Catalog

Composer, concert presenter, educator and arts administrator, Theodore Wiprud has played many important roles in American musical life since the 1980s. His ongoing work with musicians, students, and communities -- currently as Director of Education at the New York Philharmonic and host of the Philharmonic's Young People's Concerts -- corresponds with music described as "rewarding to perform," "warmly received by audiences," and "destined to set a high standard." Theodore Wiprud came of age as a composer as the rigorous precepts of both serialism and classic minimalism yielded to a flowering of musical plurality. His works characteristically employ a freely tonal approach to harmony, convey specific emotional climates, and often reflect aspects of spiritual experience. This is the first commercial recording dedicated to his music.

Donald Crockett is dedicated to creating music inspired by the musicians who perform it and this recording is no exception. It represents works composed across a span of about a dozen years and Xtet, the Los Angeles-based new music ensemble, with its highly variable instrumentation and composer/performer ethos, was the ideal vehicle to undertake the performance of this music. Donald Crockett was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006 and has also received the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, and an Aaron Copland Award, among many other honors. Also known as a conductor, Crockett has presented many world, national and regional premieres with Xtet. He has also been active over the years as a composer and conductor with the venerable and famed Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles. Donald Crockett is on the faculty of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music and serves as Senior Composer-in-Residence with the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East.

Composer John Aylward has been awarded a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fulbright Grant and First Prize from the International Society for Contemporary Music, among many other honors. His music has been praised for its rhythmic vitality, rigorous formal qualities and its lyricism and is performed in the US and abroad. He is on the faculty at Clark University and is the founder of the East Coast Contemporary Ensemble and the Etchings Festival. This recording offers some of his best chamber works including a song cycle based on the poetry of Louise Gluck, a piece for violin and cello and a large chamber ensemble work titled Stillness and Change.

Composer Paul Osterfield was born in 1973. He composed and performed as a cellist throughout middle school and high school. He won first prize as a student in the U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress Young Creators' Contest and the work was subsequently performed by the Cleveland Orchestra. Since then, his compositions have received performances internationally and throughout the United States. He is on the faculty at Middle Tennessee State University. A graduate of Cornell, Indiana University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, Osterfield's primary composition teachers include Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra. This first commercial recording of his music offers an overview of his chamber and vocal music.

Composer Paul Chihara comments that “This cd is a labor of love. It represents my activities in concert, ballet, movies and Broadway — and is unabashedly personal and romantic.” One can think of Paul Chihara as several different composers: the Chihara of exquisite instrumental color; the Chihara of the theatre; and the Chihara of American popular music. Premiering throughout the U.S. and Europe for more than five decades, Chihara’s prize-winning concert works have earned him both domestic and international recognition. He was composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Ballet, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Marlboro Festival. He has composed scores for more than 100 motion pictures and television series. Active on Broadway, he was musical consultant and arranger for Sophisticated Ladies.

A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Emma Lou Diemer received her degrees in music composition from the Yale School of Music (B.M., M.M.) and the Eastman School of Music (Ph.D.). She studied further in Brussels on a Fulbright Scholarship and at Tanglewood. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she taught composition and theory from 1971 to 1991. She has been composer-in-residence with the Santa Barbara Symphony, and is organist emerita at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Barbara. This recording offers some of her recent chamber works including a work for string trio and a work for brass and piano, both written in 2001.

Barbara White's music subverts our presumptions and compels us to alter the way we listen, to discard tired preconceptions and generic expectations. She projects a sense of stillness in the midst of intense activity and activity within stillness: we are directed to find the calm center in the furiously moving; alternately, we are invited to listen deeply and actively to the quieter music, to sense a vast reservoir of unexpressed energy, to enter the depths of reverberaÂtion and enjoy the subtle decay of harmonics, to be thrown off balance by an unexpectedly delayed or anticipated attack. This music of transparent density and dense transparency compels us. Its surprises enlighten rather than shock. White's music has been presented by ensembles such as the Orchestra of St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, eighth blackbird, and janus. Honors and awards include a Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship. Ms. White is Professor of Music at Princeton University.

