica Lindsey and Christy Banks formed the Spatial Forces Duo in 2008 and since that time have toured the U.S., Canada, China, Italy, New Zealand, and Belgium. Their goal is to stretch the sonic possibilities of the traditional clarinet duo and have commissioned composers of diverse backgrounds to write works for them. Christy Banks is on the faculty at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, and has studied at the University of Nebraska and Florida State University. She is bass clarinetist for the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra. Jessica Lindsey, on the faculty at UNC Charlotte, and has studied at the University of Nebraska and the University of Colorado. She performs with the Nebraska Chamber Orchestra.

Composer Barbara White discovered the shakuhachi while in college and her fascination with this instrument has continued form more than 30 years. The works on this recording are the result of a ten year collaboration with shakuhachi grand master Riley Lee. White studied the shakuhachi with Lee and has composed numerous works for him. White's music has been described as "provocative even when it speaks in undertones, creating a personal space that is as unique as it is inviting." The recipient of numerous honors and awards, she is on the music faculty at Princeton. Riley Lee began studying the shakuhachi in 1970 while living in Japan. He is the first non-Japanese to attain the rank of "grand master."

The compositions on this album represent more than 20 years of creative collaboration between composer Victoria Bond and pianist Paul Barnes. It began in 1999 with the recording of Black Light when Barnes first introduced Bond to the communion hymn Potirion Sotiriu. That started an exploration of three distinctive Byzantine chants. The two piano concertos were recorded earlier and are re-released here. All of these works are related to each other in that they are about the mystical quality of light. Victoria Bond leads a multifaceted career as composer, conductor, lecturer, and artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts. Her works have been performed around the world and her recordings appear on numerous labels including Albany Records and Naxos. Pianist Paul Barnes continues to electrify audiences with his intensely expressive playing and cutting-edge programming.

The innovative Jeremy Muller is active as a percussionist, composer, and multimedia artists. He has performed as a featured soloist at many venues throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia and given world premieres of works by many composers including some included on this recording. Alexandre Lunsqui's Materiali includes layering of pulses and velocities generated from the exploration of materials such as clay, wood, metal, plastic, water, and air. Javier Alvarez's Temazcal is an early example of electroacoustic music. Cristyn Magnus; Pitch vs. Computer is a work that treats video games as scores, while Herbert Brün's Stalks and Trees and Drops and Clouds are very early computer work and one of the earliest conceived for a solo percussionist. Matthew Burtner's Glisten of Places is a composition and a collection method for living in the world through sound.

This recording features three imaginative and dynamic works by GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty. The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra gives exciting performances under the baton of long-time music director Neal Gittleman, joined by classical guitarist Manuel Barrueco, electric guitarist D. J. Sparr, and narrator Michael Lippert. Bay of Pigs for Classical Guitar and Strings evokes the bittersweet and turbulent events of past and present Cuba. Gee’s Bend for Electric Guitar and Orchestra is a tapestry of syncopated grooves, slow blues and spirituals inspired by the quilts and African- American women quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. TROYJAM for Narrator and Orchestra, with a poetic libretto by Anne Carson, retells the story of the Trojan War from Homer’s Iliad, but with a twist: the Greeks, led by the “lyre-strumming” Achilles against the Trojans led by Hector, decide to play the instruments of the orchestra in a wild jam session to make music, not war.

Adolphus Hailstork's interest in the voice dates back to childhood, when he became a member of a boys' cathedral choir in Albany, New York. This recording of his songs is the first volume of a series and includes his first set of songs, Lollipops, written in 1959. Hailstork utilizes a variety of styles in his song writing, changing style to suit the texts. Soprano Louise Toppin has received acclaim for her performances throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, South America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean. Her discography includes 17 recordings of music by American composers. A professor of voice at the University of Michigan, Ms. Toppin is director of the George Shirley Vocal Competition and the non-profit organization, Videmus. Her collaborators include pianist John O'Brien, harpist Lydia Cleaver, double bassist Rick Robinson, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Julius P. Williams, conductor.

This recording reflects aspects of a mutual intersection and continual development between pianist David Holzman and composer James Ricci, touching upon both musical and personal connections over the course of a lifetime. They shared similar musical backgrounds and experiences, but didn't know each other personally until 2015 and began a formal collaboration. Holzman has premiered the majority of Ricci's works on this disc. James Ricci studied at the Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory and Brandeis University. His music has been performed by soloists and chamber ensembles, including Kenneth Radnofsky, the Lydian String Quartet, Collage New Music, and Solar Winds, among many others. David Holzman has been hailed as a "master pianist" and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. He is an advocate for music of the 20th and 21st centuries and is especially noted for his performances of the music of Stefan Wolpe. A graduate of Mannes College of Music and Queens College, he is on the faculty at C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University.

