Catalog

The Miramar Sinfonietta was founded in the spring of 2000 specifically to record the Fantasy on Two Christmas Carols in honor of what would have been the composer's 100th birthday. The group was later reassembled for the purpose of recording works by outstanding composers, mostly Americans, that have not been recorded as yet, and deserve to be heard. The chamber orchestra consists of some of the finest musicians in the Milwaukee area, all of them engaged in various professional organizations in that area. Jeani Foster is the principal flute of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. William Barnewitz serves as principal horn of the Milwaukee Symphony and the Sante Fe Opera Orchestra. Samantha George is the associate concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony and has also been a member of the Colorado and Hartford Symphony Orchestras. Eric Segnitz is a founding member and solo violinist of the highly regarded contemporary music group, Present Music. Henri B. Pensis, founder and conductor of the Miramar Sinfonietta, was active as professor of music and conductor for a period of 30 years at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

Paul Neebe — soloist, orchestral musician and chamber player — performs widely in the United States and Europe. He is principal trumpet of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the Wintergreen Festival Orchestra. A graduate of Juilliard and the Catholic University of America, Neebe has taught at the University of Virginia, James Madison University, Elon University and the Summer University in Bayreuth, Germany. His commitment to the commissioning and recording of contemporary American works for trumpet was the impetus for this CD. All four trumpet concertos (by Richard Cioffari, Walter Ross, Roger Petrich, and Eddie Bass) were commissioned and premiered by Mr. Neebe and represent major additions to the trumpet repertoire.

The art-music composer of today faces many challenges. On the one hand, one is tempted to create music that embraces a diversity of styles. On the other hand, one hopes to develop a personal language that would reflect one's artistic orientation and at the same time communicate effectively with the audience. This issue is of particular relevance to composers who grew up in non-Western cultures. Their music, to some extent, manifests their struggle to mediate between Western music and music of their own culture. Shih-Hui Chen is one example. Having grown up in Taiwan and having her basic musical training there, her works have been influenced by traditional Chinese as well as Western concert music. Over the years Chen has become adept in the compositional language of Western music. She earned a doctoral degree from Boston University while continuing her education in the United States. A prolific composer, she has written for a wide range of genres, including solo, chamber, orchestral and film music. The five works featured on this CD cover a broad span of time (1999-2003), and reflect a developing aesthetic. This music summarizes Chen's development and comes out of a desire to create works that assimilate her Chinese heritage and her training in Western art music. Like the interaction between yin and yang, these two opposing yet complementary forces continue to shape Chen's aesthetic and her music, resulting in music that explores the representation of "Chineseness" within predominantly Western compositional frameworks.

Neal Gittleman writes: “The Dayton Philharmonic’s Wright Brothers Centennial Commissioning project dates back to 1997. At that point, more than five years before the actual 100th anniversary of Wilbur and Orville’s first successful powered flight, it was already clear that something big was called for. 2003 would also be the Ohio state bicentennial, the orchestra’s seventieth anniversary and the DPO’s first season in the new Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center. Given our commitment to the music of today, a major commissioning effort seemed the way to go, bringing to life four new medium-length pieces addressing the broad theme of the Wright Brothers. How do you do that? Easy. You find fearless composers like Bill Bolcom, Robert Xavier Rodríguez, Mike Schelle and Steve Winteregg and turn them loose. They attacked the challenge with the same vigor as Orville and Wilbur tackled the challenges of powered flight. Technical problems had to be solved. For the Wrights there were issues of wing and propeller design, inventing a control mechanism, finding a light but powerful motor and conquering the multidimensional challenges of lift, yaw and roll. For the composers, there were questions of genre, language, piece-d’occasion – or piece-for-the-ages and “How many percussionists can I have?” In the end, what made both endeavors successful was imagination and inventiveness – the imagination to envision the end result and the inventiveness to make it happen. More than anything else, this CD and the four works it contains reflect the spirit of Wilbur and Orville Wright, the greatest sons of Ohio’s great city of inventors”. Allison Janney, of The West Wing fame, was raised in Oakwood, a small suburb of Dayton. She attended Kenyon College in Ohio and landed a role in a play directed by alumnus Paul Newman. Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, encouraged Janney with her acting and suggested that she consider studying at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse. She has won three Emmy awards for her work in television.

