Catalog

Composer Stephen Rush has written six operas, more than 50 works for dance, chamber, and electronic media, concertos, and four symphonies. His works have been performed by distinguished ensembles including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Warsaw National Symphony. The author of two books, his music appears on several record labels including Centaur, MMC, and Innova. A professor of music at the University of Michigan, he founded the Digital Music Ensemble at that institution, which he has directed for 25 years. He tours and records with his electronic psychedelic improvisation band, Crystal Mooncone. For this recording on Albany Records, he has chosen a variety of chamber works for varying ensembles including three versions of Taming the Ox, a work commissioned by flutist Rebecca Gilbert as a means of public sonic meditation.

The music of Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand (b. 1970) is wide-ranging — from settings of classical Arabic poetry to scores for dance and pieces for young audiences. His works explore connections between music and other arts, and draw inspiration from diverse sources such as 19th century graphic art, fables of the world, folksong and jazz. This second recording on Albany Records devoted to his music amply demonstrates these influences. Two of the works are inspired by literary sources (Imaginary Scenes and Four Fables); while Capriccios takes its inspiration from the Paganini 24 Capriccios and the Variations on a Theme of Bartok draws from Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Movements from the Art of Conversation are introduced to the audience through short, spoken dialogues performed by the string quartet, which alternate with the seven movements of the piece.

James Yannatos was born and educated in New York City. His teachers were Boulanger, Dallapiccola, Milhaud and Hindemith in composition and William Steinberg and Leonard Bernstein for conducting. He has been Music Director of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra since 1964. A word now about the soloists who appear on this recording. Martha Babcock is the principal cellist of the Boston Symphony, Edwin Barker the principal doublebass with the Boston Symphony and for many years Doriot Anthony Dwyer was the principal flute for the same Orchestra. Eric Ruske was named Associate Principal Horn of the Cleveland Orchestra when he was only 20.

Robert Starer was born in Vienna in 1924. He entered the State Academy at age 13. Soon after Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938, he went to Jerusalem and continued his studies at the Palestine Conservatory. During World War II, he served with the British Royal Air Force. In 1947, he came to New York City for post-graduate study at Juilliard. He also studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1948. In 1957, he became an American citizen. He taught at Juilliard from 1949 to 1974 and at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York from 1963-1991. In 1994, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His book, Continuo: A Life in Music was published by Random House in 1987. His complete works for solo piano have recently been published in one volume. In 1986, Itzhak Perlman recorded his Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa. This disc offers a selection of Mr. Starer's chamber works for voice and various instruments.

Joel Brown, the guitarist on this recording of works by American composers says in the booklet notes, "My original idea to record guitar quintets by Boccherini and Giuliani changed abruptly after meeting Andrew York at a Los Angeles Guitar Quartet concert. York's infectious compositional style appealed to me and I found myself working new music into what had been a 19th century program. When I approached Andrew about writing for my recording he enthusiastically accepted. This changed everything for me; if Andrew York was interested, then why not other composers as well? Before I knew it, five composers - some of them old friends, some of them new friends - were writing music for a now rethought ensemble of guitar, flute and cello. Several times during this project when the inevitable problems arose, I felt that even if everything were to fall through, I was still infinitely richer for the experience. To work so closely with these fine composers was a rare opportunity. And working with such incredible musicians and good friends as Jan Vinci and Ann Alton was a great pleasure. But the greatest reward is the privilege of premiering this music."

Renowned harpist Emily Mitchell has long championed the music of Gary Schocker. To date, Schocker has written more than 125 pieces for the harp, so it becomes a challenge to choose which to record. Each is unique and beautifully written. Schocker, a flutist/composer, is an outstanding musician of outstanding versatility. He enjoys an international career as a flute soloist, and his compositions include sonatas and chamber works for most instruments of the orchestra. He has also written several musicals and is now studying to be a harpist. Harpist Emily Mitchell has been heard worldwide to critical acclaim as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has been profiled on The Today Show and Good Morning America, among many others. After performing and teaching in New York City for 30 years, she relocated to Texas, where she is now on the faculties of Stephen F. Austin State and Sam Houston State Universities. Her discography includes her popular Celtic harp recordings for RCA Victor as well as four recordings on Albany Records of the music of Gary Schocker.

