Catalog

Composer Paul Salerni is on the faculty at Lehigh University where he teaches composition and directs the new music ensemble. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and is a leading expert on the music of Earl Kim as well as being a dedicated educator. His music, described by the New York Times as "impressive" and "playful," has been performed throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and China. He is the recipient of numerous awards and commissions: his opera Tony Caruso's Final Broadcast won the National Opera Association's Chamber Opera competition and was premiered in 2008. This recording, which contains his chamber music written over the past ten years, reflects his belief that "music should make you want to dance, sing, cry, laugh. It should move you physically and emotionally." Through chamber ensembles, Salerni has taken advantage of the possibilities for music to touch and be touched.

Composer Paul Osterfield was born in 1973. He composed and performed as a cellist throughout middle school and high school. He won first prize as a student in the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress Young Creators' Contest and the work was subsequently performed by the Cleveland Orchestra. Since then, his compositions have received performances internationally and throughout the United States. He is on the faculty at Middle Tennessee State University. A graduate of Cornell, Indiana University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, Osterfield's primary composition teachers include Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra. This first commercial recording of his music offers an overview of his chamber and vocal music.

Composer Paul Chihara comments that “This cd is a labor of love. It represents my activities in concert, ballet, movies and Broadway — and is unabashedly personal and romantic.” One can think of Paul Chihara as several different composers: the Chihara of exquisite instrumental color; the Chihara of the theatre; and the Chihara of American popular music. Premiering throughout the U.S. and Europe for more than five decades, Chihara’s prize-winning concert works have earned him both domestic and international recognition. He was composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Ballet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Marlboro Festival. He has composed scores for more than 100 motion pictures and television series. Active on Broadway, he was musical consultant and arranger for Sophisticated Ladies.

As the music on this recording so aptly demonstrates, Jessica Krash composes with the heart of a chamber musician. Her compositions look for conversations between musical lines, and for the shifts in feeling and outlook as these interactions deepen. Her works, which have wide-ranging emotions and textures, give space for performers to create nuanced shapes and tone colors while they respond to each other. The pieces on this recording are also a dialogue between old and new: old and new music and poetry; old and new musicians; old and new social, philosophical, and emotional issues. Krash's music has been presented in both traditional and experimental settings in Germany, Austria and around the U.S., including the major performance venues and museums in Washington, D.C. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards, and commissions, and has given a series of chamber music masterclasses at Strathmore, and a series of lectures at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and NIH. This is her second recording for Albany Records.

Flutist Julie Thornton and horn player Michael Thornton have recorded an intriguing disc of music for their instruments including three contemporary works with three by Franz Doppler. Their collaborators include Susan Grace, piano; Paul Basler, piano; and Yumi Hwang-Williams, violin. Julie Thornton is a member of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and on the faculty at the Lamont School of Music. She has performed extensively with the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Houston Symphony. She studied at Eastman and Northwestern University as well as Shepherd School of Music. The winnere of numerous competitions, she can be heard on the London, Teldec, Naxos, and Koch International labels. Michael Thornton enjoys a distinguished and varied careeer as an orchestral performer, chamber musician, soloist and pedagogue and has performed on six continents. He is principal horn with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony. He has been a featured performer at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Mainly Mozart, Spoleto, and Moab Music, among many others. He is on the faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Stephen Shewan's music is both melodic and accessible, at times propelled by catchy rhythms flavored with jazz and pop idioms. In Shewan's music we hear a fresh voice at work, demonstrating a talent for ingratiating melody, infectious rhythm and a command of colorful orchestration. Stephen Shewan was born in Warsaw, New York. Currently he teaches music and directs the bands at Williamsville East High School, near Buffalo, New York. He is a graduate of Roberts Wesleyan College and Ithaca College, and is completing his DMA from the Eastman School where he studied composition with Samuel Adler. For a young composer, he has composed in every medium but opera. A previous release on Albany Records (TROY149) contains his Magnificat, Feast of Carols and String Quartet No. 1. His most recent work is Hymn for Spring (1999) for Chorus and Orchestra.

