Catalog

HOLIDAY JOY by Essential Voices USA, under the direction of acclaimed conductor Judith Clurman, offers a moving celebration of light, peace, and joy for the holiday season. This collection brings together three evocative works: Eight Days of Lights and Chanukah Joy and Peace, composed by Clurman and David Chase, and The Holidays Are Here, co-written by Clurman and Wesley Whatley. Through a blend of Jewish liturgical traditions and festive Christmas spirit, the album illuminates the universal need for light and hope in dark times.

With vivid instrumental arrangements for piano, clarinet, and cello, and stunning performances by Essential Voices USA, HOLIDAY JOY creates a sense of warmth and unity, inviting listeners to reflect on freedom, resilience, and shared celebration. Each piece not only honors its historical and cultural origins but also breathes new life into holiday music, making this album an inspiring and joyful experience for all.

Composer Bradley Ellingboe says that the central premise of StarSong is that the atoms that make up our bodies — and the stars themselves — are immeasurably old. They existed before the combined into the unique form that makes us humans, and all these atoms and molecules and electrons vibrate, just like sound and light. The work is in 12 movements that include an overture and 11 texts set to music. Ellingboe has had a wide-ranging career in the world of singing, including composing, as a soloist, a conductor, scholar, and teacher. He served as the Composer-in-Residence for Albany Pro Music for the 2020-2023 seasons. Albany Pro Musica is the preeminent choral ensemble in New York’s Capital Region, and is know for its exceptional technical competency, artistry, and relevant programming. Conductor José Daniel Flores-Caraballo is the widely acclaimed conductor of Albany Pro Musica. A trained organist and celebrated choral and orchestral conductor, he served as Dean of Academic Affairs at the Conservatory of Music in San Juan. The stunning art on the cover was done by Carlos Flores.

Essential Voices USA conducted by Judith Clurman performs choral music for Christmas including Illumination by Pierre Jalbert; The Snow by Bill Cutter; and a superlative arrangement of favorite Christmas carols for chorus and string quartet. Titled Christmas Joy, the work includes Silent Night; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; Angels We Have Heard on High; O Come, O Come, Emmanuel; O Come, All Ye Faithful; and Joy to the World.

This DIGITAL ONLY recording embraces the highs and lows of Jewish life – the Holocaust (Remember), a psalm setting (Revere), and love poetry and joy (Rejoice). Judith Clurman’s Essential Voices USA (EVUSA) is one of New York’s preeminent choral ensembles. EVUSA boasts a talented roster of seasoned professionals and auditioned volunteers, dynamically fitted to the unique needs of each project. They have appeared at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and on NPR’S Tiny Desk Concerts. Their recordings include “America at Heart,” “Appalachian Stories,” “Celebrating the American Spirit,” “Cherished Moments,” “Cradle Hymn,” “Holiday Harmonies,” “Rejoice! Honoring the Jewish Spirit,” “May You Heal,” “Washington Women,” “Winter Harmonies,” and “Words Matter.” Conductor Judith Clurman conducts Essential Voices USA, and the Singing Tree Float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Her work has received Emmy and Grammy nominations and she has collaborated with the major classical orchestras and conductors of the world. She was Director of Choral Activities at The Juilliard School for 18 years and a faculty member for the National Endowment for the Arts/Columbia University Institute in Classical Music and Opera. Judith currently teaches private and ensemble voice at the Manhattan School of Music.

Remember is a collection of Romantic American choral music devoted to loss, commemoration, and consolation. Several of the musical works were written at the conclusion of World War I or to mark the tenth anniversary of the armistice. Much of the music has remained unperformed — even unknown — since it was written. Composers include George Whitefield Chadwick, George Whiting, Charles Martin Loeffler, Marian Bauer, Edith Lang, Dudley Buck, and J.C.D. Parker. Led by David P. DeVenney, the West Chester Concert Choir performs music of all styles and epochs. They have performed nationally and internationally and has recorded seven commercial CDs. DeVenney, who studied at Iowa State, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, is on the faculty at West Chester University. He has made substantive contributions to scholarship in American choral music through his 16 books and dozens of articles. He was the guiding editor for choral music for the new Grove Dictionary of American Music, second edition.