Settings from Pierrot Lunaire (1987-90) was commissioned by the Arnold Schoenberg Institute in honor of the 75th anniversary of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire (1912). In connection with a conference at the Arnold Schoenberg Institute to celebrate the 75th anniversary, Leonard Stein, the director of the Institute conceived a project that would provide a more lasting commemoration: "The commissioning of musical settings of the other 29 poems of the Pierrot cycle not included in the original 21 of Schoenberg's work." The performing ensemble would be the same. The orchestration of Settings from Pierrot Lunaire took place over a period of five years, 1990-94. The work was recorded for this CD on October 21, 2001. Vintage Renaissance (1989) was first performed on June 10, 1989 by the Boston Pops with John Williams conducting. In the 1980s, the Boston Pops Orchestra started on a project of commissioning new works as well as special arrangements from Broadway, film and the popular music world. Among those serious composers commissioned to write new works were Peter Maxwell Davies, Oliver Knussen, Joseph Schwantner, John Adams and William Kraft. The Symphony of Sorrows was given its first performance by Gerard Schwartz and the Seattle Symphony in 1995. A Kennedy Portrait (Contextures III) was commissioned by the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy. Its conductor, Ben Zander was the person who commissioned the work and gave it its first performance on November 19, 1988.

Composer/conductor Julius P. Williams leads the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra in a recording of works by Black composers. In addition to Williams’ compositions, there are works by the Dean of African-American composers, William Grant Still, Augustus O. Hill, and a work by Edmund Thornton Jenkins restored and arranged by his nephew Tuffus Zimbabwe. Julius P. Williams was named one of Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year in 2022. His career has taken him to musical venues around the globe and he has been involved in virtually every musical genre. He is currently Artistic Director and Conductor of the Berklee Contemporary Symphony Orchestra and was composer-in-residence with the Boston Symphony. His music has been performed by countless symphony orchestras including the New York Philharmonic. Cleveland Orchestra, and Detroit Symphony, to name but a few. His recordings appear on the Albany, Centaur, Videmus, and Naxos labels.

As you might have guessed from other Gould releases in our catalog, we at Albany Records are great fans of the music of this wonderful American composer. This recording is a reissue of recordings that originally appeared on EMI in 1990 and was only available for a short time. It is a perfect introduction to his music and shows just why he is such a fine composer. From the American Salute to the American Symphonette No. 2 with its delightful Pavane, there is music here for anyone who enjoys classical music. Kenneth Klein conducts this music beautifully. He understands the Gould idiom perfectly and conveys it with great appeal. This disc has been remastered and sounds terrific and should find a wide audience.

Robert Ackerman is a rarity among musicians in our day and age: more than a performer who composes or a composer who performs, he transcends musical genres and styles, not only in his compositions, but performs all styles of music on four instruments (flute, clarinet, saxophone and piano). As if this were not enough, Ackerman has made a life of the study of acoustics and instrument design and has shared this information with generations of students not only as a public school music teacher, but also as an international lecturer and published author. His compositions have received Ford Foundation and National Endowment grants; he has performed with Steve Reich and Philip Glass; his big band charts and jazz tunes have found their way into the repertoire of some of the most influential jazz players of his age; and he has performed at most of the important jazz festivals the world over. Robert Ackerman was born in Irvington, New Jersey in 1940. His music studies began in New York City with Joe Soldo (Bell Telephone Hour) and the legendary Joe Allard (Juilliard School of Music) continuing with master teachers such as Thomas Nyfenger (Yale University), Keith Underwood, Eddie Saulkin, Harvey Boatright (Dallas Symphony), and Bob Morris (New York Philharmonic). Ackerman received degrees from Montclair State University and Columbia University in New York. After spending the 1960s in the New York concert music scene, Ackerman left for Europe and entrenched himself in the jazz scenes of Italy, Switzerland, France and Sweden, only to return to the States in 1985. This recording marks the first commercially available representation of his concert music.