The Balaton Chamber Brass (Amy Cherry, trumpet; Dan Cherry, trombone) is a duo created with the intent of furthering the art of brass chamber music, performing educational outreach concerts, and adding new works to the brass repertoire. They have presented recitals at the International Women's Brass Conference; at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory, Morehead State University, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, and Western Carolina University. They have served on the faculties of Western Carolina University, Morehead State University, East Tennessee State University, and Wright State University and are now teaching at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. For this recording they give expressive and informed performances of new works by Michael Kallstrom, Michael Sitton, Elizabeth Raum, Bruce Frazier and Wayne Lu.

Composer Charles Bestor received his musical training under Paul Hindemith, Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin and Vladiir Ussachevsky. His long career has included numerous awards and commissions and recordings of his music appear on Albany Records, Capstone, Centaur, New Ariel, Serenus, Orion and MSR Classics. He has pursued a parallel career as a teacher and administrator and served on the faculty and administration of the Juilliard School, Wilamette University and the Universities of Massachusetts, Utah and Alabama. He is presently Professor of Composition Emeritus and Director of the Electronic and Computer Music Studios of the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. This recording is the first devoted to his orchestral works. Two works on the recording (Requiem and The Long Goodbye) are the composer's attempt to generalize a private personal loss.

The Sound of Time, a study in the electronic manipulation of language, consists of the artistic genre often referred to as installation art. All but one of them came into being as scores for a series of interactive sound and sculpture installations designed by fiber artists and a stage designer. The one exception is the three-movement Concerto Piccolo for trumpet and electronics that appears throughout the disc to provide a recurring reference to the outside world of acoustic musical sound. Composer Charles Bestor is the recipient of numerous awards and commissions. He is a Fellow at the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Ragsdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. This is the first compact disc devoted entirely to his electronic music.

The programmatic character of the First Sonata for Piano by Charles Ives according to John Kirkpatrick, has “the family together in the 1st and 5th movements; the boy is sowing his oats in the ragtimes (2nd and 4th movements; and there is parental anxiety in the third movement. The hymns quoted in each specific movement strengthen the programmatic aspect of the sonata and structure the composition as a large overall five-part arch form. The First Sonata is a landmark of American piano literature, although less well known than Ives’ Concord Sonata. John Noel Roberts has demonstrated his interpretive skills, technical ability, and wide-ranging piano repertoire in solo and concerto performances around the world. A graduate of Eastman and Yale, he was formerly artist in residence and head of music at the Western Australian Conservatorim of Music. He has also served on the faculties at Furman, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Mercer University, Stephen F. Austin University, and Concordia College. He currently serves on the faculty at Our Lady of the Lake University.

Baritone Bradley Robinson explains what moved him to pursue this recording: "Many know of Ives the musical experimenter, life insurance revolutionist and, at times, the short-tempered eccentric. But there was so much more to the man: Ives the Devoted Son, Loving Husband, Adoring Father, Charity Volunteer, Philosopher, Social Activist, Man of Great Spiritual Convictions, Musical Jokester, Publicity-shunning Philanthropist; and the list goes on. " Robinson invites us to get to know Ives better by seeing how deeply the manner in which he expressed himself musically was influenced by factors which included events he personally experienced, his attitudes towards everyday things, philosophic and/or religious beliefs, and wonderful sense of humor. Bradley Robinson has performed opera, oratorio, and musical theatre throughout the United States to critical acclaim and is on the faculty at the University of Mississippi. His collaborator, pianist Stacy Rodgers, also teaches at the University of Mississippi.

Like all of Wuorinen's music from the past three decades, the duos on this recording take the long view of musical history and align themselves not only with its expressive traditions, but much more importantly, with its secure and sustained future. The spare utterance of those works of the great European tradition that are composed for only two musicians, leave no margin for error: all is exposed when writing for two contrasting instruments. These duos, spanning slightly more than a quarter century of Wuorinen's oeuvre, never lapse in their intensity and invention. They display an impressive fecundity of sources and outward forms.