An annual tradition of the New York Latvian Choir is to perform an Advent concert. Since the repertoire was limited, the choir launched a project to commission a new composition every year from a different Latvian composer. To date this ongoing project has contributed 40 Christmas cantatas to the Latvian music repertoire. The works of the four composers on this recording have created an overview of Latvian Christmas traditions over multiple centuries. The work of Andrejs Sejans is closely tied to early religious traditions; with Martins Brauns weaves the texts of Latvian poets with his music; Andrejs Jansons has created a work reflecting a classical Latvian Christmas cantata; and Laura Jekabsone's work is a contemporary Christmas composition.

This is a recording of five cantatas written by 20th century Latvian composers, some of whom grew up outside of Latvia, while othrs lived under the Soviet regime. From the forced emigration of 1944 up until 1988, when the Iron Curtain started to collapse, composers living outside Latvia were omitted from the music history books of the Soviet Union. They were treated as invisible, despite the fact that for more than 40 years they created a significant number of important works. After Latvia regained its independence, there was an opportunity to introduce these works to Latvian audiences. The music on this recording was written beteen 1960 and 1980, at a time when Latvians around the world, although in foreign lands, felt open and free, but Latvians living in their homeland felt oppressed and morally humiliated. In addition to the four cantatas composed by Latvians living outside Latvia, the work of Imants Kalnins, who was living in Latvia, is included as it was composed at a time when the stirrings of overcoming the Soviet Union were in the air.

This live recording of the Atlanta Music Festival 2016 comprises a unique combination of music, literature, and history, addressing the African American journey from slavery to an as yet unachieved dream of a "more perfect union." Beginning with Atlanta school children singing Lift Every Voice and Sing, the CD proceeds with music and spoken dialogue extolling "liberty and justice for all" through the words of Barack Obama, James Dickey, Robert Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Langston Hughes. Of special note are the performances of the beloved Jessye Norman singing songs by Duke Ellington and spirituals. The Atlanta Music Festival has its origins in the Atlanta Colored Music Festival, begun in 1910, four years after the Atlanta race riots, by Rev. Henry Hugh Proctor to promote racial reconciliation through the arts.

Paradiso, an oratorio composed by Robert Kyr on Robin Kirkpatrick's poetic libretto based on Dante's Commedia was commissioned by the Notre Dame Vocale and Carmen-Helena Téllez. As a musical work, Paradiso is an oratorio in 17 scenes, whose text is a lyrical meditation and profound reflection on Dante's version of heaven. While Dante is the source of the libretto, Kyr's musical setting arises from a variety of sources that are interwoven throughout the work. Composer Robert Kyr has been a member of the music faculty at the University of Oregon since 1990 and is director of the renowned Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium. He has been engaged for a long time with the themes of spiritual renewal, peace and environmentalism, through a style that partakes of both early and contemporary techniques. Librettist Robin Kirkpatrick is a poet and internationally renowned Dante scholar and is a fellow of Robinson College at Cambridge. Called a "quiet force behind contemporary music in America today," conductor Carmen-Helena Téllez is music director of the Notre Dame Vocale, Kosmologia Interdisciplinary Project, Aquava New Music Studio, and Indiana University's Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and has commissioned, premiered, and recorded many landmark works.

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.

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.

Women of Valor, an oratorio, is a celebration of women from the Old Testament, inspired by a midrash (biblical commentary) on Proverbs, where each line of the biblical text from Proverbs 31 represents a strong, resourceful woman. Texts for Women of Valor are drawn both from the Bible and from modern poems and prose. Women of Valor highlights the stories of Sarah, Leah, Rachel, Jocheved, Miriam, Hannah, Jael, Michal, Ruth, and Esther. The work was premiered in 2000 by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony conducted by Noreen Green. Composer Andrea Clearfield's music has been praised by the New York Times for its "graceful tracery and lively, rhythmically vital writing" and the Los Angeles Times for its "fluid and glistening orchestration." Her awards include a Pew Fellowship in the Arts as well as fellowships at the American Academy in Rome, the MacDowell Colony, and the Rockefeller foundation's Bellagio Center, among many others. The Los Angeles Jewish Symphony is the only orchestra outside of Israel dedicated to the performance and preservation of orchestral works of distinction that explore the Jewish experience. Founded in 1994 by Noreen Green the LAJS has presented more than 20 world premieres of works by contemporary Jewish composers.