This recording of works by four composers highlights the diversity of America. Edmund Thornton Jenkins came from Charleston, South Carolina. He studied at Morehouse and the Royal Academy of Music in London. His artistry encompassed classical music as well as jazz, but he died prematurely, cutting short his career. John Wineglass is an Emmy-Award winning composer who is currently composer-in-residence with the Monterey Symphony. Beth Denisch music has been performed around the world with her music drawing inspiration from artist and authors, nature and astronomy, and unexpected places: real and imaginary. Born in Russia, Elena Roussanova is a composer, pianist, and educator, whose career includes a long list of accomplishments, including Composer-in-Residence for the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2020. She was awarded the American Prize in Composition for Orchestral Music in 2017-18 and her works have been performed by both American and international orchestras.

Taken from live recordings made in Vienna in 1990, these performances represent the world premiere recordings of both Henry F. Gilbert's Suite and George Whitefield Chadwick's Serenade  both major American composers of their day.

The repertoire alone - featuring the first commercial recording of the Piston Variations and the elegant Evett Concerto - is enticing enough. But there's much more. Luis Leguia, the veteran cellist of the Boston Symphony (since 1963) is also an inventor and here he performs on his unique Luis & Clark Carbon Fiber Cello, an instrument that has received exceptional praise from critics and musicians.

Ronald Perera is the Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music at Smith College. His compositions include operas, song cycles, chamber, choral and orchestral music and several works that combine instruments or voices with electronic sounds. Donald Wheelock is Irwin and Pauline Alper Glass Professor of Music at Smith College, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1974. His teachers include Edgar Curtis, Kenneth Leighton, Quincy Porter and Yehudi Wyner. His works include four string quartets, two symphonies, many works for solo instruments, eleven song cycles and many larger ensemble and orchestral works. Ed London is known primarily as a composer and conductor. His teachers included Gunther Schuller, Luigi Dallapiccola and Darius Milhaud. Like two other composers and one of the performers on this recording, he has a connection with Smith College, having taught there for most of the 60s. Since then he has taught at the University of Illinois and at Cleveland State University, where he founded the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the award-winning ensemble renowned for its enthusiastic performances of the works of living composers. The name Otto Luening appears most frequently in conjunction with his pioneering efforts with Vladimir Ussachevsky in the early days of electronic music. His talents, however, ranged far wider than experimentation in this area. He was trained extensively, both in Europe and America, as a flautist, conductor and composer, and his career, both as flautist and conductor, was considerable.

Nicholas Slonimsky once wrote: "Walter Piston has reached the stardom of the first magnitude. He has not exploded into stellar prominence like a surprising nova, but took his place inconspicuously, without passing through the inevitable stage of musical exhibition or futuristic eccentricity." Here we have the first modern performance of his wonderful Viola Concerto to appear on CD. John Harbison writes about his Viola Concerto: "The viola was my instrument of choice, the one I picked out as a very young concert goer. It had a commanding awkward size, a somewhat veiled, slightly melancholic tone quality, and it seemed always in the middle of things, a good vantage point for a composer (which I already wanted to be). It was frustrating to put up with beginning on the violin and I was told I could switch when my hands got bigger. When it was clear I would never have large hands I insisted on switching anyway and my first summer as a violist was spent in an informal chamber music group playing Haydn Quartets. That summer in Princeton, New Jersey, I remember as my happiest, the company of my friend John Sessions in the quartet, the wonder of the music we were exploring and the possibilities of the instrument I had always wanted to play. When it came to writing a concerto for viola I wrote a piece for the violist I never was, the true soloist, and the instrumental timbres I felt to be most typical of the instrument, its tenor voice, rather than its rather unnatural treble." Sam Adler writes: "The Concerto for Viola and Orchestra was begun in December 1998 and completed in February 1999 on a commission from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for its principal violist Randolph Kelly. This is the tenth concerto I have composed. The viola has a very special significance in my life since it was my major performing instrument in both chamber music situations as well as in the orchestra. To me, the major attribute of the viola is its ability to convey a most beautiful lyricism." More information on Randolph Kelly can be found at his website: www.randolphkelly.com.

