Catalog

A largely self-taught composer, Byron Richard O'Keefe takes his inspiration from the American countryside, particularly its rivers. An American Smetana, in the sense that his music evokes the rivers, hedgerows, and forests of the eastern United States, O'Keefe's compositions can be characterized as neo-pastoral Romanticism.

This recording contrasts a concerto for saxophone quartet and wind ensemble by David Maslanka (1943-2017) with a concerto for soprano saxophone, winds and percussion by one of Maslanka's proteges, Roy Magnuson (b. 1983). Magnuson has composed music for orchestra, wind ensemble, band, chamber ensembles, vocalists, electroacoustic ensembles, and films. His music has been performed throughout the United States. A graduate of Illinois State University, Ithaca College and the University of Illinois, he is now on the faculty at Illinois State University. Revered by the wind ensemble world as a composer, teacher, and mentor, David Maslanka was a graduate of Oberlin and Michigan State University. His compositions include more than 50 works for wind ensemble, and this recording is one of more than 20 containing his compositions on Albany Records.

Clarinetist Elizabeth Crawford is professor of music at Ball State University. She holds degrees from Furman University, the University of Michigan School of Music and Florida State University College of Music. She was a long-time member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and has performed and recorded with major orchestras in the United Kingdom. An avid proponent of music for E-flat clarinet, Crawford has commissioned composers including three on this recording (Lori Ardovino, Jenni Brandon, and Scott McAllister) and transcribed compositions for the instrument. Crawford has performed and taught at festivals and universities throughout the world including Poland, New Zealand, Italy, Spain, and South Africa.

Two performers passionate about American art song -- soprano Mary Mackenzie and pianist Heidi Louise Williams perform a program of songs by John Harbison, James Primosch, Daniel Crozier and Ned Rorem. Mary Mackenzie, who has captured the attention of audiences throughout the United States, has been described by the New York Times as "a soprano of extraordinary agility and concentration," and the Boston Globe as "sensational." She has appeared as a recitalist, a soloist with orchestras and as a chamber musician with the best known ensembles in the U.S. Her discography includes recording on the Albany and Bridge record labels. Pianist Heidi Louise Williams has appeared in solo and collaborative recitals across North America, in Europe and Asia. She has been praised by New York critic Harris Goldsmith for her "impeccable soloistic authority" and Dazzling performances." On the faculty at Florida State University College of Music, her recording for Albany Records received rave reviews from critics.

The works on this recording by Richard Toensing are of the highest order for both the wind ensemble and the soloists. Toensing's muse is an ambitious and generous one, requiring extreme competence of musicianship, mastery of varieties of style and great sensitivity. He shows himself to be a master of all the sonic possibilities available to him. A graduate of St. Olaf College and the University of Michigan, Toensing is on the faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has won numerous awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim and the Joseph H. Bearnes Prize from Columbia University. Mezzo-soprano Erica Washburn is director of choral activities at the New England Conservatory. Soprano Bethany Worrell is the soprano artist-in-residence with the Metropolitan Chorale of Brookline. William Drury is New England Conservatory's associate conductor of wind ensembles and the conductor of the Southern New Hampshire University Orchestra. As a conductor, he has commissioned and premiered works by numerous American composers, including Richard Toensing.

The Scott/Garrison Duo, featuring clarinetist Shannon Scott and flutist Leonard Garrison, has performed together since 1988, with a long commitment to contemporary American music. They have been featured at many national conferences of the National Flute Association, College Music Society, and National Association of College Wind and Percussion instructors. Ms. Scott is clarinetist for the Solstice Wind Quintet and principal clarinet of the Walla Walla Symphony and the Eastern Music Festival. Leonard Garrison is on the faculty of the Lionel Hampton School of Music at the University of Idaho, flutist in the Northwest Wind Quintet, and principal flutist of the Walla Walla Symphony. For this recording they perform works for flute and clarinet, flute and marimba, and flute, clarinet, and piano, including works commissioned by their duo. They are joined by pianist Rajung Yang and marimbist Stuart Gerber. This is their fourth recording for Albany Records.