Bruno Skulte (1905-1976) was a talented composer as well as a dynamic conductor and organist. He drew most of his inspiration from the culture of his Latvian homeland even though he lived in Germany and the United States. Skulte left Latvia for Germany when the Soviets invaded in World War II, along with thousands of other Latvian refuges. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1949 and lived the rest of his life there. He was the organist and choir conductor for the Latvian Lutheran Church of New York as well as two other Latvian choirs. He carried on the tradition of Latvian song festivals with hundreds and even several thousand singers on stage. While he never stopped composing, his works were not heard in Latvia during the Soviet occupation as they were deemed too "Latvian." His choral music is sonorous, lyrical, emotional, at times dramatic, and always sincere. The Latvian coloring is created mostly by the lyrics. Skulte used lyrics that seemed to express Latvian sensitivities: love of nature, love of country and other virtues taught by the dainas, the ancient Latvian folk poems. He died in New York, never having been able to revisit his beloved Latvia.

When the planning for this set of recordings first began, the driving concept was to revive interest in the American choral repertoire of the middle of the 20th century as represented by recordings made by the Gregg Smith Singers. With the death of Gregg Smith on July 12, 2016, these recordings also serve as a memorial to the career of a man whose devotion to choral music in general, and especially American choral music "of every time and place," was greater than that of almost any other of his generation. Smith had an uncanny gift for seeking out and nourishing the talent of lesser-known American choral composers—both young and old—showcasing their works through concerts and recordings. Gregg Smith was founder and conductor of the Gregg Smith Singers; conductor of the Long Island Symphonic Choral Association; and composer-in-residence for Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in New York, as well as being an accomplished, prolific composer. No other conductor did as much to raise the standards of choral singing in the second half of the 20th century, or was as influential on other American choral conductors and composers. The full array of mid-twentieth century American choral music is presented here—all coming from the archives of the Gregg Smith Singers.

The conception of this recording, Veiled Light, was inspired by the desire to advance the male choral art through superb repertoire written in the 21st century. This innovative and ambitious recording features 13 works by living composers, capturing a wide range of artistry and musical emotions with great spirit, sensitivity, and sincerity. Five works were specifically written for the Miami University Men's Glee Club in its mission to promote and foster the creation and development of new choral works for male choir. Founded in 1907, the Miami University Men's Glee Club has maintained a tradition of musical excellence throughout its storied history. For more than a century, the Glee Club has presented concerts to countless audiences on their campus, around the state, nation, and world. They have toured internationally, performing in Belgium, England, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, and Wales. Conductor Jeremy D. Jones has led the Glee Club in performances at the American Choral Directors Association Central Division Conference as well as several Intercollegiate Men's Choruses National Seminars. The Glee Club was awarded first place and overall grand champion awards at the Concours Européen de Chant Choral in Luxembourg in 2014.

Bonhoeffer was conceived as a concert work in a theatrical context by composer Thomas Lloyd. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was one of the most influential Christian theologians of the 20th Century. He returned to Germany from the United States to become an active leader of the Confessing Church, which actively resisted the capitulation of the establishment Lutheran and Catholic churches to the fascist leadership of Adolf Hilter. He was involved in the unsuccessful plot to assassinate Hitler and suffered imprisonment and death, being hanged at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp a few weeks before Germany's surrender. He fell in love with Maria von Wedemeyer and was engaged to her shortly before his arrest. The text for Bonhoeffer is adapted from the writings of both Bonhoeffer and von Wedemeyer. Thomas Lloyd is on the faculty at Haverford College; the artistic director of the Bucks County Choral Society; and director of music at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral. His music has been performed by many choirs — professional, collegiate, community, and high school. The Crossing is a professional chamber choir based in Philadelphia conducted by Donald Nally and dedicated to the commissioning and performance of new music. They have collaborated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the International Contemporary Ensemble, Bang on a Can, and the American Composers Orchestra, among many others. They premiered John Luther Adams' Sila: the breath of the world in collaboration with the Mostly Mozart Festival in 2014. Their discography includes six recordings and they have been hailed in reviews as "superb" (New York Times) and "ardently angelic" (The Los Angeles Times). Under conductor Donald Nally's leadership, The Crossing has commissioned and premiered more than 50 works for chorus.

