Catalog

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.

This album of art songs seeks to center a repertoire that is often left on the margins and neglected on concert programs. The Reaction charts new territory in recording many previously unrecorded works by Black composers for the low male voice, and showcases a wide range of languages and styles that exist for this genre. Bass-baritone Carl DuPont is equally engaged in performing, teaching, and research. He has sung a wide range of roles with the Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Carolina, Opera Company of Brooklyn, and Cedar Rapids Opera, among many others. DuPont is a graduate of Eastman, Indiana University and the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. He is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His collaborator, pianist Gregory Thompson, is on the faculty at Winston-Salem State University. He has performed as a solo and collaborative artist in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is head of staff pianists for the University of Miami at Salzburg Summer Program.

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

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

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

This recording's selections exemplify many of the features found throughout the extensive but largely little known body of Polish violin-keyboard writing. The wide stylistic variety parallels the diversity within Poland's cultural traditions shaped, in turn, by a long history of frequently changed borders and territorial makeup. Starting long before Poland's culturally progressive "Golden Age" (mid 15th-16th centuries), these connections occurred through trade, religious, intellectual, artistic, marriage and other contacts. As a result, this music, like the rest of Poland's culture, is generally western-oriented but sometimes includes distinctive eastern elements. Folk elements are often equally important. Most obvious is the use of Polish dances, e.g. the mazurka, but dance-related rhythmic figures, or their characteristic accents on normally less-strong beats or rhythmic subdivisions are often transplanted to non-dance settings. The historical association of Polish folk traditions with fiddles and then the violin itself (long Poland's most popular folk instrument), is so close that Poland's classical violin performance tradition reaching back to c. 1500 can also be considered to be an extension of her much longer folk practice. While the earliest of Poland's many widely-famous violinists date from the 19th century, numbers of Polish violinists were already known for their high level of performing throughout Europe in the 16th century. Likewise, effective keyboard writing on this CD reflects a rich Polish keyboard tradition, sometimes with the composer being either a performing pianist (like Chopin and Paderewski) or able to play the instrument with a high degree of accomplishment (Bacewicz).

A magical new recital featuring the world-première recording of Britten’s only Russian-language cycle The Poet’s Echo in the English-language translation that Peter Pears crafted during the period of the cycle’s composition in Yerevan, Armenia (1965). Tenor Justin Vickers and pianist John Orfe essay important performances of Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo alongside Britten’s mysterious Goethe setting, “Um Mitternacht” (1960). This rich recital release introduces two additional world-première song cycles composed for Vickers. In the Six Chinese Songs (2019-2020) composed by Colin Matthews in memory of the tenor’s father John E. Vickers (1942–2017), we hear Matthews’s reflections on his own musical father, Britten, for whom Matthews served as the last musical assistant. In John David Earnest’s Songs of Hadrian (2014), we enter the world of second-century Roman Emperor Hadrian and his love and ultimate grief and madness over his eromenos Antinous. The disc concludes with a work Vickers uncovered in the Britten–Pears Library in its world-première recording: the “Epilogue” (1945) to The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, which Britten cut from the cycle. This is a recording that is a must-have for Britten devotees and finds American tenor Justin Vickers at the top of his craft, accompanied by one of America’s most accomplished pianists in John Orfe (of the acclaimed ensemble Alarm Will Sound).

Before departing for New York to conduct the premier of Pirates on New Year's Eve, 1879, Sullivan had completed sketches for the first act, intending to finish the opera after his voyage. Upon arrival, he discovered he'd left the first act at home. Following an all-night reconstruction, the New York rehearsals began while the composer hastily created the second act, finishing everything only hours before the premiere. The show as a success and ran for more than three months. The Pirates of Penzance remains popular today, taking its place along with The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore as one of the most frequently played Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

While the first piano made its appearance in China in the late 19th century, Chinese piano composition did not begin until the 1930s. The common thread with the music on this compact disc is the use of traditional Chinese elements and their manifestation of a Chinese spirit. The music selected, spanning the period from the 1930s to 2007, traces the formation and development of a true Chinese style of piano writing. Pianist Tianshu Wang has been acclaimed by the press as a "superbly talented pianist" who plays with "prodigious technique and eloquent phrasing." A Steinway artist, Ms. Wang has performed across the U.S., China, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan. She is on the faculty of Capital University's Conservatory of Music as well as the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China.