Sigurd Rascher became an instant celebrity when he appeared as a soloist with orchestra at the German Composers' Festival in Hannover in 1932. There was no precedent for a saxophone concerto to be performed at a composers' festival. Reviews of the concert appeared in all parts of Germany. This triumphant orchestral debut, with a concerto by Edmund von Borck (1906-1944), led to repeat performances a few weeks later with the orchestra in Berlin, this time under the baton of the celebrated Eugene Jochum. This was followed by orchestral engagements for Rascher throughout the world. During his long career as a concert artist, he performed with virtually every major orchestra and conductor in the world. With the exception of Debussy's Rapsodie (1904), the enormous number of concerti in Rascher's repertoire were all composed for and dedicated to him. All of these came about as the result of mutual artistic enthusiasm; not one was commissioned. One of Rascher's lifelong goals was to make sure a suitable repertoire was established for the saxophone. This CD contains a sampling of the many works for saxophone and orchestra that he inspired from the pens of American composers. For many years, he was the only person in the world with the ability to perform most of this repertoire. That others now perform it is largely a tribute to Rascher's own influence as the teacher and role model for succeeding generations of saxophonists.

Two works for soprano and orchestra by American composers comprise this recording. Frank Ticheli composed An American Dream as his fifth and final work for the Pacific Symphony Orchestra during his seven-year tenure as the orchestra's Composer-in-Residence. Based on a text by Philip Littell, the work addresses the conscious and unconscious sea of anxiety during the winding down of 20th-century America. Lansing McLoskey has chosen to excerpt lines for his text for Prex Penitentialis from two works by Petrarch: the Canzoniere, a collection of love poems, and Septem Psalmi Penitentialis, in which the civil war between body and soul is made explicitly and profoundly clear.

A brand new name to the catalog - wonderful music. Robert Nelson was born in Phoenix and studied at the University of Southern California with Ingolf Dahl and Halsey Stevens. He is currently a Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Houston Moores School of Music. He has long been interested in theatrical music, as both a composer and coach/conductor. This meshes with a life-long interest in the widest range of musical idioms - from the most avant-garde contemporary effects to current jazz and popular styles. Writing for the theater has allowed him to explore all these various idioms and employ whichever were most appropriate to the project at hand. His theatrical experience has included a long involvement as composer for the extraordinary mime troupe of the University of Houston School of Theater.

Most music lovers' first acquaintance with the music of Andrei Eshpai was with the Concerto for Orchestra on the old Melodyia LP. If you remember this disc, then you will remember two things; how delightful the music was and what a great recording it was. Well, here in great sound, we have this very same performance for everyone to enjoy. Even though the performance of the Piano Concerto is in mono sound, we felt that because of the historical significance of this performance, it should be included in this series. The excitement is palpable - every measure bristles with energy. To complete the disc, a more somber work, Symphony No. 7. Here is an example of Eshpai's more recent music - still beautiful and appealing.

In volume three of this very well-received series, we have early, middle and late examples of the works of this fine composer. If any of these performances have appeared anywhere before here, on this new CD, they appear in the best sound they have ever received for the performances have all been remastered for this series of recordings. We feel that Eshpai is a composer of sufficient stature that his music deserves the best sound possible, so the listener can judge more appropriately the quality of the music. This has been done.