Over the past few years, Albany Records' progressive releases of the piano music of Allen Shawn have made it clear that this is one of the most substantial and memorable bodies of work for the instrument of any living American composer. Because Shawn is one of the major American composer-pianists, someone who can take on fearsome technical demands and deliver real interpretive value as he surmounts them, these performances are especially important as documents not only of the music but also of the interpretation and performance of the works. In addition to his five piano sonatas, Shawn performs his Etudes and Five Piano Pieces. On the faculty of Bennington College, Shawn grew up in New York City. In addition to his piano music, his works include a Symphony; concertos for piano, cello, violin, and oboe and a double concerto for clarinet and cello as well as numerous chamber works for varied ensembles. This is the sixth recording on Albany Records devoted exclusively to his music.

The history of the Five Seasons ensemble goes back to 2012 when Estonian composer and guitarist Robert Jürjendal heard a recording of the Corona Guitar Kvartet and contacted one of its members, Volkmar Zimmermann. Zimmermann initially asked Jürjendal to write a work for him and soprano Sara Fiil and their collaboration continued with the instrumentation expanding to the existing ensemble. The special membership of Five Seasons (acoustic guitar, soprano, trumpet, percussion, and electric guitar) encouraged Jürjendal to choose more academic writing, influenced by early guitar and lute music with the essence of romantic melancholy together with a complex contemporary harmony and sound conception. Five Seasons has appeared at Estonian Music Days to great critical acclaim.

An acclaimed performer and teacher, Johanna Cox Pennington has been oboe professor at Louisiana State University School of Music since 2011 and a member of the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra since 2002. A graduate of Northwestern and Eastman, Pennington was chosen for Eastman's Freiburg Exchange Program that took her to Germany for advanced studies. She has performed with many orchestras including the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She travels to Europe, South America, Asia and throughout the United States performing as a recitalist, chamber musician, and clinician. She has selected five world premieres for this recording, including a recording of Brett William Dietz's Voodoo Spells and Gris-gris. Pennington is joined on this recording by pianist Willis Delony, violinist Lenora Cox Leggatt, Brett William Dietz performing on the vibraphone, cellist Daniel Lelchuk and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto.

Taken together, the works on this portrait album of composer John Liberatore, are an eclectic mélange of instrumentations and affects, sometimes whimsical or wistful, dark or light. But each of them was composed in the same way, and in close proximity to each other. Liberatore is a composer, pianist, and one of the world's few glass harmonica players. Described by critics as "enchanting" and "truly magical," his music seeks poignancy through levity, ambiguity through transparency, and complexity within simple textures. The recipient of numerous awards and commissions, his music has received hundreds of performances in venues around the world, including The Kennedy Center, Carnegie's Weill Hall, and the Seoul Arts Center, among many others. A graduate of Eastman and Syracuse University, he is assistant professor of composition and theory at the University of Notre Dame.

Pianist and educator David Witten's career has included numerous concert tours in Europe, Israel, Russia, China, and South America. He is the editor of Nineteenth-Century Piano Music: Essays in Performance and Analysis, which includes his landmark analytical study of the Chopin Ballades. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, SUNY Buffalo and Boston University, he is on the faculty of Montclair State University. Witten has chosen four works by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who was born in Florence, but whose ancestry traces directly back to a Sephardic Jewish family that escaped the Spanish Inquisition. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's musical style is filled with colorful harmonies and a penchant for modal melodies. Coming to the United States in the mid-1930s, he found work at MGM and other studios, ultimately composing soundtracks for more than 200 films. This recording features both his early and late piano works -- two concert suites from 1924 and works from his later years in California.

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.

Love Comes In At The Eye is a recording of songs and instrumental works by Kevin Puts, Ned Rorem, and James Scott Balentine. All Americans, these composers vary in age from 46 (Puts), to 70 (Balentine), to 95 (Rorem), so there a wide spectrum of compositional styles that offers an outstanding listening experience. With works for voice and piano; voice and chamber ensemble; a work for voice and cello; and two works for flute and piano, the recording gives the feel of being part of an audience for a chamber music concert. The performers each have distinguished careers and all participate in the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society concerts.