The Negro Spiritual is still vibrant, popular and well-loved all over the world. The Georgia Spiritual Ensemble was formed to maintain the tradition of the Spiritual and to pass on to young singers the awesome power and beauty that is inherent in each melody. The George Spiritual Ensemble also wants to demonstrate through their performances the unyielding faith of the Africans who created these songs. The Spirituals became their voice of protest and their voice of endurance, strength, and courage.

This recording continues the tradition of the New York Latvian Concert Choir soon after its founding in 1975 of commissioning cantatas for their annual holiday concerts. The music presented on this CD, all new works by Latvian composers, is written in a great variety of styles, uniting the worlds of Latvian folklore and Christianity--that of Valdis Zilveris is written in a romantic tradition with simple, memorable melodies; while Ingmars Zemzaris has used a neo-baroque style; Ilona Rupaines' is much more complicated, intertwining folkloric and Christian worlds; and Larkis Lacis employs jazz harmonies but not jazz rhythms. This is the third recording of Latvian music for the Christmas season by the New York Latvian Concert Choir.

Led by conductor Giselle Wyers, the Solaris Vocal Ensemble performs a program of contemporary American music that includes works by Meredith Monk, the 2012 Musical America Composer of the Year; Ingram Marshall, whose music concentrates on combining tape and electronic processing with ensembles and soloists; Anne LaBaron, whose compositions embrace an exotic array of subjects; and Frances White, whose study of the shakuhachi informs and influences her works as a composer. All world premiere recordings, these works reflect a renaissance of innovation in the field of choral music.

The association of composer/conductor Gregg Smith, the Gregg Smith Singers and Saint Peter's Church in New York City dates back to 1970. Smith wrote works for the church, some of them commissioned for special occasions, and conducted the Gregg Smith Singers along with the Long Island Symphonic Choral Association and the Saint Peter's Choir in performances of this music. This disc commemorates this association with a collection of six of these works, written and performed between 1972 and 2005. Music for an Urban Church celebrates this American composer's continuation of the tradition of "singing unto the Lord a new song." As a composer Gregg Smith has more than 400 compositions to his name and he is also celebrated as the founder and conductor of the world-famous Gregg Smith Singers.

The second half of the 20th-century saw a great blossoming of choral singing in America, from the emergence of the great choral singing schools to increased professionalism in church music programs and the founding of major professional choral groups and associations. One result of this overall rise in choral excellence was an expansion to the body of sophisticated, secular art-music for choruses as American composers responded to the increasingly skilled, nonreligious choral ensembles practicing the craft. This recording, expertly performed by the Washington Master Chorale, offers some of the best of this art-music. Founded in 2010, the Washington Master Chorale is a semi-professional chorus in Washington, D.C., conducted by Thomas Colohan. Their purpose is to advance American choral excellence by combining skilled vocal artistry with superb poetic choral literature; to contribute to the choral canon through commissioning leading American composers and to present choral works in the context of their culture and time.

Influenced by music he heard in the synagogue as a young child, composer Burton Beerman had never infused any of this influence into his compositions until he met Philip Markowicz, a living Holocaust survivor and Torah scholar. The fruit of this association is Tikvah, a chamber oratorio that sets Markowicz's life and philosophy as well as his Torah insights to music. Tikvah is the Hebrew word for hope and hope was key to Mr. Markowicz's survival. Performed by his granddaughter, Cantor Andrea Markowicz with the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet and the Uzee Brown Society of Choraliers, with Philip Markowicz as narrator, Tikvah is a powerful, emotional and timely work, touching on the big issues of life, love, death, survival, meaning, existence, faith, morality, happiness, and tragedy.

A major historical recording featuring George Walker as composer, with the 1977 recording of his Mass by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sergiu Comissiona and George Walker as pianist in a live concert from 1956 with the Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson. In addition there are two works for choir performed by the Morgan State College Choir conducted by Dr. Nathan Carter.