The versatile Duehlmeier-Gritton Duo has met with accolades throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East as they have performed works from Bach to Stravinsky. Most recent engagements have taken them to Asia for performances in Nanjing, China; Austria for a recital at Bosendorfer Hall in Vienna; Poland for a performance at the Autumn Warsaw Festival, and many other locations. They have also performed on the Dame Myra Hess series in both Chicago and Los Angeles where their recitals were broadcast on Public Radio. Orchestral performances include numerous collaborations with the Utah Symphony, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Czech Radio Symphony and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. Their recording of the Henry Wolking Concerto for Two Pianos, 'Letting Midnight Out on Bail,' was nominated for a Grammy in 2002. In fact, the Wolking Midnight Jazz Suite on this new CD is extracted from that Concerto. Susan Duehlmeier studied with Leonard Shure at Boston University and Bonnie Gritton studied with Aube Tzerko at the University of California at Los Angeles, and they met at the University of Utah as faculty members. With shared musical training in the Schnabel tradition and similar tastes in repertoire, their musical partnership was launched.

The big draw for this disc is the fact that Robert J. Lurtsema from WGBH' s Morning Pro Musica does the narration. For 27 years he has been known to classical music lovers everywhere. Ronald Perera was born in Boston and studied with Leon Kirchner and Randall Thompson. Today he is Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor at Smith College. The text of The Outermost House is taken from Henry Beston's A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod written in 1928. Though the book produced only modest initial sales, its readership continued to grow, and after World War II it began to achieve something of a cult status. Rachel Carson said that it was the only book that influenced her writing. Today it is generally acknowledged as a classic of American nature writing, and many of Beston's words have become part of the modern environmental credo: "The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things." "Creation is here and now." "Touch the earth, love the earth, honor the earth." Ronald Perera's The Outermost House received its premiere on November 16, 1991 with the Chatham Chorale. Canticle of the Sun by Saint Francis of Assisi was commissioned for the one hundredth anniversary in 1984 of Groton School, a venerable independent secondary school in Massachusetts with a religious affiliation symbolized by a splendid gothic chapel in which the piece was premiered on April 21, 1985.

Christopher Gunning was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, but spent his childhood in London. He studied composition, piano and percussion at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where his teachers included Edmund Rubbra and Richard Rodney Bennett. For most of his professional life he has composed film and television scores. He currently divides his time between composing for films and television, conducting engagements, and composing his own concert works, the most recent of which was a Saxophone Concerto for John Harle. The composer writes: "I had wanted to write a piano concerto for several years before finally getting to grips with it in 2001. So much contemporary piano music seems to ignore that which I like best - the instrument's ability to sing - and I was interested in doing something which explores the lyrical as well as the percussive qualities of the piano. Storm composed early in 2003 has slow outer sections; apart from those it is pretty noisy and dramatic. It is scored for a large symphony orchestra, and I wrote it shortly after spending some time at the seaside and feeling totally exhilarated by the wind and waves of a violent storm. Symphony No. 1, composed in 2002, continues a process begun a few years previously with my Saxophone Concerto, which was my first concert piece following many years of working in films and TV. It was then that I discovered a penchant for single movement forms which move through many changing emotional moods; I think of them as novels or journeys."

Even for those of a "certain age" (i.e., baby-boomers) who never followed classical music, there is the indelible memory of "Amahl and the Night Visitors," Menotti's warm, wonderful Christmas opera, one of the first commissioned for television's early days. Some dozen years earlier, the composer, only 27, had been commissioned by the same company for the very first opera for radio, "The Old Maid and the Thief." Menotti began writing songs at an early age and studied at the Curtis Institute where he began a lifelong friendship with Samuel Barber, won a Pulitzer Prize for his first full-length opera "The Consul," and oversaw the famed Spoleto Festival, beginning in 1958. Menotti's delicate, tuneful music was almost a modern counterpart to the music of Rossini, full of high spirits, color and equal amounts of drama. This first recording of "The Old Maid and The Thief" in nearly 40 years is a wonderful memorial for the composer who died earlier this year.