Albany Records continues its series devoted to the music of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Charles Wuorinen with this disc, which includes the world premiere recordings of two major chamber works from 2008, as well as new recordings of two Wuorinen classics. The music is performed by several of the finest Wuorinen specialsts: the New York New Music Ensemble; violinist Mark Steinberg; pianist Alan Feinberg; and percussionist George Nickson. In the notes, Frank J. Oteri writes that "At this point in his career, his [Wuorinen's] chamber music output must now be one of the most extensive ever created by an American composer." The four works are performed in descending order of the number of musicians involved: quartet, trio, duo and solo percussion, although the final work is every bit as multilayered as the earlier works, giving the impression of a work for chamber ensemble.

This series devoted to one of America’s most significant composers brings together 12 vocal works, all but one written in the last two decades. Most of the shorter selections were composed for the Works and Process at the Guggenheim series in New York, and were designed for programs honoring the various poets (Les Murray, John Ashbery, Derek Walcott, Stanley Kunitz and Paul Auster).

On this recording by the Dallas Chamber Symphony, two major works by American composers offer representative views of the migrant experience. In Chasing Home, composed in 2017 by Joseph Thalken, conversations with refugees from around the world inspired dance scenes based on the plight of migrants fleeing the Syrian Civil War. Appalachian Spring is a ballet about pioneers in Pennsylvania in that time when opportunity and open space drew Americans ever farther west. The Dallas Chamber Symphony, led by Richard McKay, was founded in 2011 and is renowned for its musical excellence, imaginatively curated concerts and groundbreaking multidisciplinary collaborations.

Clarinet trio CDs aren't the most mainstream kind of CDs around. However there are always clarinetists like the distinguished artists from Chicago performing on this recording who are always searching for fun, interesting new music to perform. The music was selected with these criteria in mind and the hope is the listeners will find the "fun" in this music -- four works of which were written specifically for this ensemble.

The Chicago Trombone Consort was formed in 2008 as a creative outlet for some of the top professional trombonists in Chicago. As a diverse collection of musicians in a city with a rich and storied brass tradition, their mission is to explore new avenues of trombone music in a variety of ensemble situations. This debut recording of the CTC presents a varied repertoire including well-known works for brass, several new critical editions, an outstanding fantasy suite from Strauss’ Alpine Symphony and an exciting new work by American composer Rob Deemer. Lovers of brass music are sure to enjoy the Chicago sound!

Paul Seiko Chihara was born in Seattle, Washington and received his DMA from Cornell University in 1965 as a student of Robert Palmer. He also studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Ernst Pepping in Berlin and Gunther Schuller at Tanglewood. With Toru Takemitsu, Chihara was composer-in-residence at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont in 1971, and was the first composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (Neville Marriner, conductor). He is currently on the music faculty of UCLA. Chihara's prize-winning concert works have been performed in most major cities and arts centers in the United States and Europe. Perhaps due to the extraordinary color sensitivity of his music, he has had an illustrious parallel career composing for stage, TV and film. He has composed the scores for over 90 motion pictures and television series including the film Prince of the City and the television series China Beach. He has also worked on Broadway, serving as music consultant and orchestrator for Duke Ellington's hit musical Sophisticated Ladies, and as composer for Shogun the Musical. He was composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Ballet from 1973-1986. While there, he composed many trailblazing works, including the first full-length American ballet The Tempest.

Alastair Reid and Bill Crofut, collaborators on this disc of songs and poems for children write: "In some ways, children make an ideal audience for poetry: they have few preconceptions, they are alert to rhythm and cadence, and they can still thrill to the kind of word-excitements that occur in the language of poetry more than anywhere. They are less concerned with worrying a poem into being than with following where it takes them. So-called "children's poetry" often condescends to children as little people, whereas children frequently respond deeply to poems they may understand imperfectly. We have looked for poems with a certain tingle to them, a sound pattern that makes them good to take in through the ear. Songs and poems have always been closely related; and indeed, the songs on this record began life as poems, and remain poems. They have been given musical wings, as it were, by being made into songs and sent flying. The music of poems is sparer and quieter, but it is what makes poems stay in the memory. The two threads, of poetry and song, wind through this record, sometimes intertwining, sometimes separating, but always complementing one another. While one's perception of meaning in verse may change and grow with years, the basic joy in the rhythm and beauty of language is possibly as strong if not more so in childhood.