Composer Andrew Waggoner notes that these are five recent pieces that grew somehow out of the narrow space in which experience is transformed into history. Time, memory, the spell of love and the long-sounding echoes of terror inform each of these works, which while stylistically varied, share a common set of musical and emotional concerns. Bookending these pieces are two group improvisations by Open End. They frame and comment on the works they enclose. Born in 1960 in New Orleans, Andrew Waggoner studied at Eastman and Cornell. He has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Academy of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and the Saint Louis Symphony, among others. He is the recipient of an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Roger Sessions Prize. He is Composer-in-Residence at the Setnor School of Music of Syracuse University and a co-founder of the new music ensemble Open End.

The Stentorian Consort (David Begnoche, Barney McCollum, Brent Phillips and Jonathan Whitaker) offers a program of works for trombone that includes five world premiere recordings. Praised for inspired performances and innovative programming, the Consort has established itself as one of the nation's premiere trombone quartets. They maintain an active performance schedule of recitals and master classes and have performed by invitation at several trombone conferences. This, their second recording celebrates and reflects their continued interest in new repertoire. The Stentorian Consort is joined by guest soloist Joseph Alessi, principal trombone of the New York Philharmonic, for two works on the recording.

Jan Krzywicki (b. 1948) is active as a composer, conductor and educator. He has been comÂmissioned by prestigious performers, and organizations such as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, the Chestnut Brass Company, and performed across the United States by ensembles such as the Colorado Quartet, the Network for New Music, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Alea III, and others. He is the recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, a Rockefeller Foundation residency (Bellagio, Italy), a Bogliasco Foundation residency (Bogliasco, Italy), ASCAP and Meet the Composer awards, and has been a Fellow at the MacDowell, Yaddo, Millay, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts artist colonies. As a conductor he has led chamber and orchestral groups in literature from the middle ages to the present, including a large number of premieres. Since 1990 he has been conductor of the contemporary ensemble Network for New Music. Krzywicki is a professor of music theory at Temple University. All the compositions on this recording were composed in 2000 or later and complement his first disc of chamber works on Albany Records (TROY337).

In this recording of Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen's chamber music, he explains that "Throughout my life, I have had two basic sources of inspiration, the power of nature and the power of the mind." While most of his compositions have been for orchestra, he uses the same sources of inspiration for his chamber music, but the textures and colors are varied to suit the chamber medium. Prangcharoen has established an international reputation and is recognized as one of Thailand's leading composers. Among many other awards, he has received the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Commission and the Audience Choice Award. His music has been performed in Asia, America, Australia and Europe. He is the founder of the Thailand International Composition Festival and is on the faculty of the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri in Kansas City.

The chamber music repertoire for horn may not be vast, but it can boast of exceptional works that employ the instrument in myriad intriguing ways as so elegantly demonstrated by Richard King on this recording. King, principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1997, has been featured numerous times as soloist with Cleveland as well as with the Tokyo Symphony and Auckland Philharmonia. A graduate of Curtis, King was a member of the Center City Brass Quintet. He is on the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music. King is joined on this disc by his colleagues from the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Institute.

Clarinetist Dennis Nygren has recorded a wonderful program of music written especially for him, music that he has arranged and works that have not been previously recorded on clarinet. Dr. Nygren was on the faculty at Kent State University from 1983 to 2012, receiving the Distinguished Honors Faculty Award in 2008. He has been in demand as a guest soloist, recitalist, orchestral player, chamber musician, clinician and lecturer. A graduate of Michigan State University and Northwestern University where he earned a Doctor of Music degree, he is an acknowledged expert on the clarinet music of Debussy and Berg, Nygren is also known for his arrangement of Victor Babin's Hillandale Waltzes for clarinet and wind ensemble. His arrangements on this disc include the Mozart Church Sonatas, originally scored for violins with organ continuo, the Montbrun Six Pièces and the Debussy Four Songs.

