Catalog

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.

Percussionist and baritone vocalist Lee Hinkle, whose percussion playing has been called "rock-steady" by the Washington Post, is the principal percussionist with the 21st Century Consort and a faculty member at the University of Maryland in College Park. An active recitalist and soloist, Hinkle has performed at universities and festivals across the U.S., and with the National Symphony Orchestra and Taipei Philharmonic. His recordings can be heard on six labels. For this recording, Hinkle explores the boundaries between contemporary music and theatre, performing compositions by Greek composer Georges Aperghis and American composers Daniel Adams and Stuart Saunders Smith as well as one of Hinkle's own compositions. These works include The Authors, a marimba opera, is made up of 11 movements with spoken and sung texts excerpted from various authors' novels, poems and sonnets. The performer is tasked with speaking, singing, whistling, and acting while playing the marimba.

The Young Debussy comprises the songs composed by Claude Debussy before his 30th birthday that he felt were good enough to publish. The vocal writing varies, but in most of them there is the emphasis on the middle and low range characteristic of much French vocal music. Darren Chase sings all of the songs in the composer's original keys. Recordings of Debussy's songs now go back more than 100 years but the large majority feature sopranos or mezzos with the rest sung by lyric baritones. This is the first recording since 1975 where this repertoire is sung by a tenor and as such offers an enlightening experience of this music.

Since establishing Ohio Light Opera in 1979, The College of Wooster has upheld the goals of providing young musicians with an opportunity to perform in a professional setting and of entertaining audiences with operettas which have charmed the publics of an earlier era. Liberal arts colleges are, in the words of President R. Stanton Hales, "national treasures which have provided the ideals for American undergraduate education." Of these small and independent treasures, Wooster is one of the brightest. A recent study measured the leading 50 colleges in three critical areas Ð educating scientists, educating leaders in international affairs, and educating business executives. Wooster is only one of 21 colleges to earn a place in all three groups. It is also a school that is dedicated to the performing arts with strong programs in theater and music. Steven Daigle, the artistic director for the company says: "The Ohio Light Opera Company is happy to offer Gilbert and Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard. No other festival here or abroad can boast a company that has dedicated itself for 25 years to the preservation and traditional presentation of all forms of opera. This "operetta haven," supported by the Wooster community has set a unique standard to which many performing arts companies aspire."

Robert Maggio is a composer of concert music, and scores for ballet, modern dance and theater. He is Professor of Music at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, his music has been performed nationally and abroad. Aristotle was commissioned and first performed in 1999, by the Ithaca College Choir. Billy Collins' text is often funny, sometimes poignant, and in certain moments sharply haunting. The Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote his poetic vision, The Wishing Tree, after the death of his mother. The imagery of envisioning his mother as a wishing tree lends itself naturally to a musical setting. The work was commissioned in 1999 by Donald Nally and the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia. The music evokes both the serenity of the dream-state and the ecstasy of the vision itself. Jacklight was commissioned by the West Chester University Concert Choir in 1997. The title of Louise Erdrich's poem refers to a torch or a light used to attract fish or game at night, holding them in thrall so they might be more easily killed. Rachel and Her Children - Small Hands, Relinquish All was commissioned by the Bucks County Choral Society for its 30th anniversary in 2002. Inspired by the relationship of sacred and secular texts in The Wishing Tree, the libretto combines the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay with David Rosenberg's poetic transformation of verses from the book of Jeremiah, and the Psalms. Rachel's lament for her children, found in the account of the slaughter of the innocents in the second chapter of the gospel of Matthew, here provides the anchor for reflection on mortality and renewal, hope and fear from the contrasting perspectives of adults and children.

Do you know the name David Maslanka? Probably not and yet he is writing some of the most wonderful music. He lives on his ranch in Montana and composes music; music for himself and for us: music which is romantic, tonal, imaginative; music which is good and worth hearing by a larger audience. Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He studied at the New England Conservatory, the Oberlin Conservatory, the Mozarteum in Salzburg and received his Ph.D. in music theory and composition from Michigan State University. His principal teachers were Joseph Wood and H. Owen Reed. A Child's Garden of Dreams s commissioned for the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble. It was composed in the summer of 1981 and premiered by Northwestern in 1982. The Symphony No. 2 was commissioned by the Big Ten Band Directors Association in 1983. It was given its premiere at the CBDNA Convention in Evanston, Illinois. The performing group was the combined Symphonic Band and Symphonic Wind Ensemble of Northwestern University.

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.