Pianist Mirian Conti reflects on the joys of her own childhood and her reasons for making this recording of music written about children: "As we travel around the world, the sounds, images, colors, smells, and first emotions are experienced by children pretty much in the same way in every corner of the planet. The composers represented in this recording, coming from six different countries, no doubt experienced their lives as children, and also looked back at that life as adults. The compositions here are about children, not for, children Their music is about remembering those first feelings of awe, wonder, fear, desire, and the many doubts about the immediate future the sounds of our music are strongly engraved in our genetic makeup -- the lullabies, the popular songs of our times, or the songs at school The collective songs and dances of a culture learned as a child are part of that child's musical DNA." Born in Argentina, Mirian Conti is a graduate of Juilliard and a Yamaha Artist. She has served on the Faculty of the Evening Division at The Juilliard School since 2007. She is a prolific recording artist who has recordings on the Island, Albany, Koch, Toccata, XLNT, Parnassus, and Steinway labels. As a soloist, she has appeared around the world with many orchestras and is a much sought after juror for international competitions. Among her most recent awards is the Isaac Albeniz Medal.

The Massachusetts Wind Orchestra was founded in 1991 by Music Director, Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr., and has captured the attention and participation of some 140 outstanding musicians from throughout the East. This ensemble is now recognized as one of the finest professional ensembles of its kind in the United States. The Massachusetts Wind Orchestra provides quality musical experiences to wind, brass and percussion musicians. Its personnel are professional musicians , educators and freelancers who have trained at many of America's leading conservatories, colleges and universities. The ensemble offers a unique opportunity to experience and explore traditional and contemporary wind music while aspiring to the highest musical standards. It provides an avenue of professional growth for its membership, and its innovative programming honors the heritage of bands while advancing the medium into the 21st century through commissions, premieres and recordings. On September 21, 1997, at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall, the Massachusetts Wind Orchestra presented the first wind band concert ever heard at Tanglewood.

The Scott/Garrison Duo, 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. Scott is on the faculty at Washington State University and is principal clarinet of the Walla Walla Symphony and the Eastern Music Festival, while Garrison teaches at the University of Idaho, is flutist in the Northwest Wind Quintet and principal flute of the Walla Walla Symphony. In this, their third recording for Albany Records, the duo performs works by American composers.

A native of Oklahoma, George Quincy celebrates his Choctaw heritage. He holds two degrees from the Juilliard School where he later taught. He served as musical advisor to Martha Graham before going on to compose, orchestrate and conduct music for theater, dance, film, opera, television and concert. The composer writes: "When I was a boy in Oklahoma, the nights were magical, the stars incredibly bright. I used to lie in the grass and wonder. Jupiter was so bright, it invited all kinds of images. It surely was inhabited, I thought. I used to mix up myths of the West (Greece) with those of the Choctaw which surrounded me." Nina da Vinci Nicholas writing in Theater Scene writes: "Choctaw Nights sails by its own star into luscious harmonies. Melody floats above rhythmic base. Jupiter has a long lyrical line that sings and sings above a repeating rhythmic figure in the piano. Voices from Ground Zero contains a moving elegiac strain picked up by each of the instruments. A romantic yearning breaks through."