Composer Don Walker says that he has always felt a strong affinity for vocal music, having been a boy soprano soloist, a baritone soloist, and a member of several choirs. He composed and performed his first solo arias while still in high school and had written several song cycles and choral works before receiving his undergraduate degree. All told, he has written five operas, 30 song cycles and equivalent numbers of cantatas and other choral works over the past 50 years. This recording showcases select works from his oeuvre, some for a cappella chorus and others for chorus and piano and one work (Cummings Country) for chorus, vibraphone and contrabass. This is Walker's third recording for Albany Records -- the first a collection of song cycles and the second feature his works for chamber ensemble.

Lou Harrison was one of the most influential percussion composers and innovators in the United States. In fact, he was one of the great composers of the 20th century -- a pioneer in the use of alternate tunings, world music influences, and new instruments. The percussion ensemble at Utah Valley University with violinist Donna Fairbanks perform some of his major works including a concerto for violin and percussion. Percussionist Doug Smith, director of Percussion UVU, is also an active freelance musician in Salt Lake City with groups includng the Utah Symphony, Utah Opera, and Ballet West. He is a graduate of Rice University and the University of Central Missouri. Violinist Donna Fairbanks has presented recitals and masterclasses in Europe, China, Mexico, Brazil and throughout the United States. She has recorded for MSR Classics, 4TAY, Tantar and Albany Records. Pianist Hilary Demske, who performs in the Varied Trio, has performed in prestigious venues across multiple continents, appearing annually in China since 2011. She is a Steinway Artist and has recorded multiple CDs for Albany Records.

Violinist Donna Fairbanks and guitarist Jon Yerby have recorded a delightful album of music for violin and guitar with music spanning four centuries. Ms. Fairbanks is on the faculty at Utah Valley University. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona, Eastman, and Brigham Young University.Ms. Fairbanks has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras and has presented recitals and master classes in South America, China, Europe and the U.S. Born in Germany, Jon Yerby has performed across four continents as an acclaimed soloist and chamber musician. He studied at Florida State University, New England Conservatory, and the University of Texas at Austin. He has held faculty positions at the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, and Westminster College.

Baritone Robert Barefield's third recording for Albany Records includes four song cycles by American composers Scott Wheeler, David Conte, Larry Alan Smith, and Kendra D'Ercole. Two of the cycles, Wheeler's Light Enough and D'Ercole's Laughs & Sighs were written for Mr. Barefield. Conte's cycle of four songs was composed between 1998 and 2003; while Smith found inspiration for his cycle through a roadside marker about the poet John Burroughs. Robert Barefield has performed as soloist with organizations throughout the United States and in Europe and is noted for his championing of American composers. He is on the faculty at the Hartt School. Pianist Kelly Horsted enjoys an active career in New York City as an accompanist, music director and vocal coach and has enjoyed a long relationship with American Opera Projects.

Music is language, said the legendary French flutist and inspirational teacher, Marcel Moyse, the flute is one of its mediums of expression, and when I play I try to convey the impression of laughing, of singing, of talking through the medium of my instrument in a manner almost as direct as that expressed by the human voice." This insight is especially pertinent to this recital of Latin American and Spanish music for flute and piano, which intermingles transcriptions of vocal music with original compositions and transcriptions of instrumental works. Regardless of the music's origins, whether in vocal or instrumental music, the flute speaks and singsand at times even dances. Flutist Stephanie Jutt's elegant artistry and passionate intellect have inspired musicians and audiences around the world. Her groundbreaking performances of new music, transcriptions, and traditional repertoire have made her a model for adventurous flutists everywhere. Stephanie Jutt received first prize at the International Concert Artist Guild and Pro Musicis International Soloist competitions, and was a finalist in the International Walter W. Naumburg Competition. She has performed in recital throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. A dedicated teacher, Ms. Jutt was Professor of Flute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music from 1990-2017.