You are probably thinking, with the reputation of Albany Records for American music and composers, what are we doing introducing a series of recordings devoted to the music of Andrei Eshpai? The answer is simple. For the same reason we have so much of the English composer George Lloyd's music in our catalogue. He is a good composer who is under-represented in the catalogue as a whole. In short, we think his music is terrific and will appeal to a large audience if only they have a chance to hear it. So we are going to give you the chance. Besides, as with George Lloyd, here in Albany, we have had a special relationship with Mr. Eshpai. In February 1992, he was here in Albany when the Albany Symphony Orchestra performed his Concerto For Orchestra. From that time on, we have maintained close contact so much so that the master tapes from which this series of recordings will be drawn have been supplied to us directly by the Eshpai family. So, there will be many treasures to come. Andre Eshpai was born on May 15, 1925 in the ancient city of Kozmodemynsk on the Volga River in the autonomous republic of Mari of the RSFSR. His father, Yakov Andreevich Eshpai (1890-1963), was one of Mari's first professional composers. He was also a choral conductor, folklorist and educator. He composed the first Mari instrumental works, collected the folksongs of his region, and for many years was on the faculty of the Mari National Institute of Language, Literature and History in Ioshkar-Ola (the capital of the Mari Republic). The Eshpai home was a gathering place for many creative individuals - musicians, artists, writers and other intellectuals. It was in this enriching environment that Andrei grew up. In 1928 the family moved to Moscow where his father attended the Conservatory and his mother the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. Soon young Andrei began taking music lessons as well. He studied at Gnessin from 1934 to 1941. He served in the Soviet Army from 1943-1946. When he got out, he returned to the Moscow Conservatory where he studied the piano and composition with Miaskovsky and Orchestration with Nicolai Rakov. He graduated in 1953 and then entered the post graduate program with Aram Khachaturian. Today, he is the President of the Russian Author's Society (the equivalent of our ASCAP or BMI). The music of this fine composer should have a wide appeal.

Here is one of Maestro Eshpai's greatest scores. This music was once available as a 2-LP Melodiya set and was long sought after by collectors. The sound has been re-mastered and is here presented on CD for the first time. In essence "A Circle" is a ballet symphony. So significant is the theme of the ballet, the landscape of the infinitely changing world, that one is naturally led to the idea of its treatment by purely orchestral, symphonic means outside any imagery. Lyricism occupies a prominent place in the ballet as does music from previous ages. There is the Viennese waltz, the military march, a gracious old-fashioned arrangement of the minuet. Of course rhythms of the 20th century permeate the work as do echoes of music from jazz bands and even a hint of rock. There are the sounds of bells throughout the work symbolizing death and there are lovely, lyrical themes from the strings symbolizing the two lovers. Here is music in the mainstream of Russian ballet. If you enjoy Shostakovich, you will love this new composition by Eshpai.

The eminent violinist Andrés Cárdenes offers a world premiere recording of David Stock's Violin Concerto, written for and premiered by him, as well as Aaron Copland's Violin Sonata arranged by Gerald Elias for violin and chamber orchestra along with a staple of the repertoire, Barber's violin concerto. Mr. Cárdenes holds the Rachel Mellon Walton Endowed Concertmaster Chair of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, teaches at Indiana University and maintains an active career as a soloist.

If you're of a "certain age," you grew up in the late '50s and early '60s hearing the music of Angelo Musolino without even knowing his name. He was responsible for original music and arrangements for the Ed Sullivan Show, a dozen nationally televised game shows, the Children's Television Workshop, and many more. At the same time, his concert works were being performed in the United States and Europe. He was born in New York City, learned his craft in "formal" institutions during the day while playing with such names as Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Mandel and Oscar Pettiford at night. He carries on the traditions of Copland, Bernstein, and Henry Mancini and Nelson Riddle, writing in a style that freely combines pop elements with a traditional orchestral scoring. This new disc, a companion to his earlier CD Opening Doors (TROY708), reveals a master of light musical forms. You may not know his name now, but you will definitely remember it after hearing this delightful disc.