The Palisades Virtuosi continues their commendable series of commissioning new works from outstanding American composers for their trio's instrumentation of flute, clarinet and piano. This fourth volume brings the total to almost 50 new works the ensemble has added to the repertoire. Two of the works on this recording have the added attraction of the formidable Marni Nixon joining the group to narrate the poetry in the Unitarian Hymnal that forms the background for Gwyneth Walker's work and the information about crows that precedes each movement of Amanda Harberg's Birding in the Palisades. Palisades Virtuosi consists of the virtuoso musicians Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet and Ron Levy, piano. The ensemble has received rave reviews for its previous three releases on Albany Records.

This string quartet by noted American composer Joseph Summer is a musical interpretation of the named stories of the preeminent 20th century fabulist, Jorge Luis Borges. Born in 1956, Joseph Summer studied at Oberlin and was on the faculty at Carnegie-Mellon. Summer has written four comic operas based on the stories of The Decameron. These operas are part of a planned seven opera cycle, which follows the exploits of a half dozen characters over the course of a week in an imagined 14th century Naples. Founder of The Shakespeare Concerts, Summer's music inspired by Shakespeare appears on three previously released recordings on Albany Records.

The intensity and focus of David Glaser's music reflect the concentration of his life. He has lived in New York City for the entirety of it -- raised in Queens, and for the past 25 years, living in Manhattan. What characterizes virtually all of his music heard on this recording is its intentional direction towards New York concert-music performers, their ensembles, and the culture and tradition that they embody and extend. His music calls visual metaphors to mind: the luminous radiance of its sparkling timbral textures is a reflection of the focus of an intense conception, asking that an audience shut its eyes in order to see. Glaser is a graduate of Columbia University and is the recipient of awards and commissions from the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Alice M. Ditson Fund, and the American Music Center.

This recording presents works for flute and harp that seamlessly arc between the natural world and the human spirit, serving as reminders of the fragility of the environment and the ability to perceive and affect it. As the Aletheia Duo, flutist Jonathan Keeble and harpist Ann Yeung share a passion for bringing the creative possibilities of the music of this time to their audiences and have inspired critics to describe their evocative performances as having "lyricism, and above all, magic." This passion balances their commitment to reinterpreting contemporary and historic compositions for flute and harp with verve, sensitivity, and enthusiasm. Individually recognized as leading performers and exceptional pedagogues, they have been performing together since 2002. They are both on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

While composer Mark N. Grant studied at the Eastman School and took courses at Juilliard, Mannes, and Manhattan, he first embarked on a career as a journalist before turning to composition. His music has been performed in the United States, Europe and New Zealand and is the recipient of grants and commissions from the American Music Center, Meet the Composer and the New Renaissance Chamber players, among others. He received the Friedheim Award in 1996 for his music and won ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards for two of his books on music. If music were food--which to the soul it is--Grant's gives you a choice of a dependably traditional menu as well as an à la carte rich in surprises. The first recording devoted to his music includes a monodrama for soprano and chamber ensemble (Auto da fé); a song cycle for two sopranos and piano (The Book of Illuminations); as well as a work for guitar (Alba: The Lover's Departure at Dawn) and for theremin (Bird of Pardise).

With works spanning both chamber and orchestral genres, Sebastian Currier's music has been performed at major venues worldwide by acclaimed artists and orchestras. His music has been heralded as "music with a distinctive voice" by the New York Times and "lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new" by the Washington Post. Currier has received many prestigious awards including the Grawemeyer Award, Berlin Prize and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This recording features his music for violin and piano performed by internationally known violinist Yehonatan Berwick, who plays on a violin by Joseph Guarneri from 1735 and pianist Laura Melton, who is on the faculty at Bowling Green State University and a noted chamber musician and soloist.