Stephen Scott writes: "Sounding Landscapes is a kind of song-cycle fantasy celebrating various landscapes, both physical and imagined, both natural and cultural, of Lanzarote, eastern-most of the Canary Islands. I was inspired to make this work not only as a personal manifestation of my affection for Lanzarote, which I have visited three times, but also in response to two other sources: the evocative visual art of painter/photographer Ildefonso Aguilar, Founder and Director of the Visual Music festival of Lanzarote, whose recent series of paintings, Paisajes Audibles, provides my title and the cover paintings; and works by various writers, including Plato, Lorca and Agustin Espinosa, who have examined ideas of landscape and the humans who are shaped by it and shape it in turn. My work for the past 25 years has centered on the bowed piano, a medium primarily of my own devising but influenced also by the discoveries of other experimentalists such as Henry Cowell, John Cage and Curtis Curtis-Smith. Most of the sounds are made directly on the strings of one open grand piano by ten players using a variety of materials and tools; among these are nylon fish line, horsehair, guitar picks and fingernails, piano hammers, percussion mallets and specially-designed piano mutes. The music also owes a huge stylistic debt to the thinking of Terry Riley and Steve Reich, as well as to various world musics, especially West African music, jazz and flamenco. Paisajes Audibles/Sounding Landscapes is my first major work to integrate the human voice with the Bowed Piano Ensemble. The texts sung and spoken by the soprano (and occasionally by the players) are in English, Spanish and French and most are self-explanatory. The work was composed on commission from Meet the Composer Commissioning Music USA, for San Francisco's Other Minds Festival. It is dedicated to the Festival's director, Charles Amirkhanian, and to Ildefonso Aguilar, two of contemporary music's most visionary presenters; Aguilar's work has given life to Harry Partch's dictum that "the eye explains to the ear and the ear fulfills the vision"; and Amirkhanian has for decades been teaching Americans, musicians and listeners alike, much of what we need to know about our own contemporary music and about each other."

Edmund Campion completed his doctoral work at Columbia University with Mario Davidovsky before attending the Paris Conservatory to study composition with Gérard Grissey. He has explained his approach to composition in an interview with the Computer Music Journal: "Emerging technologies have been the generative source for most of my musical explorations...There is nothing new here. For Chopin, it was the modern piano, and for Schaeffer, it was the tape recorder. Finally, there is no distinction between acoustic sound, natural sound, or electronic sound. Everything is integrated with the full spectrum of all possibly sounds...I hope I am coming full circle, back to the essential musical material, it music that is made just for hearing."

Growing up in Buenos Aires, Pablo Ortiz took piano lessons from his mother and learned Gregorian Chant at the Universidad Catolica Argentina, where he also studied composition with Gerardo Gandini. At the age of 27 he came to the United States where he studied under Mario Davidovsky. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1994 he developed a particular fascination with Mexican culture, eventually employing texts by the famous Chicano poet and Mission artist, Francisco Alarcon for a collection of children's songs and the title work on this disc, Oscuro. Ortiz's output, comprising chamber music, vocal, orchestral and electronic works, has received international recognition and performances by the Arditti Quartet, Speculum Musicae, Les Percussions de Strasbourg and Continuum. During the early 1990s, Ortiz embarked on a series of works that find a connection between tango and memory. Although this exploration represents only one of many strands within his varied oeuvre - one that is well represented on this CD - Ortiz's association with the tango is apt, for he shares its Argentinean roots, its thoroughly cosmopolitan history, and its ability to mirror social interactions with controlled, dramatic flair.

The works from On Course represent a broad cross section of sonic and stylistic moments created over an almost 24 year period by composer Laurie Altman. The generative links between all the pieces seem to be an overarching lyrical sentiment coupled with the interplay of animation, dance and drama. Laurie Altman attended Mannes, studying with Lester Trimble and William Sydeman. Influences abound with Altman: The Village Vanguard (Bill Evans), the Five Spot (Monk and Trane); the Chicago Symphony, jazz performances at The Blue Note and Soundscape -- a joining of classical and jazz.

Joseph Waters writes, "I find this juxtaposition of contemporary electro-acoustic ephemera with a collection of musical instruments and a performance practice that predates the age of technology to be simultaneously anachronistic and engaging. It is my goal to create strong and deep tie lines that connect the present surface to the ancient seabed miles below. This is my celebratory reaction to our current milieu, which juxtaposes Mozart one minute with rap music the next. There are many connections between them, which I find fascinating and exhilarating." This music bears tribute to Debussy and Messiaen (Ocean Eyes), explores Afro-Cuban influences (Witches of the Unconscious) and the worlds of seabirds and exotic marine life (Ghosts and Aloiloi) as well as the phenomenon of intense fright when suddenly awakening from a deep sleep (Kanashibari) and the onset of morning (Loneliness). Born in 1952, Waters is Associate Professor of Music Composition and Director of Electro-Acoustic and Media Composition at San Diego State University. His first musical experiences included playing in a rock band, and the myriad influences of the world and its music figure in his own compositions.