The six works on this disc were composed over a 57-year span from 1958 to 2015. They present a series of snapshots of composer Harvey Sollberger's compositional concerns through the medium of the flute. In the 35 compositions that feature the flute, these six can be thought of as the plums, but are not the only ones by any means. Harvey Sollberger, now 80 years old, has had a distinguished career as a composer, flutist, and conductor. He co-founded the Group for Contemporary Music, the first contemporary music ensemble in residence at an American university. His music has been performed throughout the world, his discography now tops 150 commercial releases and he has taught at Columbia, the Manhattan School of Music, the Indiana University School of Music and the University of California, San Diego. The IWO Flute Quartet, named after its members' home states of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, was formed in 2011 by four leading Pacific Northwest flutists. Each member (Sydney Carlson, Leonard Garrison, Jennifer Rhyne, and Paul Taub) advocates for contemporary music and enjoys significant careers as performers and educators.

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.

JoDee Davis wanted to expand the repertoire for the trombone with this recording and commissioned four composers for new works (Victoria Bond, Jennifer Higdon, Paul Rudy, and Kevin Cerovich). Then she rounded out the recording with trios for three trombones. Davis is on the faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory and performs with the Trilogy Brass Trio and the Kansas City Symphony. She was principal trombone of the Spokane Symphony and second trombone of the Santa Fe Opera. She has presented recitals and master classes through the United States and at the Musik Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen. She is a graduate of Indiana University and the University of Northern Iowa. This is her second recording for Albany Records. Her collaborators on this recording include pianist Dan Velicer and trombonists Davin Bennett and Daniel Marion.

Composer Luke Dahn says that this recording has been a true collaboration from start to finish, with every piece being written especially for pianist Viktor Valkov, who provided input at each step of the compositional process. Dahn's compositions are heard throughout the United States and abroad performed by noted new music ensembles such as the Moscow Conservatory Studio for New Music, the League of Composers Chamber Players, and others. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the J.D. Robb International Composition Competition in 2014. He studied at the University of Iowa and Western Michigan University and is now on the faculty at the University of Utah. Viktor Valkov was the winner of the 2015 Astral Artists National Auditions and gold medalist at the 2012 New Orleans International Piano Competition. He has performed as a recitalist, orchestral soloist, and chamber musician. He is on the faculty at the University of Utah.

The 15th century poet Francois Villon, between scrapes with the law in Paris, wrote lyrics both poignant and bawdy. At the end of the 19th century, novelist R.H. Russell sentimentalized his career in a plot that borrowed the king-for-a-day motif, thus allowing Villon to defeat France's enemies and win the hand of an aristocratic lady, all in under 24 hours. Adapted as a play in 1901, by New York writer Justin McCarthy, If I Were King served as a star vehicle for E.H. Southern in a Broadway stage production. In 1923, Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart were at the very start of their careers. They devised a musical version of the McCarthy play for a Manhattan girl's school and then looked for a more prestigious venue for their collaboration. Broadway backers turned down the young artists, but liked their idea, "borrowed" it from Rodgers and Hart and commissioned the more established Rudolf Friml to fashion a professional musical from the plot. Friml's Rose Marie was then enjoying great success in New York. Born in what is today the Czech Republic in 1897, Friml enrolled at age 14 in the Prague Conservatory (which was headed by Dvorak) and completed the six-year course in three years. He toured Europe and the United States as accompanist for violinist Jan Kubelik and made a piano debut in this country onstage at Carnegie Hall in 1904. Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony premiered his Piano Concerto two seasons later, with the composer at the piano. Friml's true calling was as a composer of songs. In 1912, he was called in by Arthur Hammerstein to complete the music for a new work which Victor Herbert had abandoned, owing to a run-in with a temperamental soprano. The resulting operetta, The Firefly, was his first Broadway success, and would be followed by many others. Friml continued to live in America for much of the 20th century long after his sentimental musical style was considered old fashioned. As late as 1969, he was celebrated by Ogden Nash on the occasion of his 90th birthday in a couplet which ended: "I trust your conclusion and mine are similar: It would be a happier world if it were Frimler."

All composers of vocal music struggle to find texts suitable for musical setting. The search for words that ignite invention, inspire harmony, dictate rhythm, and suggest texture - all the while submitting to purely musical exigencies of form - is a perpetual and integral part of the creative process. Though the songs on this CD focus specifically on manifestations of love - infatuation, passion, anxiety, fidelity, betrayal, delusion, loneliness and reminiscence - their texts come from a wide range of sources. The larger theme is nonetheless poignantly epitomized by a phrase from James Joyce, The Unquiet Heart, which tells of the unsettled, unnamable and unutterable sensations we all experience in our lifelong search for love. Karen Smith Emerson's extensive concert career has included performances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Boston Music Viva and the Marlboro Festival. Equally at home in music of the Baroque and early Classical music, she has performed leading roles in operas by Gluck, Handel and Mozart.