As the performers note, everyone who loves Chopin understands that his Polish roots fired his artistic inspiration. In this recording of three of Chopin's works involving cello and piano, the cellists he met, the music he heard, the pianos he played, and above all, that mythic love for his homeland are acknowledged. All of these works benefit from the special qualities of the Pleyel piano used for this recording, as well as the gut strings and 19th-century techniques of cello playing used by cellist Brent Wissick. Wissick, noted for his work on period instruments has given concerts on baroque cello and viola da gamba around the world. He is on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His colleague, pianist Andrew Willis, has spent several decades exploring the historical development of keyboard instruments and their performance practice. Willis serves on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Margaret Garwood, like many earlier composers, is essentially self-taught. She passed the requirements for a Bachelor's degree in music by examination, and now holds a graduate degree in composition. She is greatly indebted to composers Julia Smith, Louise Talma, and especially Miriam Gideon for their support. While she has written several instrumental chamber works, the majority of her output is for voices, and includes four operas, numerous song cycles, and works for combined chorus and orchestra. Her operas have received fully staged productions in New York, Philadelphia and on the West Coast. They include The Trojan Women, The Nightingale and the Rose, Rappaccini's Daughter, and an opera for children entitled Joringel and the Songflower. She has written the librettos to all her own operas, with the exception of the first one. She is presently working on an opera based on Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) is today recognized as a leading symphonic composer of the Viennese school in the direct lineage of Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. Nine of his 11 symphonies are central to the late Romantic orchestral repertory, with the three mature masses and Te Deum representing the final flowering of the Austro-German symphonic choral tradition as exemplified by the festive mass-oratorios of Haydn and Schubert. A less familiar side of Bruckner's work is found in his many smaller occasional pieces for choir, some with instrumental accompaniment, all of which, in contrast to the symphonies, take only a few minutes in performance. These short choral works, both sacred and secular, date from all periods of Bruckner's creative life, which is to say from his first known work as a child of 11, to the last completed opus in 1893. In many cases, the motets and choruses show a development of Bruckner's skill and imagination paralleling that seen in his better-known symphonies.

Kenneth Fuchs is currently Director of the School of Music at the University of Oklahoma. Christina's World was composed in New York City at the invitation of William Hipp, the Dean of the School of Music at the University of Miami. It was composed for the forces who perform it on this CD. Timothy Broege holds the position of Organist and Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church in Belmar, New Jersey and is a faculty member of the Monmouth Conservatory of Music in Red Bank, New Jersey. Michael Daugherty's Niagara Falls is a kind of musical souvenir inspired by the composer's many trips to Niagara Falls. It is a ten minute musical ride over the Niagara River with an occasional stop at a haunted house or a wax museum along the way. Gordon Jacob's Concerto for Bassoon blends the style and sonority of a traditional 18th century concerto with the well-defined melodies that are the hallmark of Jacob's style. David Gillingham is Professor of Theory and Composition in the Department of Music at Central Michigan University. His Concertino was commissioned by the Oklahoma State University Wind Ensemble.

You'll remember Joel Brown from all those wonderful discs with the late Bill Crofut from Albany's "early years." Now he's back with a delightful Christmas disc with his celebrated friends and family. This album was inspired by a concert and TV show featuring Brown's arrangements of Christmas tunes for a student guitar ensemble. It was such a success that he was encouraged to create this recording. All right, it took more than a decade but it was worth the wait! As with those great Crofut albums, the arrangements are jazzy, folksy and often times plain-old traditional. Of course you've heard these tunes a lot of times in the past, but they've never sounded so fresh as they do here. As Joel writes, "Christmas music has always been my favorite part of the holiday season. I still feel a flood of excitement and joy when I think of standing in our little hometown church singing in unison with family and friends. I hope the music on this recording will bring some of that same feeling to you. Merry Christmas!"

The Counterpoint Chorale and the Vermont Symphony Brass Quintet gave their first holiday concert in 2003 and, after countless requests, here is their first CD. It begins with a 50th anniversary performance of the late Daniel Pinkham's marvelous Christmas Cantata and continues through a bright and joyful collection of traditional tunes and discoveries. Christmas in Vermont is a feast for your ears and a gift for your heart.

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.

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.

The Master Chorale of Washington (formerly the Paul Hill Chorale) has attracted the praise of critics nationwide through over 200 performances at the Kennedy Center, American and European tours, and national radio and television broadcasts. Since 1969, the Chorale has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra under Howard Mitchell, Antal Dorati, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Julius Rudel, Neville Marriner and Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1971, the Chorale was featured in the inaugural concerts of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, and performs an annual series of concerts in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. There are 140 singers in the group, including a professional core. In June 1999, the Chorale was awarded the prestigious Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence by Chorus America.