Music by Greek and Greek-American composers is featured on this recording, offering an overview of compositions from several generations. Theodore Antoniou, born 1935 in Greece, maintains affiliations with universities and contemporary music ensembles in the United States and Greece. Nickitas Demos, born in 1962, is the youngest of the composers represented. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Indiana University and the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is founder and artistic director of the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble at Georgia State University, where he is also a professor of composition. Christos Samaras, born in 1956, studied at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki, the University of Music and Fine Arts in Vienna and the University of Fine Arts in Berlin. He now teaches composition at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. George Tsontakis, born in 1951, studied at Juilliard and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He has received two Grammy nominations and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for his Violin Concerto No. 2. Many of the performers are on the faculty at George State University and conservatories in Thessaloniki and Macedonia.

Octagon is the new music ensemble of the University of California. It offers an important opportunity to young composers and performers in the UC system. The group creates a pre-professional opportunity to explore a large body of new literature from composers at the University of California. The works chosen for performances represent a broad spectrum of styles from the most experimental to the most traditional. The ensemble tours annually throughout the University of California system and elsewhere.

Octagon is the new music ensemble of the University of California. It offers an important opportunity to young composers and performers in the UC system. The group creates a pre-professional opportunity to explore a large body of new literature from composers at the University of California. The works chosen for performances represent a broad spectrum of styles from the most experimental to the most traditional. The ensemble tours annually throughout the University of California system and elsewhere.

Composer Neil Rolnick pioneered the use of computers in musical performance, beginning in the late 1970s. His music has been performed worldwide and appears on 21 recordings. The recipient of numerous awards, residencies, and commissions, his music often explores combinations of digital sampling, interactive multimedia, and acoustic vocal, chamber, and orchestral ensembles. He developed the first integrated electronic arts graduate and undergraduate programs in the US at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's iEAR Studios, where he was a professor for 32 years. The three works on this recording include one for string quartet with computer; a work for piano and laptop computer; and a work for violin, piano, and laptop computer.

The distinctive character and originality of Bernard Rands' music have been variously described as "plangent lyricism: with a "dramatic intensity" and a "musicality and clarity of idea allied to a sophisticated and elegant technical mastery." Through more than 100 published works and many recordings, Rands has been firmly established as a major figure in contemporary music. The recording include "now again" -- fragments from Sappho, a work commissioned for the Network for New Music, the brilliant ensemble based in Philadelphia with a 25 year history of adventurous and innovative programming.

Violist George Taylor and guitarist Nicholas Goluses, both faculty members at the Eastman School of Music, offer a lovely program of music for viola and guitar. The recording leads us through the various phases and moods of night from the first shadow to darkness to the sounds of night. The performers capture all the moods and colors, the timbre and sonority of the viola and guitar blending and interweaving beautifully. Their interpretations of these works are characterized by elegance, grace, warmth and humor.

The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet was founded in 1986. From the beginning, aside from the challenge of learning to play together as a quartet, the musicians dedicated themselves to creating, through commissioning, a larger and more substantial repertoire so that the elegance and power of this medium might be successfully conveyed to a wide audience without excessive reliance on transcription. This recording presents the works of six composers whose creative talents have been focused directly on the quartet medium. The music by Kechley, Bassett, Sekiya, Vandervelde and Hovda was all premiered by the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet. The respective musical styles of these five composers represent some of the variety and wealth of musical expression that has flourished in the late twentieth century. Of the six composers, only Brouwer is a guitarist, familiar with the intricacies of the instrument as well as the guitar quartet medium; ironically his piece is a transcription of his own music. The other composers have had to find their own way - create as they compose. Together, these six are in the vanguard of those helping to create an important body of literature for guitar quartet. This is a most pleasing disc.