" In Canada, Schafer has won national and international acclaim not only for his achievement as a composer but also as an educator, environmentalist, literary scholar, visual artist and provocateur. Through his unique explorations of the relationships between music, performer, audience and setting, he has expanded the potential and appreciation of music and its place in the arts and culture of our time. The texts of the songs in A Medieval Bestiary are based on T.H. White's translation of a Latin bestiary dating from the 12th century. In the Middle Ages bestiaries were serious works of natural history. They were anonymous compilations of what was known or presumed about the characteristics and habits of animals, both real, and mythological. Because they were compiled by churchmen, the behavior of animals frequently seemed to point up an instructive moral for humans. The highlight of this disc is Menotti's The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore. Here is one of Menotti's most accomplished works. It was commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation and calls for chorus, dancers and nine instrumentalists. The text focuses on a well-to-do, but eccentric man in a castle and presents his life in three stages, his youth, middle and old age. Three unusual pets symbolize these stages - a unicorn, a gorgon and a manticore. Today, in his 90th year, Gian Carlo Menotti is one of the world's finest composers. It is a pleasure to welcome this delightful music back to the catalog.

This is a recording of new American music for wind ensemble and brass expertly performed by the Boston Conservatory Wind Ensemble and Triton Brass. The oldest work on the program was written in 2004 by Nico Muhly. Lansing McLoskey's works were written in 2007 and 2011, as was Justin Barish's and the most recent work by Keith Kusterer was written in 2013. Indeed these are all extremely talented composers, whose careers span teaching at Miami Frost School of Music and winning the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (McLoskey); collaborating with singer Bjork on her DVD and writing an opera for the Metropolitan Opera (Muhly); winning the John Lennon Songwriting Competition and the 2012 Boston Conservatory Wind Competition (Kusterer); and being featured at the Focus Under 40 Boston Conservatory New Music Festival (Barish).

This disc features concert recordings of performances given between 1986 and 1995, including the historic 90th birth celebration "Remembering Leo" held on February 21, 1986. The Throne of God, Interlude, and God Mounts His Throne are all world premiere recordings (The Throne of God lasts over 45 minutes). William Ferris, a student and dear friend of Leo Sowerby writes: "Leo Sowerby is remembered today as America's foremost composer of Organ and liturgical music, but during the first part of the century he was among our most often performed symphonic composers. His intensely personal and highly individual style requires a long familiarity and sensitivity in performance, and when such care is expended, a compelling, powerful, daring and original music emerges. The Throne of God has proved to be the towering masterwork of Sowerby's mature period. Filled with brilliant choral and Orchestral writing, it is in many ways a perfect summation of the daring inventiveness and heartfelt sincerity found in Sowerby's previous compositions, both sacred and secular. After its premiere on November 18, 1957, Paul Hume, the music critic for the Washington Post wrote: "applause contrary to all tradition, shattered the sacred precincts of Washington Cathedral last night to honor a great living composer. Sowerby, a Pulitzer Prize winner, has given Washington Cathedral a worthy momento of its anniversary." The Throne of God is a huge work, certain to change people's impression of Sowerby and his music.

By the early 1950s, Aaron Copland had become a skilled composer of dramatic music for the stage and screen, with five ballets and seven film scores to his credit. In fact, Copland judged his film work to have been "excellent preparation for operatic writing. At the time I was composing for films, I believed that it was a new form of dramatic music, related to opera, ballet and theatre music, and that it should be explored for its own unique possibilities". Thus, all the elements were in place for Copland's consideration of a commission offered him by the League of Composers in 1952. They were seeking to follow up the enormous success of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors on NBC Television Theatre during the 1951 Christmas holidays with another television opera, again to be produced and broadcast by NBC. When the opera was finished, NBC reneged on the production without offering any substantive reasons, and the completed opera, nearly two years in the making would have remained unperformed, had not the New York City Center Opera decided to present the premiere of this prominent composer's work. However, the cavernous space of City Center dwarfed the intimate television opera. The result was a lukewarm initial response from the critics and crowds. Basically the music was praised and the libretto was criticized. As the years passed, many realized that the scope of The Tender Land is perfect for smaller budgets and budding talents. Copland himself acknowledged that a college production is perhaps the most congenial atmosphere for this opera. How pleased we are to be able to present this wonderful recording by the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre. Accompanied by the full orchestra, conducted by the fine American conductor, Kirk Trevor, it is marvelous.