This recording is the first to draw attention to the compositional creativity of violist, teacher and choral director Harold Brown (1909-1979). He is remembered as one of the pioneers of the early music movement in North America, performing and recording Renaissance choral music in the mid 20th century. A graduate of Columbia, Brown taught at New York's High School of Music and Art and at Mansfield State College, and enriched the lives of a whole generation of New York singers with his promotion of the early choral music repertoire. The founder of the Renaissance Chorus of New York, the organization continues to be active today under the name of the Renaissance Chorus Association. Brown's chamber works for strings were composed mostly in the early to mid-1930s, and represent Brown's youthful, passionate style.

The Musical Arts Woodwind Quintet is the resident faculty wind quintet at Ball State University. They were awarded an American Masterpieces grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2010. The grant supported performances, educational activities, touring and this recording. Founded in 1957, the quintet has made eight cross-country tours, which have brought them an enviable reputation and high critical acclaim. This cd of works by American composers includes the world premiere recording of David Maslanka's Quintet No. 4.

This recording continues the series on Albany Records of the music of the distinguished composer George Walker, who celebrated his 90th birthday June 27. Walker is an acknowledged American Master whose orchestral works have been played by every major American orchestra. He is the recipient of seven honorary doctorate degrees and has been inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. Included on the CD are his Piano Sonata No. 3 written in 1976, his Music for 3 composed in 1971, his Piano Sonata No. 5 composed in 2003 and numerous songs. Walker's music is given superb performances by a sterling group of artists.

The Phoenix Ensemble is a New York City based, mixed-instrument chamber music group, consisting of a full complement of winds, brass, strings, and percussion. The ensemble is dedicated to the performance and recording of classical music, and to the mission of making the musical arts a more essential and valuable experience in the lives of the general public. Since 1992, through performances, recordings, and residencies in schools and communities, the Phoenix Ensemble has presented hundreds of events designed to inspire a new and diverse audience for classical music. The group has a special interest in encouraging and giving a voice to composers of contemporary music, and creating events where these compos¬ers can present their music to a new audience. The group's 2009 recording of the clarinet quintets of Morton Feldman and Milton Babbitt has won wide critical acclaim. For this recording, the ensemble has selected two works for wind quintet. Arnold Schoenberg's wind quintet, his first strict 12-tone ensemble work, was composed in 1924 and Stockhausen's Zeitmasze was written early in his composing career (1957).

Members of the renowned Boston Musica Viva perform three works by Bernard Hoffer, including a work commissioned by them, Concerto di Camera that features their spectacular cellist Jan Müller-Szeraws. Born in 1934 in Zurich, Switzerland, Bernard Hoffer attended Eastman where he studied with Bernard Rogers, Wayne Barlow, Paul White and Herman Genhart. After serving as arranger for the U.S. Army Field Band of Washington, D.C., he settled in New York, working as a freelance musician, composer, conductor and arranger. He is known not only for his chamber and orchestral music but also for works written for films, television and commercials, including the theme for the PBS New Hour, PBS's The American Experience and the hit children's cartoon series Thundercats.

Born in Chicago in 1931, composer/conductor James Bolle studied at Harvard, Antioch College and Northwestern. He was instrumental in founding numerous musical organizations, the first being The Chicago Youth Orchestra at age 15. He founded the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted for 29 years and Monadnock Music, which he directed for 42 years. As a composer, his major works include the opera Oleum Canis, five sinfonias, four string quartets, concerti, orchestral works, songs and chamber music. This is the second disc on Albany Records devoted exclusively to him music.