Argentinian-American composer Florencio Asenjo couples two works inspired by books whose authors were attracted to the contrast between the finite and the infinite with a concerto for orchestra that gives each type of instrument a solo part. Asenjo, who writes in a style he has labeled maximalism, which involves the creation of entirely new themes connected aesthetically to the preceding one -- a development of substance rather than of form. This is fifth recording of his music to appear on Albany Records. His music has been championed by Kirk Trevor, who conducts these performances by the Bulgarian Philharmonic.

The central work on this recording of orchestral music by American composers is Roy Harris' Sixth Symphony, called the "Gettysburg." Prior to composing the work, Harris read Carl Sandburg's biography of Lincoln, and this, in addition to enlarging upon his factual knowledge of the sixteenth president, helped the composer solidify his own feelings towards the man and the symbol. Though in the years since the Sixth Symphony appeared, there has been growing skepticism about politicians, increasingly leading to an at times almost cynical re-evaluation of even some of our most hallowed figures, one must acknowledge the sincerity and strength of the idealistic spirit motivating Harris during this period. One must also recognize that the rich and varied symphony that emerged as a result reflects a complex tapestry of influences. The Sixth Symphony, written in 1943-44 on commission from the Blue Network (a predecessor of the American Broadcasting Corporation), is very much a summary of what Roy Harris was as a man and a composer.

In recent years the music of Roberto Sierra has received much attention and has met with particular acclaim both in North America and Europe. He was born in Puerto Rico where he pursued early studies at the Conservatory of Music and the University of Puerto Rico. After graduation, he went to Europe to further his musical knowledge, studying first at the Royal College of Music and the University of London, and later at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht. Between 1979 and 1982, he did advanced work in Hamburg with Gyorgy Ligeti. In 1982, Sierra returned to Puerto Rico to occupy administrative posts in arts administration and higher education, first as Director of the Cultural Activities Department at the University of Puerto Rico, and later as Chancellor of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. In 1989 Roberto Sierra became Composer-in-Residence of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. In addition to advising the MSO on American repertoire, he contributed to the musical life of Milwaukee with a number of new works, including pieces for local chamber and choral ensembles, and for individual musicians. He is currently teaching composition at Cornell University. During the 2000-2001 season Sierra was Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Junctures written in 1979 and Spirits of the Night in 1976, are alike in the sense that the musical materials used in both works are similar with the startling exception of the soprano in Junctures. But the listener will probably experience each of the works as vastly different from one another. Junctures uses the same orchestral forces as Spirits of the Night but sparingly, less overtly. The energy one senses is more subdued, with more "air" surrounding unfolding events. Sunday Silence is a 15-minute work for solo piano completed in November 1989 and premiered by Alan Mandel on October 1, 1990 at Weill Recital Hall in New York. Characteristic of Bazelon's late style, and reflecting the composer's passion for horse racing, it is named for the winner of the 1989 Kentucky Derby and racing horse of the year - Sunday Silence. Concatenations was commissioned by Frank Epstein for the New England Conservatory of Music Percussion Ensemble. The first performance was on May 1, 1977 with Frank Epstein conducting and Burton Fine, violist at Jordan Hall in Boston.

Born in Chicago in1922, composer Irwin Bazelon graduated from DePaul University and later studied composition with Darius Milhaud. Bazelon's works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo instrument, and voice have been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has conducted his music with such orchestras as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Kansas City Philharmonic, and the Orchestre National de Lille. Grants and commissions were awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Kansas City Philharmonic and the New Orleans Philharmonic, among others. The composer served as guest composer and lecturer at many prestigious American colleges and universities, including Rutgers University, Williams College, the University of South Carolina and Eastman. Bazelon, a noted authority on film music and composer of many documentary film scores, has written Knowing the Score - Notes on Film Music, a book widely used on college campuses.