First performed in 1986 by the Des Moines Opera with Jacque Trussel as Caliban, the opera has come full circle with this recording of the Purchase Opera where Jacque Trussel served as director. Hoiby, born in Wisconsin in 1926, was infused with operatic ambitions during his studies at Curtis with Gian Carlo Menotti. He has written a number of operas, including several on Albany Records (A Month in the Country, Bon Appetit!, and This Is the Rill Speaking).

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."

An American original, John Jacob Niles was a composer, performer, and author. Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1892, he came from a musical family. While working with a surveying team in eastern Kentucky as a teenager, he kept a notebook in which he recorded lyrics and music of old folk songs known in the area. Niles served as a U.S. Army pilot in World War I and made numerous reconnaissance flights until he suffered serious injuries in a plane crash. After the war he studied music at the University of Lyon, the Schola Cantorium in Paris and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He renewed his search for folk songs in Appalachia as he accompanied noted photographer Doris Ulmann on her travels. He composed and arranged more than 1,000 songs, many of them made famous by Jo Stafford. These songs of our American heritage are beautifully sung by Hope Koehler.

Jean Berger was a renowned German-American conductor and composer. Beyond composing, he was active as a coach, accompanist and musicologist. His choral works have been widely performed throughout America and Europe. Despite having composed 109 songs for solo voice, in diverse languages, from 1937 to 1992, it is only in recent years that they have been discovered and sung -- a performing gap that is closed by this recording. With much to offer the novice and professional singer, the music is vocally accessible and the poetry offers a wealth of moods and expressions for both the discerning performer and listener.

Since their first performance in Carnegie Hall in 2007, saxophonist Christopher Creviston and pianist Hannah Gruber have been guests on series and festivals across the United States. Active proponents of new music, they have commissioned works by Katherine Hoover, John Fitz Rogers and Gregory Wanamaker, among others. A former New York freelancer, Christopher Creviston is on the faculty of the Crane School of Music. He has appeared in venues ranging from Carnegie and Merkin to Paisley Park and the Apollo Theatre. In addition to his work with Hannah Gruber, Creviston performs regularly with the Capitol Quartet.

Although he was one of the most important British composers of the mid-20th century, during his lifetime Bernard Stevens attracted rather less attention than some of his contemporaries. He was a fine pianist; however composition became his preoccupation after study in the 1930s with E.J. Dent at Cambridge University and R.O. Morris at the Royal College of Music in London. Here Stevens gained the highest awards and later became a distinguished professor. Stevens was highly respected within the musical world. He composed steadily, and his works were performed; but it was more or less inevitable that his professed left-wing sympathies and intellectual and moral integrity sometimes brought him into conflict with the attitudes of the British musical establishment. Despite his solid academic record, Stevens was anything but academic in style, personality and convictions. The two works presented here are the final two vocal compositions that he composed. He adapted the libretto himself for The Shadow of the Glen, from the play by John Millington Synge.

Recorded at the premiere performance by the Center for Contemporary Opera in March, 2011, The Secret Agent, with libretto by J.D. McClatchy based on Joseph Conrad's story, has since been presented at the Armel Opera Festival in Hungary and the Opéra Théatre d'Avignon in France. Though the original story was written in 1907, it remains chillingly relevant today in our terror-haunted world. OnStage noted that " in the tradition of "Makropulos Affair," "From the House of the Dead," "Wozzeck" and "Pelléas et Mélisande"— its music is urgent, agitated and intense, with occasional lyrical interludes." This is composer Michael Dellaira's third opera and his first collaboration with the noted librettist J.D. McClatchy.

"Over 28 years have passed since the premiere of The Seagull, half a lifetime for me. Of my 17 operas, it remains my favorite child. The musical atmosphere has changed greatly in the interim and the lyric, romantically tonal is no longer the exception, but now the standard. Critics are no longer shocked by a flow of melody from composers, and the love of audiences for a new work is no longer suspect. For this production, I have written two new interludes to accompany the act divisions and stagecraft. As I wrote them, I was flooded with the feelings of my 26 year old self and so grateful that this opera has survived and is still being produced. It has been twenty years since I have written an opera and I have in all that time refused to do so. But now, my heart and mind have changed and as I poured over the score for this New York production, and in preparation for next season's in San Francisco, I begin to hear faintly in the back of my mind... music...operatic music. Perhaps soon, there might be number 18."