Four of the five works on this compact disc of new works for voice, viola and piano performed by the Chiaroscuro Trio are world premiere recordings. The only professional chamber ensemble dedicated to this instrumentation, the Chiaroscuro Trio has appeared as guest ensemble at various festivals and concert venues in the United States and will make their European debut in the summer of 2013. The Trio has selected contemporary American works that vary greatly, whether in personal styles of the composers, their background, the texts or the contradictory yet congruent aspects of life that they evoke. What makes these works American, is the sense that unity comes from diversity and plurality and that embracing and encouraging a melting pot of disparate voices and cultures, leads to a healthy and cohesive society and art. These five works are mindful of the past, reflective of our epoch, and relevant to the future.

Violinist Julie Rosenfeld has invited five composers with whom she had worked over the past 30 years, to each write a work for violin and piano. The composers include Kenneth Fuchs, Katherine Hoover, John Halle, Laura Kaminsky, Tamar Muskal, and Stefan Freund. There is a wonderful diversity in the styles of the pieces and this recording will surely provide important additions to the contemporary violin repertoire. Julie Rosenfeld was first violinist of the acclaimed Colorado Quartet for many years before joining the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Music in 2014. Pianist Peter Miyamoto enjoys a brilliant international career, and studied at Curtis, Yale, Michigan State, and the Royal Academy. He is also on the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Music.

Flutist Janet Arms notes that "This joyful collaboration has brought together family, friends, and colleagues to celebrate the music of two dynamic and captivating composers, each of whose music resonates deeply with me. " Robert Carl's music is performed regularly through the U.S. and abroad. His compositions concentrate on works for solo piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra, choral, and electroacoustic media. Carl is chair of the composition department at The Hartt School. Larry Alan Smith is a composer, conductor, pianist, educator, arts executive, and poet/writer. He is on the faculty at The Hartt School, now serving as Dean. He has formerly been on the faculty at Juilliard, the North Carolina School of the Arts and was president of the School of American Ballet. Janet Arms is an orchestral, chamber, and solo flutist in New York City. She has been a member of the New York City Opera orchestra since 1988 and has performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Ballet and Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Arms is on the faculty at The Hart School in in 2019 was awarded the Hartford Anchor Award for outstanding and distinguished alumni by the University.

Dubbed "The Commissioners" by Chamber Music America magazine, Palisades Virtuosi (Margaret Swinchoski, flute; Donald Mokrynski, clarinet; Ron Levy, piano) has established an enviable presence in the chamber music world since its inception 14 years ago. To date, the ensemble has commissioned and performed more than 75 new works and has now released six recordings of some of the best of these commissions. All the music on these recordings are world premieres and all are American composers. Palisades Virtuosi has been named Visiting Artists at Bergen Community College and are in residence at The Ridgewood Conservatory. Established to promote music for their ensemble of flute, clarinet, and piano, Palisades Virtuosi is to be commended for their work on enhancing the repertoire.

The Palisades Virtuosi (Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet, Ron Levy, piano) have an admirable and well-earned reputation as "The Commissioners" because of their ongoing program of commissioning and premiering works for their ensemble from American composers. This recording, the fifth in their series of New American Masterpieces, features new works from seven distinguished composers whose music displays an array of styles, while exhibiting richness and depth. In all, the Palisades Virtuosi have commissioned and premiered almost 70 new works, giving performances throughout the northeastern United States. Palisades Virtuosi have been appointed "Visiting Artists" at Bergen Community College in New Jersey.

The Palisades Virtuosi continues their commendable series of commissioning new works from outstanding American composers for their trio's instrumentation of flute, clarinet and piano. This fourth volume brings the total to almost 50 new works the ensemble has added to the repertoire. Two of the works on this recording have the added attraction of the formidable Marni Nixon joining the group to narrate the poetry in the Unitarian Hymnal that forms the background for Gwyneth Walker's work and the information about crows that precedes each movement of Amanda Harberg's Birding in the Palisades. Palisades Virtuosi consists of the virtuoso musicians Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet and Ron Levy, piano. The ensemble has received rave reviews for its previous three releases on Albany Records.

The Palisades Virtuosi (Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet, Ron Levy, piano) lays claim to a special achievement with this recording. Their mission of commissioning and recording works for the instrumentation of their ensemble has resulted in more than 40 new pieces, six of which are heard on their third recording in this series for Albany Records. No other ensemble has done as much to enhance the repertoire for flute, clarinet and piano. Their musical and heartfelt approach coupled with their dazzling virtuosity has endeared them to audiences and composers alike.