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

Solstice, by Donald Erb, is celebratory in nature. It was commissioned by the Ohio Chamber Orchestra and premiered on June 3, 1988. It was originally intended to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Organization, but the premiere occurred one year later. About his Lyric Intermezzo George Perle writes: "The Lyric Intermezzo was composed on commission from the Seattle Symphony and completed April 12, 1987, but its very first conception goes back some years before that, when my friend (now my wife), Shirley Rhoads, played Schumann's Waldszenen for me. I decided that I too would like to write a set of lyrical Charakterstucke for the piano." William Duckworth's Mysterious Numbers stemmed from an experiment that essentially involved collaboration of a composer with an ensemble to create a new work while an audience witnessed the process during a series of workshops. It happened in Florida in 1995-96, as part of a series of residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts by the New Performance Group of Seattle. Salvatore Martirano writes about Isabela "that it was originally aimed at music festivals celebrating the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. However, music festivals celebrating Columbus ran aground as the implications for native Americans became apparent. Whether from habit or from a persistent motive, what started as a working title became a name as I considered that like Columbus, who began a journey across the sea without knowing where his course would lead him. "I began to compose without really knowing what would result from my plan." This disc contains the result of Martirano's own voyage.

Leroy Southers was born on July 13, 1941, in Minot, North Dakota, and died November, 2003. The recipient of numerous honors and academic degrees, including a Doctorate of Musical Arts & Composition from the University of Southern California, Leroy W. Southers, Jr. was an extremely accomplished musician. Member of the Composition faculty at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, he also taught in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California and at Loyola Marymount University. His Symphony for Chamber Ensemble was composed in 1967, when the composer was only 26. Lee T. McQuillan, a resident of Middletown, Connecticut, studied music Education at Barrington College in Rhode Island and later received his Bachelor of Music in Composition from the Hartt School of Music. His principal composition studies were with Arnoldo Franchetti. Romanza, subtitled Into Troubled Times (A 9/11 Reflection) was written to remember the great loss experienced by humanity on that momentous day in September, and to honor those who suffered the ultimate loss. Originally from Baltimore, Beth Denisch earned her undergraduate degree in music composition from North Texas State University and the Masters of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from Boston University where she studied with John Harbison and Bernard Rands. Golden Fanfare was commissioned by The Brockton Symphony Orchestra of Brockton, Massachusetts for their 50th anniversary in 1998 and revised for subsequent performances as recorded here. Jack Jarret is a native of Asheville, North Carolina. His academic credentials include a B.A. from the University of Florida, and M.A. from the Eastman School, a Diploma in conducting from the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik, and a Doctor of Music in Composition from Indiana University. He has studied with Boris Blacher, Bernhard Heiden, and Tibor Kozma. From 1989 to 1999, he was chairman of the Composition Department at the Berklee College of Music. His Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1996. In style, it is closer to the classical romanticism of Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich than that of Strauss or Mahler. It is in four movements.

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, Houston, Texas. During his studies at Yale University, Tanglewood, Harvard University and Boston University, where he received his DMA degree, Dr. Horvit's composition teachers were Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, Walter Piston, Quincy Porter and Gardner Read. In turn, Horvit has taught two generations of music students at the University of Houston. Commissioned by Congregation Emanu El, The Mystic Flame chronicles in words and music the Jewish experience in the 20th century. Texts are drawn from many sources: poets, novelists, historians, ministers, rabbis, major actors upon the world stage and ordinary people. This vast canvas of words and music, arranged in three large sections, mirrors the historical shape of the 20th century. Here we have the chronicle of one people, the Jewish people, in their struggle to be free from persecution, subjugation and bigotry. It is, however, symbolic of the struggle of all the diverse immigrants who came to our great nation. They came, and still come, to find freedom from oppression, be it religious, economic or political. They come "yearning to breathe free."

This selection of choral music by Viktors Bastiks (1912-2001) is drawn mainly from his rich output of sacred works. His almost 300 compositions in this genre form a substantial cornerstone of Latvian sacred music. Even though his compositional output is impressive, Viktors Bastiks is one of Latvia's most ignored composers, which makes this recording all the more significant. The musical language of Viktors Bastiks is clear and tightly knit, concentrated in form and expression, whether it be a simple folk song setting or the extended forms of his many cantatas. It is heartfelt music, natural and unaffected with a strong spiritual aura.