David Ashley White's secular and sacred compositions are widely performed and published and he has received numerous commissions. Recordings of his music appear on the Gothic and Zephyr labels. In addition to the extensive publication of White's choral and instrumental music, his hymns are included in a number of hymnals, including those of the Episcopal, Methodist, and United Church of Christ. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, David White serves as director of the University of Houston Moores School of Music. The core of the music on this recording duplicates the repertoire from a concert honoring the composer at the University of Houston and focuses on his secular music, although some of the works employ sacred texts. The music represents a wide range of White's output offering amid the diversity unifying elements of lyricism and expressiveness.

Music has been a strong political, unifying force for the Latvian people. It rose slowly, out of folk songs, during the 700 years of oppression by Russian tsars and German overlords. Poetry and song, with their indirect and symbolic undertones, became an inside language — a way of passing on messages, revisiting legendary heroes and building confidence. Latvian composers have fused their folklore with contemporary trends and this recording is an example of this fusion. Cantatas for the Christmas season by three of Latvia's most well-known composers are offered. Sung by the New York Latvian Concert Choir with the Latvian National Opera Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrejs Jansons, the recording was made in Latvia in February, 2012. The New York Latvian Concert Choir was founded in 1975. Since the break up of the Soviet Union and the re-establishment of Latvia's independence, the choir has regularly collaborated with choirs and soloists in Latvia. Its mission has been to keep alive and promote Latvian music within the Latvian communities of the U.S., Canada, Australia and elsewhere and to introduce these countries to Latvia's ongoing cultural heritage.

Andrew Earle Simpson's A Crown of Stars is a wedding oratorio celebrating the universality of human love and was commissioned by the Cantate Chamber Singers while Simpson was the ensemble's Composer-in-Residence. This is the world premiere recording. Mr. Simpson's music follows four principal threads of interest: humanistic music; music for silent films; theatrical music; and folk music. He has created a prodigious array of works for the concert and operatic stage, which have been performed throughout the U.S., Europe and South America. Russian composer Alfred Schnittke's (1934-1998) Requiem evokes vivid images, perhaps because it began as a stage work. It is based on music from a piano quintet that Schnittke dedicated to his mother just after her death.

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

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.

The story of the wide-eyed lad from Kansas City who became the toast of Paris via Harvard, one of America's most influential music critics from his decades' long perch at the New York Herald Tribune and a truly unique and productive composer, is almost hackneyed now, but still bears that "only in America" cachet. It was as a long-term resident of the Chelsea Hotel in New York that Gregg Smith and his Singers got to know the redoubtable Virgil in the later decades of his long life (born in 1896, he died at the age of 92 in 1989.) The present CD is an offering of gratitude for Virgil's support and friendship, as well as a concise overview of his work in the choral field--along with a brief excursion into his solo output.

A disc of first recordings, the Bernstein is presented in the original narrative context, while the Moyse is a 2002 Counterpoint commission. These two works are complimented with Castelnuovo-Tedesco's spirit of flamenco and the jazzy swing idiom of the Levi. Founded by Robert De Cormier in 2000, Counterpoint is dedicated to performing choral chamber music of diverse cultures with an emphasis on rarely performed works, unique arrangements and the work of contemporary composers.

Jack Beeson's musical background resembles those of many another contemporary composer but his storyline diverges from the expected mid-century composer-in-formation's path when he chose to study in New York City with Bela Bartok rather than go to France to work with Nadia Boulanger. His loyalty to Columbia University, where he has worked for more than 63 years, again, breaks the mold. Few of his colleagues can boast of such singular interweaving of individual creativity and organizational fealty. Widely known as he is for his operas, Beeson is no slouch in other areas of vocal music. In addition to his ten operas, he has written many songs and a good number of choral works, seven of which are featured on this recording. The individuality that marks his creative output is evident, showing itself in his selection of texts.

The joy we feel in anticipating the sun's return after the winter solstice is greatly magnified by the spiritual light that comes with Christmas. This recording, Christmas Joy in Latvia, is a collection of new musical works to enrich the season's array of colors. The essence of the CD is expressed by its title: it highlights age-old values in a contemporary fashion. The old world and its traditions change with each new year.