A native of Hong Kong, composer Stephen Yip now lives in the U.S. He studied at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and received his D.M.A. from Rice University. His music has been performed by noted new music ensembles in the U.S. and abroad including the New York New Music Ensemble, Little Giant Chinese Orchestra, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, and the Moscow New Music Ensemble. His discography includes recordings on the Albany, ERM-Media, Parma, Capstone, ATMA, and Beauport labels. He is on the faculty at Houston Community College. This recording of his chamber music includes performances by the [Switch~ Ensemble], the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, pianist Shelley Ng, and flutists Pei-San Chiu and Chen-Yu Wu.

This recording features treasured musical collaborators of composer Ingrid Arauco performing works from the past decade. While varied in inspiration, the works are connected, as they stem from purely musical impulses and investigations. Arauco's music is rich in the resonances of both the past and the present. Arauco's music has been performed by noted new music ensembles and featured at various music festivals, including the Havana Contemporary Music Festival. She is the recipient of numerous commissions, honors and fellowships, including residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Arauco is on the faculty at Haverford College. This is her third recording for Albany Records.

Extensions of Tradition(s) is a collection of works by American composer William C. Banfield. It includes recent recordings of performances that document his current music/art aesthetic as well as an early symphonic choral work. In the past 25 years Banfield has produced a body of compositions, authored eight books, made numerous recordings, and maintained an active teaching career. He has served three times as a judge for the Pulitzer Prize in music and his music has been performed and recording by the foremost orchestras and chamber ensembles in the United States and abroad. With the compositions on this recording, Banfield has shared several of the genres that make up contemporary composition, and in his case, his music embodies the multiple styles of the American musical landscapes of modernist languages, including jazz and American song. Composer Libby Larsen says that "One of my favorite Bill Banfield quotes is "I have often felt that, with my art, I could build a room where everyone can find a friend." This is Bill Banfield.

This recording is of a newly composed Chinese art song cycle by two renowned Chinese cultural figures -- composer Cong Liu and poet Yujuan Li. The cycle consists of 24 songs, each representing one of the 24 solar terms. The cycle depicts the traditional Chinese solar terms and their representative agricultural folk traditions, with the short Chinese poems describing the human activities and cultural changes to the landscape through the seasons. Composer Cong Liu is on the faculty at Shenyang Conservatory of Music and is the director of multiple music institutions and symphony orchestras. His compositional style combines Western techniques with Chinese folk song elements. Poet Yujuan Li has written more than 1,000 texts in various styles and she has won more than 100 national awards. Soprano Xingyu Huo is completing her DMA at the University of Iowa. She has performed with opera companies in Italy and concertized in China, Austria, Italy, and the United States.

This recording of the art songs of Elaine Ross, set to poetry by women, seeks to broaden the interest in the compositions of living female composers. Elaine Ross is President and CEO of the newly founded Southern Atlantic Conservatory of Music, set to open in 2025. She has been on the faulty at Morgan State University, Towson University, Ohio University, and the Colburn Conservatory. Her music has been performed in France, Germany, and Israel, as well as the United States. Soprano Theresa Bickham, praised for her "fine piano nuances" and "expressive legato line" has performed around the world as an opera singer and as a recitalist. A graduate of the University of Maryland College Park, the University of Houston, and Towson University, she is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Pianist Rochelle Sennet says that “Bach to Black represents my strong interest in performing repertoire by Black composers in combination with works of J.S. Bach. The suites included on this recording represent beauty, excellence, contrast, celebration of dance style, and dialogue.” She has paired the English Suites of Bach with works by Black composers based on similarities in key, mode, rhythmic energy, and occasional disruption of tonal expectations. Dr. Rochelle Sennet has established herself as a well-known performer, teacher, and scholar. A graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory, the University of Michigan, and Texas Christian University, she received her DMA from the University of Illinois. She has been a prize winner in numerous competitions including the Kingsville International Piano competition, and the US Open Music Piano Concerto competition, among other. She is on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This is her fourth recording for Albany Records.

Jeremy Reynolds has recorded the complete works of David Maslanka for clarinet. The 2-CD set includes world premiere recordings of Fourth Piece, Eternal Garden, Trio No. 1, Trio No. 3, and Images from the "Old Gringo." David Maslanka, who died in 2017, was not only a noted composer, but much loved and admired, particularly by wind and brass players. This recording project, which began in 2008, had the benefit of countless hours of collaboration between Maslanka and the musicians. Hailed as a "wizard of sound" Jeremy Reynolds is on the faculty at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music and is associate principal clarinet of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. He has performed on six continents, making his Carnegie Hall Debut in 2015 and has concertized extensively around the world. His collaborators include pianist Heidi Brende Leathwood, violinist Yumi Hwang-Williams, and violist Basil Vendryes — all of whom are on the faculty of the Lamont School of Music. An interview with Matthew Maslanka can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/MI667gKMHDU.

Harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson offers works for harp by women composers from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In her introduction, Remy Johnson points out that the title, Quest, is drawn from the composition, Quest by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, whose inspiration for her piece perfectly fit the mission of this recording, which is to expand the harp repertoire by finding and arranging works by women. Principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for more than 20 years, Ms. Remy Johnson is acclaimed by critics and audiences for her "complete mastery of the harp and its secrets." In addition to her orchestral works, Ms. Remy Johnson has an active career as a soloist and chamber musician, performing across North America and throughout the world. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including first place in the American Harp Society and American String Teachers Association competitions, she is a graduate of Harvard.

Composer Dave Walther enjoys an equally distinguished career as a violist, including working as a studio musician in more than 500 motion pictures and soundtracks, and being the violist for The Debussy Trio, which has performed hundreds of recitals in the U.S. and abroad. As a composer he has written works for The Debussy Trio, the Christiane Trio, the Capital Trio, Catherine and Jonathan Karoly, and pianist Duncan Cumming, among others. This, his second recording on Albany Records, includes a work for violin and piano; a string quartet; a work for solo piano; and a work for flute and cello.

The subtitle of this recording, Singing Style - cantabile expressions from the Baroque to present - gives the listener a good idea of what to expect. As pianist Bruce Leto, Jr. says, "Every piece of music has a story - whether tonally, modally, or motivically. Singing Style is an album derived as much from compositional cantabile sensibilities as from the art of song Singing Style takes the listener through compositional passages, vocal/piano arrangements, and humanitarian calls to action." Bruce Leto, Jr. has been a prize-winner in scholastic, collegiate, national, and international piano competitions, including the Young Artist Division of the Canadian International Music Competition, the Seattle International Piano Festival - Virtuoso Artists 20, and the Grand Metropolitan International Music Competition, among many others. A graduate of Haverford College and New York University, he is now working on an MBA at Villanova.

Michael Pendowski joins with pianist Jeremy Samolesky in a recording of works for alto saxophone. The repertoire features music that is jazz or jazz-inspired, reflecting Pendowski's personal interests. A director of the jazz program at Auburn, Dr. Pendowski is also an assistant professor of saxophone. He has taught at Eastman, Northwestern University, and DePaul, among other schools. He is a graduate of Eastman and Northwestern. He is a prominent composer in the educational field, having published dozens of jazz and classical compositions, encompassing the full spectrum from professional ensembles and high schools and universities. He has been a clinician throughout the country and in South America and has conducted and taught at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Also on the faculty at Auburn, Jeremy Samolesky has appeared on concert stages across four continents. He performs and teaches regularly at universities and conservatories around the world.

Doug Bielmeier creates commercial and experimental music tailored for boutique audiences and media. His music has been described as an extension of Xenakis's early tape pieces by the American Record Guide. His music has been performed internationally and broadcast on radio stations throughout the U.S. He is a champion for experimental creators and recording and has designed and managed the C.L.E.A.R. Lab at Purdue School of Engineering. A graduate of the Hartt School of Music and Bowling Green University, he is currently on the faculty at Northeastern University. This new recording is a travelogue of experiments in the world of electroacoustic, ambient, and experimental music. The selection of works was curated to create a cohesive and fresh statement revealing Bielmeier's process of Windowing, which refers to the manipulation of found sound files.

Composer Joseph Fennimore credits hearing Peter and the Wolf as a young child for instilling his lifelong love for wind instruments. He comments that "As with singing, their expression comes from the flow of breath itself; the player is the instrument." This recording (the 12th on Albany Records devoted to his music and piano playing) is a collection of unedited concert performances, recorded between 1973 and 1989, which give an overview of his delightful music for wind instruments.

The music of Matthew Schreibeis, an American composer based in Hong Kong, spans orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, and includes a series of works for traditional Korean instruments. His personal musical vision is characterized by vivid color, imagination, and a clear sense of drama. His honors and awards include a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music has been performed by noted new music ensembles and he has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, Copland House and the Camargo Foundation, among others. He is a graduate of Eastman and the University of Pennsylvania. The largest work on this recording, Sandburg Songs, was written for the extraordinary soprano Tony Arnold, who gave the world premiere recording.

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.

Susan Kander and Roberta Gumbel's dwb (driving while black) tackles what it means to be a parent of a black child who starts driving. In its swift 45 minutes, the listener spends 16 years with a black mother, feeling her growing fear as her black son moves towards driving age. Librettist and soprano Roberta Gumbel has been called "silver-voiced" by the New York Times. She has appeared with opera companies in Kansas City, Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Memphis, and toured the United States and Europe in companies of Porgy and Bess, including the renowned Houston Grand Opera production. Composer Susan Kander's music has been heard across the U.S. and in Europe, China, Russia, Australia, and South Africa and she has received commissions from a variety of ensembles including the Minnesota Opera Theater, Opera Theater of St. Louis, the Columbus Opera, and National Symphony Orchestra, among many others. Her music appears on the MSR, Navona, and Loose Can record labels. dwb (driving while black) enjoyed a video premiere on October 23, 2020 as a joint production of the Baruch Performing Arts Center and Opera Omaha.