In the compositions here, composer Graham Gordon Ramsay aims to rethink a variety of familiar sacred texts in a fresh way. His music not only challenges but also welcomes the listeners, stimulating as well as being provocative and engaging. Born in California in 1962, Ramsay received musical training at the Tanglewood Institute, Boston University and the Fontainebleau School in France. This recording represents a two-year collaboration between the composer and conductor/organist Heinrich Christensen. Christensen has been a longtime advocate of Ramsay's music and has premiered several of the pieces on this recording. Known for his modern yet tuneful style, Ramsay writes predominantly for solo voice, chorus, solo instruments and chamber ensembles. His music has been performed in settings ranging from the Chapel at Frederiksborg Castle in Denmark to the Basilica of San Simpliciano in Milan, Italy.

In his third recording for Albany Records, the spectacular horn player, Eric Ruske, presents a program of concertos for French horn written by the Romantic composers Reinhold GliFre, Franz Strauss and Richard Strauss. According to Ruske, "...the Romantic era of musical composition ushered in a golden period for the horn as a solo instrument.... With the chromatic possibilities and technical advances that were made possible by the addition of valves in the early 19th century, the horn made its resurgence as a solo vehicle." Eric Ruske has established himself as an artist of international acclaim. Named Associate Principal horn of The Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 20, he also toured and recorded extensively during his six-year tenure as hornist of the Empire Brass Quintet. His impressive solo career began when he won the 1986 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, First Prize in the 1987 American Horn Competition, and in 1988, the highest prize in the Concours International d'InterprTtation Musicale in Reims, France. His discography includes solo recordings for Telarc, Musical Heritage Society, Fleur de Son, and Albany Records. An Associate Professor and member of the faculty of Boston University since 1990, Mr. Ruske also directs the Horn Seminar at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

This is a wonderful collection for fans of American composers and choral works alike. Stephen Shewan writes music in all media but has a special affinity for vocal and ensemble works (these can be heard on an earlier Albany release, TROY149). The Celebration Overture, written in honor of the 50th anniversary of KUHF-FM, Houston, Texas, is both celebratory and optimistic. Much of the same spirit carries over to For Dancing Hearts and Tunes while the two other choral pieces reflect a more meditative mood. Randall Thompson didn't compose a particularly large catalog of works but his choral works (which can be heard by these same forces on TROY362) and his beloved Symphony No.2 have assured him a place in the American repertoire. Frostiana, based on Robert Frost poems, is as perfect an example of his charm and nationalistic spirit as one could hope to hear. Ron Nelson writes some of the most exuberant music for band ever composed, and you might remember his wonderfully breezy Savannah River Holiday recorded so many years ago by Howard Hanson. The Te Deum was commissioned by the United States Air Force Band and Singing Sergeants. It is a work full of color, splendor and rich sonorities. Finally we have a work by the Czech-born Nelhybel, a truly prolific composer (over 400 published works) who really deserves greater exposure. The Psalm 150 is a rich, reverent work. The Roberts Wesleyan College Chorale is noted for its unique sound and performs regularly with the Rochester Philharmonic in a wide-ranging repertoire.

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, called the Shakers, came to the New World in 1774. Ann Lee Standerin, called Mother Ann by her followers, traveled to America with seven disciples to establish the Shaker religion in the New World. The group was so named because of fervent prayer rituals in which they entered into trance-like states Ñ twitching, shaking, whirling, singing and dancing, seeking transcendence from the burdens of sin. A gentle, highly ethical people there were, at the height of the movement in 1850, 6,000 Shakers, a number that began to decline after industrialization took over. Because the Shakers believed the human voice to be the perfect instrument for the expression to God, they were prolific composers. It is said that there are over 10,000 hymns in existence. This unique disc presents both original hymns and modern American works based on the materials. Fittingly, the first of these is one that is beloved by many: Aaron Copland's setting of Simple Gifts.

William McClelland grew up near Goodison, Michigan, and received a degree in composition from the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His works have been commissioned and presented by ensembles and organizations throughout the US and internationally. As a performer McClelland has played keyboards for productions at the New York Shakespeare Festival and Dance Theater Workshop, and has premiered works by composers including Carl Ruggles and John Cage. He has taught piano at the University of Massachusetts (Boston) and was director of the music program at the Elizabeth Seeger School in New York City. He is leader of the jazz septet The Feetwarmers for which he writes, plays piano and sings. He lives in North Bergen, New Jersey, and, in addition to music, has been active in many environmental efforts.

The Refuge is the fruition of the Houston Grand Opera's commitment to connect with its community. The brainchild of General Director Anthony Freud, the idea was to commission an opera based on the experiences of the ethnically-varied immigrants who make Houston their home. The libretto, written by Leah Lax, is based on the oral histories of families from Africa, Central America, Vietnam, Pakistan and India who have made their way to Houston and made it their home. Their courageous journeys make this an American opera in the truest sense. Their stores are eloquently captured in music by the Houston-native, Christopher Theofanidis.