The Palisades Virtuosi was established in 2003 to promote and enrich the repertoire for flute, clarinet and piano. Their programs combine standard repertoire with works that are a product of its aggressive and zealous commissioning program. More than 20 composers have received commissions and this recording, their second on Albany Records, highlights five of these. From the oldest composer, Frank Levy, born in 1930, to Carlos Franzetti and Allen Shawn, both born in 1948, to Caroline Newman and Gary Eskow, sharing 1951 as their birth years, this recording give us a range of styles and generations, all exquisitely performed by the ensemble.

Flutist Margaret Swinchoski, clarinetist Donald Mokrynski and pianist Ron Levy make up the Palisades Virtuosi, a group of friends who wish to promote and enrich the repertoire for their instruments. They present concerts that include existing music for this trio, supplemented by solos, duos and larger works and include a new work for flute, clarinet and piano on each of their programs. This recording includes seven of the works Palisades Virtuosi commissioned and premiered during their first two seasons. What's appealing about this disc (apart from the wonderful sounds these instruments make) is the variety of composers presented. Some are familiar names (Godfrey Schroth, a pupil of Paul Creston, and Richard Lane, an Eastman graduate whose music was recorded by Howard Hanson) and others will be new to you. Nearly all of the works are based on traditional forms and feature strong folk and popular music influences. This is an ideal disc for those who love wind music and an absolute treat for performers who wish to hear new music for their instruments.

Formed in 2004 the trio Neoteric, made up of faculty members at Southern Illinois University, began their relationship with Bernard Hoffer through a request for works in the American Music Center newsletter. After writing two works for their ensemble, Hoffer suggested the idea of more substantial works, hence the Concerto di Camera and Divertimento included on this recording. Born in Switzerland, Hoffer is a graduate of Eastman where he studied composition with Bernard Rogers and Wayne Barlow. He has written extensively for films, television, and commercials for which he has won several Emmy nominations and Clio Awards. He scored the hit children's cartoon series Thundercats and Silverhawks.

Cindy Cox's music emerges from a century whose loyalty oscillates between its concern for pure sound and pure form. But her deep attention to the sound world is held, shaped, and engaged through its purposeful structure, a synthesis that provides a third way. What Cox offers is more than a mere rapprochement one side with its other  but a deep conjunction between them. Cox studied with, among others, Donald Erb, John Eaton, Bernard Rands and John Harbison. Cox's own music is experimental yet has a "grounding" in traditional means of expression, dealing with issues of timbre and musical resonance. She is also an excellent pianist and interpreter, having studied with the famed Lili Kraus.

Nathaniel Stookey was born and raised in San Francisco where he studied violin and composition. At seventeen, he was invited by Charles Wuorinen to create a chamber work for the San Francisco Symphony's New and Unusual Music Series, the youngest composer ever to be so honored. Since then, his music has been performed by a broad range of distinguished ensembles, from Turtle Island String Quartet to the Philadelphia Orchestra. Stookey was a Composition Fellow with the Halle Orchestra, under Kent Nagano, from 1993 to 1996 and Composer-in-Residence with the North Carolina Symphony, under Gerhardt Zimmermann, from 2000 to 2003. He has studied with Donald Erb, Andrew Imbrie, George Benjamin, Stephen Jaffe, and Scott Lindroth. Today he lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children. He writes: "As a violinist, string music has always been my touchstone. I have put more of myself into this medium than any other, much as a pianist-composer might be expected to channel his most personal statements into works for his own instrument. But the piano can be a world unto itself, while the strings are most often thought of in the plural - as a family. Growing up in the orchestra, we plucked together, bowed together, and rose together on the conductor's cue. For us, the pay-off was that, in behaving like a single instrument, we eventually came to sound like one. This record is a result of a decade of collaborations with string players, from my early twenties to my early thirties. More specifically, it is the culmination of an intensive three-year residency with the North Carolina Symphony, the Ciompi Quartet and the MallarmT Chamber Players, during which all four works included here were performed repeatedly and recorded."

In this recording of Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen's chamber music, he explains that "Throughout my life, I have had two basic sources of inspiration, the power of nature and the power of the mind." While most of his compositions have been for orchestra, he uses the same sources of inspiration for his chamber music, but the textures and colors are varied to suit the chamber medium. Prangcharoen has established an international reputation and is recognized as one of Thailand's leading composers. Among many other awards, he has received the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Commission and the Audience Choice Award. His music has been performed in Asia, America, Australia and Europe. He is the founder of the Thailand International Composition Festival and is on the faculty of the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri in Kansas City.