The intersection of Chinese cultural elements with Western art music provides a rich palette of Eastern colors in this first commercial recording of music for clarinet and piano by well-known Chinese composers. The composers on this recording were born in China, but have all studied and worked in the West. Chinese-American clarinetist, Jun Qian, has shared similar experiences with these composers and his performances show a deep understanding of Chinese culture and Western musical ideas. Dr. Qian, now on the faculty at Baylor University is principal clarinet for the Waco Symphony Orchestra. He was a professor of clarinet at St. Olaf College and served as principal clarinet of the Shanghai Philharmonic. Among his many honors, Qian was the featured soloist at the International Performing Arts Festival in Japan in 2004. Qian studied at Baylor University and the Eastman School, where he received his Masters and D.M.A. He is joined on this recording by a former colleague from St. Olaf College, pianist Kent McWilliams who previously taught at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

Texas Christian University's Trio Con Brio performs two new works for clarinet, viola and piano. The first, by Russian-born composer Elena Sokolovski has an intriguing title--Venice Suite, Concerto Grosso for 3 Soloists & 9 Instruments. Indeed, each musician plays several instruments including glasses filled with wine. Eric Ewazen's Trio was commissioned by the Texas Christian University School of Music for Trio Con Brio and was premiered in March 2005. The three members of Trio Con Brio all serve on the faculty at Texas Christian University. Clarinetist Gary Whitman received the Chancellor's Distinguished Achievement Award as a Creative Teacher and Scholar and is a member of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Violist Misha Galaganov has performed as a soloist and given master classes in Russia, china, Italy, Israel, Czech Republic, Mexico, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria and the United States. Pianist John Owings has appeared as soloist with orchestras and given solo recitals throughout the United States, Latin America, Europe and the Far East. He was gold medalist of the first Robert Casadesus International Piano Competition.

For its first commercial recording, the Almeda Trio takes the traditional classical music ensemble of piano, violin and cello on a journey through various styles of more modern inspiration — from Argentinian tango to American jazz -- and even country fiddling. Stops along the way include two works by American composers Paul Schoenfield and Paul Ferguson and a composition by the 20th-Century beloved Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla. Since its debut in 2008, the Almeda Trio (Robert Cassidy, piano, Cara Tweed, violin, Ida Mercer, cello) has performed to enthusiastic audiences throughout the greater Cleveland area and beyond. They serve as the ensemble-in-residence at The Music Settlement in Cleveland and their mission is three-fold -- performance, education and outreach. The ensemble takes its name from the early 20th-century social activist and founder of The Music Settlement, Almeda Adams.

Laura Kaminsky is an astute and voracious listener. For decades, the journeys her ears have taken have benefited audiences in her native New York City through all the concert programs she has presented at venues like Town Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Miller Theater, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Roulette, The New School, and Symphony Space, where she currently serves as Artistic Director. But in addition to the staggering amount of music of others she has made available to the public, she has also crafted a formidable oeuvre of original musical compositions that are deeply individual responses to the world around her. Social and political themes have been common in Kaminsky's work, as has an abiding respect for and connection to the natural world. Her music has also been deeply informed by her extensive travels -- from Eastern Europe and West Africa, to throughout the Americas. All seven works featured in this recording -- the first devoted exclusively to her music -- share common elements. Prevalent is the persistent use of irregular rhythms, repeating patterns that shift constantly as well as the narrative aspect of the solo and chamber works.

Three world premiere recordings highlight this disc of chamber music by the distinguished American composer Jennifer Higdon. Ms. Higdon served as Eminent Artist-in-Residence at the University of Wyoming and this composer-supervised recording was the culmination of her activities there. Ms. Higdon comments that when composing "I often picture colors as if I were spreading them on a canvas, except I do so with melodies, harmonies, and through the instruments themselves." All of the performers serve on the music department faculty at the University of Wyoming.

This disc of music for flute and clarinet by Daniel Dorff includes his own compositions as well as his arrangements of Bach inventions for the two instruments. Born in 1956, Daniel Dorff studied at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. His music has been performed by the Atlanta Opera, Baltimore Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival and the Eastman Wind Ensemble, to name but a few. The Scott/Garrison Duo, featuring clarinetist Shannon Scott and flutist Leonard Garrison, has performed together since 1988 and has been featured at many national conferences of the National Flute Association and the College Music Society. Ms. Scott is on the faculty at Washington State University and Mr. Garrison teaches at the University of Idaho. This is their second recording for Albany Records.

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.