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

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

Praised by the New York Times as a "young composer of great gifts," Larry Alan Smith has developed an international reputation as a composer, performer, educator and arts executive. He pursued his musical studies with Nadia Boulanger in France and at the Juilliard School with Vincent Persichetti. From 1980 to 1986 he also taught at Juilliard; previously he was on the composition faculty of the Boston Conservatory. It's always a pleasure to welcome a new name to the catalog, especially when this release features significant orchestral works: the Three Movements, full of drama and virtuoso writing; the introspective Crucifixus, the Symphony No.2 with its program describing the relationship of man and the world (with a depiction of the Civil War battle at Antietam, West Virginia) and the charming Serenade, a wedding present to his wife Marguerita. This is an exceptional way to make your acquaintance with an important American composer.

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

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

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

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

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

Two internationally renowned soloists, David Shifrin and Ransom Wilson, are featured in this eighth volume of Albany Records' series devoted to the music of Ezra Laderman. Laderman remarks: "I have been among those who move from writing for orchestra to chamber music, to vocal, and solo and operatic works -- feeling the need to explore and stretch my musical language as I go -- to reach for a new constellation. My most recent works for flute and clarinet attest to that and this cd clearly shows the path I have traveled."

Ezra Laderman is one of the last of that great generation of composers who first made a mark in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These are recent pieces, B'Shert having been written for Hsu. As she writes, The Sonata No. 3 is a spectacular work, with a depth that is both despairing and sublime! Since making her stage debut at age four, Hsing-ay Hsu has performed at such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall and abroad in Asia and Europe. Born in Beijing, Hsu began piano lessons with her parents, and later studied with Fei-Ping Hsu, Herbert Stessin at Juilliard, and Claude Frank at Yale. This recording adds to the comprehensive discography of Laderman's chamber works.

Born in 1905, Eric Zeisl fled Austria in 1938, coming to the United States, and committing himself to applying his mastery of classical compositional technique to commemorating the destroyed Jewish European heritage. He met Benjamin Zemach at the then new Brandeis-Bardin Institute, where Zemach headed the dance and theater department. The two men set out to create two biblical ballets, one of which, Jacob and Rachel, is performed on this recording. Zemach expertly distilled the dramatic elements of the old stories into scenes, and Zeisl composed the music—his forte was exactly that, depicting characters, actions and emotions in music. The second work on this recording, Variations on a Slovakian Folk Song, derives its theme from a book of folksongs called Slowakisch. The translation of the text is: Lord God mine, Father mine, give the world your light and justice. Every day your poor servant suffers terribly. The mission of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony is to perform orchestral works of well-known as well as not widely recognized Jewish composers. The LAJS is the only orchestra in America dedicated to the performance and preservation of orchestral works of distinction that explore Jewish culture, heritage, and experience. Led by artistic director Noreen Green, who founded the orchestra in 1994, the LAJS celebrates the richness of Jewish music, sharing it with diverse audiences. Dr. Green is known worldwide for her knowledge and skill in presenting music with Jewish themes. She has served as guest conductor in the United States, Israel, South Africa, Australia, and Canada. In 2017, Musical America recognized her as one of its Movers & Shapers the Top 30 Musical America Professionals of the Year.

Long overdue, this recording of Virgil Thomson's 1947 opera with libretto by Gertrude Stein by the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater, makes a major American opera available. The opera, commissioned by the Alice A. Ditson Fund, tells the story of Susan B. Anthony, but Stein's approach mixes real and fictional characters from different historical periods. Premiered at Columbia University, the opera impressed the distinguished audience and press, but neither of New York's major opera companies took on the work. Thomson's music, a continuation of his style of making text come alive through natural inflections and sparing instrumental supports, is suggestive of its American theme with fanfares, political songs, Salvation Army-style marches and parlor songs.

For a century and a quarter Gilbert and Sullivan's hilarious 1885 comic opera, The Mikado, has elicited joyous shouts and cheers from audiences the world over--and it has survived triumphant, even in the face of controversial productions and oddball casting. This recording, taken from the Ohio Light Opera's 2008 Festival performances, includes all the music as well as the complete dialogue.

This recording contains the work of six contemporary composers either currently active in, or with some connection to the American Midwest. The works were composed during a six-year span, from 2001-2007 and are performed by Stacey Barelos, a DMA student in piano and composition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Noted for her presentation of music of the 20th and 21st centuries, her performances of the music of Henry Cowell have attracted special recognition and acclaim.