This recording features largely unknown sacred art songs from the late 19th to the late 20th century, including works by American composers Leo Sowerby and Daniel Pinkham as well as their stylistic predecessors Gabriel Fauré, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Max Reger, Louis Vierne, and Gaston Litaize. These composers' common musical vocabulary of chromatic harmony, realized through the expansive timbral palettes of the organ and voice, creates vivid musical settings of sacred poetry. Baritone Stephen Lancaster was winner of the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition and of The American Prize for men in art song and oratorio. He has been featured in venues around the world as a recitalist, and soloist. He holds degrees from the University of Note Dame and the University of Michigan and is currently on the faculty at Notre Dame. Organist Kevin Vaughn is director of music and organist at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in South Bend, Indiana and on the faculty at Goshen College. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

In Vento Appassionato, Molly Barth presents her interpretations of ten of the most influential 20th century compositions for solo flute in the repertoire, chronologically spanning from 1913 to 1966. Each piece on this recording leads Ms. Barth on an impactful emotional journey, which she delights in sharing with her listeners. Grammy-Award winning flutist Molly Barth is in demand as a soloist, clinician, and chamber musician. Lauded by reviewers, she has performed in Australia, Korea, Mexico, and across the United States. A founding member of the famed new music ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, Ms. Barth won first prize at the 1998 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. She is on the faculty at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University and is a graduate of Oberlin, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and Northwestern University School of Music.

Composer/singer Linda Lister began her compositional career at age 15 writing a new musical version of The Little Match Girl for the University of Utah's Young People's Theatre. Since that time she has found her own tonal, neo-Romantic voice. Her vocal writing reveals a fondness for coloratura, an element not often found in contemporary art song. Her goal is to imbue her compositions with the pathos or humor befitting the text. She enjoys the creative synergy of singing her own music and sharing it with the world. A graduate of Vassar, Eastman and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she has performed as a soloist with orchestras, with opera theatres across the country and her recordings appear on Albany and Centaur Records. She is on the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her collaborator, Canadian pianist Amanda Johnston is on the faculty at the University of Mississippi, Musiktheater Bavaria; and the Druid City Opera Workshop.

Rajiv Joseph's spare libretto, based on the book by Salman Rushdie, is full of gifts for an opera composer: love triangle with dancer, acrobat, and ambassador; vaudevillian rehearsal; over-the-top wedding; lonely hotel seduction; and Anarkali's dance -- a grand Khatak show-within-a-show. Rushdie's novel, not at all spare, is part Hindu/Muslim Romeo and Juliet, part Himalayan Paradise Lost -- a meditation on the personal as political, and an allegory of the danger of innocence. The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis commissioned composer Jack Perla to write Shalimar the Clown and this world premiere recording was made in 2016. Perla has steadily forged a reputation for his unique cross-fertilization of jazz, improvisation, and classical music. Librettist Rajiv Joseph is a New York-based playwright who has been called "daring, magnificent, and virtuosic." The recipient of numerous awards, Shalimar the Clown is Mr. Joseph's first opera libretto.

Composer Robert Xavier Rodríguez has been hailed as "one of the major American composers of his generation." His music has been performed by organizations such as the New York City Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Seattle, Houston Dallas, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Boston, and Chicago Symphonies, among many others. His numerous awards include a Gugggenheim Fellowship and the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served as composer-in-residence with the San Antonio Symphony and the Dallas Symphony. He is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas and conducts its Musica Nova Ensemble. His sixth recording for Albany Records includes two works for string quartet and a work for violin and piano.

The presidents honored in this album fundamentally altered the structure and development of the United States. Composer Victoria Bond, in collaboration with librettist Myles Lee, MD, has written four concertos for soloist and narrator: "Soul of a Nation" (from which the title of the album was derived) is a portrait of Thomas Jefferson; "The Indispensable Man" illuminates Franklin Roosevelt; "The Crowded Hours" presents Theodore Roosevelt; and "Pater Patriae" honors George Washington. As portraits of personal character, each piece illustrates the inner turmoil each man endured on his journey to immortality. Soloists from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (Frank Almond, Concertmaster), and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (John Bruce Yeh, assistant principal clarinet and Mark Ridenour, assistant principal trumpet), and Gabriela Vargas (flute) join narrators Adrian Dunn, Henry Fogel, Ray Frewen, and David Holloway. Emanuele Andrizzi and Stephen Squires conduct the chamber orchestra and wind ensemble from the Chicago College of performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