Composer William Hill writes in the notes that his "Symphony No. 2 is subtitled Beethoven 7.1 due to its numerous references to Beethoven's great 7th symphony, and is designed as a companion piece for that symphony." The brainchild of conductor Lawrence Golan, the "Point-One Series" is an ongoing project consisting of the commissioning and recording of contemporary compositions that are musically linked to great masterpieces of the orchestral repertoire. The objective is to help create a body of high quality contemporary works whose chances for a viable future are increased by the natural place within orchestral concert programming that they have. The first release in this series included Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 and Peter Boyer's Tchaikovsky 6.1 (TROY1027).

Benjamin Lees spent his early years in San Francisco, moving to Los Angeles with his family in 1939. He attended the University of Southern California after military service in World War II and later began four years of intensive private study with George Antheil. Following a Fromm Foundation Award in 1953 and his first Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954, the composer and his wife left for Europe where they remained for seven years. Lees returned to the U.S. in 1962, joining the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory as the W. Alton Jones Professor of Composition. He also taught composition at Queens College, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School. His Symphony No. 2 was given its world premiere on December 3, 1958 by the Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney conducting. Sixten Ehrling conducted the world premiere of the Third Symphony on January 16, 1969. Both these symphonies appeared in the original Louisville Orchestra subscription series of recordings. They receive here their first modern digital recordings. The premiere of the Symphony No. 5 took place on March 29, 1998 with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stephen Gunzenhauser. The Etudes for Piano and Orchestra were first performed by the Houston Symphony Orchestra with Lawrence Foster conducting. They are dedicated to the pianist who performs them here, James Dick.

Born in 1934, composer Bernard Hoffer attended the Eastman School of Music. After serving as arranger for the U.S. Army Field Band, he came to New York as a freelance musician/pianist, composer, conductor and arranger. He has written extensively for films, television and commercials for which he has won several Emmy nominations, including the music for the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour. One of the major works on this recording (MacNeil/Lehrer Variations) is based on the theme he wrote for the News Hour in 1975. The two elegies on the recording are Hoffer's musical reaction to friends and loved ones' deaths. The Symphony was influenced and inspired by an exhibit of the New York abstract expressionist Richard Pousette-Dart's work.

One of the major audiophile recordings comes around full circle! Recorded in 1979 at London's Watford Town Hall by the great engineer/producer Brian Culverhouse, this was one of the first digital (Soundstream process, to be exact) LPs on the market. Several years later, Albany reissued it on CD in a more complete version of the score. And now, nearly 30 years (!) later, it's back on SACD, sounding better than ever. This is lovely, tonal, neo-Romantic music lavishly written for the orchestra and vocalists (singing both in English and Hawaiian) in a particularly sympathetic performance conducted by Lee Holdridge whose own fame as a film and concert composer increased in the years since. Jerre Tanner, of French and Cherokee Indian descent, was born in Pennsylvania. His childhood was spent in national wildlife reserve lands where his father was superintendent of fish hatcheries. Tanner currently lives in Hawaii, as did John Thomas (1927-2001), the artist whose paintings inspired this wonderful oratorio. Those paintings are reproduced throughout the booklet, which also contains a complete libretto.

The renowned saxophonist Dale Underwood offers a unique program of music by Brazilian composers for saxophone and orchestra. Currently on the faculty at the Frost School of Music, Underwood has been an active performer and educator for five decades, developing a world-renowned reputation. He has performed all across the United States and many countries around the world. Dubbed "the Heifetz of the alto saxophone" by the Washington Post, he has contributed to the expansion of the saxophone repertoire and establishing the saxophone as a classical instrument and helped raise the performance standard.