Cendrillon opened at the Paris Opéra-Comique on February 22, 1810, and brought unprecedented success to composer Nicolo Isouard and his librettist Charles-Guillaume Étienne. However, beginning in 1817 Rossini's La Cenerentola superceded Isouard's opera and Cendrillon fell into obscurity.The head of Opera Music Studies at Manhattan, William Tracy along with Jennifer Gliere, conductor Pierre Vallet and director Dona D. Vaughn have prepared an entirely new edition and production for this recording. In fact, orchestral parts could not be located, nor the original score. Working from the original manuscript and the first printed edition, Mr. Tracy and Ms. Gliere created the present edition heard here. You can now hear Isouard's brilliant "perfect little jewel box" opera, Cendrillon, last performed in the United States on July 13, 1827 at the Park Theater by a French company from New Orleans.

Composer Joseph Fennimore's ninth recording for Albany Records includes new works for piano, brilliantly performed by Jeffrey Middleton. Fennimore, who is known as a formidable pianist, has a special affinity for this instrument, and it shows in these works. He wrote the music on this collection when he was in his mid 60s to mid 70s. It is mature, the product of a restless and powerful mind. While these works don't form a program, they each benefit from a lifetime of accumulated experience and feeling. They are ruminative, unflinching in the contemplation of mortality, yet retain the composer's natural vivacity, his sense of whimsy and style. Pianist Jeffrey Middleton is a graduate of Juilliard and Yale. His career has included chamber music, vocal coaching and accompanying, solo performances, and teaching. He is on the faculty of the School of American Ballet, receiving the Mae Wien Award for distinguished faculty service in 2010.

Amos Elkana is a multi-award-winning composer whose music has been characterized as original, guided by unique and delicate taste, and radiating a strong sense of honesty. Born in Boston but growing up in Jerusalem, he returned to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory. He has also studied at Bard College. His music has been performed all over the world by leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists. Apart from concert music, Elkana composes for dance and theater. Also and active performer, he participates in concerts and performances of improvised music where he plays the electric guitar and the computer. This recording of his music contrasts a work for large ensemble with works for single instruments, some of which include electronics.

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.

Conductor Anthony J. Maglione has carefully selected texts that invite us to wrestle with ancient and timeless mysteries and think about how they are relevant to our present day. The centerpiece of the recording is Adolphus Hailstork's I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, a three-movement cantata based on psalm texts. The William Jewell College Concert Choir is composed of the very best undergraduate choral singers who attend William Jewell College. The choir tours the United States and travels regularly to England and Scotland to perform. Anthony Maglione studied at Westminster Choir College, East Carolina University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Formed in 2009, the Anglo-American Duo Timothy Schwarz, violin; Jane Beament, piano) has evolved into a prominent ensemble that regularly tours in the United States and Europe. Praised for its energetic and sophisticated performances, the Anglo-American Duo specializes in music from the U.S. and Britain. For their first commercial recording, they perform music by British composer David Osbon. Osbon's music has been performed, broadcast and recorded around the world. The recipient of numerous awards, Osbon studied at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently he is on the faculty at the London College of Music.

Composer Anthony Paul De Ritis began studying with David Wessel at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies after returning from his studies at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. Wessel exerted a tremendous influence on De Ritis, both as a teacher and as a person. This recording of De Ritis' music is a tribute to David Wessel.The pieces on this recording span more than 25 years. Listening to the music is captivating. Written for Western instruments or Asian instruments, the music sounds like a successful syntheses of East and West, where real-time processing devices transform the sound of acoustic instruments into a rainbow of sound colors. Having received a thorough Western education and then traveled the world, Anthony Paul De Ritis has come up with a music that is far more than the sum of its parts -- music that is imaginative and a wonderful balance of tone colors.

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.