Catalog

Confession, Raphaël Lucas' award-winning opera, libretto by Jacque Trussel and Margaret Vignola, was created as a "prequel" to Puccini's beloved Suor Angelica. The evocative one-act work came about as Jacque Trussel, stage director for Purchase Opera, began to muse on the possible circumstances behind Suor Angelica's becoming a nun. He realized there was a story waiting to be told and came up with the essence of the libretto that was to become Confession. The music was written by the young French composer Raphaël Lucas and was awarded the National Opera Association Prize as best contemporary opera of 2010-12 and will be staged at their 2012 convention. This is a world premiere recording.

Hailed by Chamber Music America as an ensemble which “approaches the commissioning and performing of new works as a special mission,” the Ancia Quartet (Matthew Sintchak, David Milne, Joan Hutton, Angela Wyatt) has been dedicated to expanding the saxophone repertoire for more than 30 years. Ancia has been the recipient of numerous national, regional, and local grants and awards, and has collaborated with composers through Society of Composers, Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum, and THE Commission Project. Individual Ancia members enjoy careers as soloists, chamber musicians, and professional saxophonists in a broad range of musical genres. This recording showcases their virtuosity with works by Astor Piazzolla, Libby Larsen, Chris Rutowski, Ramon Ricker, and Jerry Dodgion.

For more than 40 years, Lynn Klock has been an enthusiastic participant in new music for the saxophone. He has premiered more than 50 compositions written for and dedicated to him and this cd of world premiere recordings highlights this aspect of his career. All of the compositions on the cd are the result of friendships and musical collaborations between the composer and Mr. Klock and were written specifically for Klock or one of his students.

Olivier Messiaen was one of the most influential teachers of the 20th century. He taught an international group of students who would go on to become influential composers and musical leaders, including William Bolcom, Karlheinz Stockhausn, Peter Maxwell Davies, Oliver Knussen, Iannis Xenakis, Quincy Jones, and the three composers on this recording. Pianist Matthew Odell demonstrates the importance of Messiaen's teaching contrasting his music with three of Messiaen's students. Matthew Odell has won acclaim for performances of a wide range of repertoire as a solo recitalist, soloist with orchestra, and chamber musician. In addition to performances in Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Merkin Hall, Mr. Odell has appeared at major venues around the world, including Paris, London, Moscow, and Helsinki, among many others. Mr. Odell served on the coaching faculty of the Académie internationale d'été in Nice, France.

Conrad Susa's three-act opera with libretto by Philip Littell, is based on the scandalous 18th century novel by Pierre Chodelos de Laclos, a tale of decadence and revenge told entirely in letters. The plot of The Dangerous Liaisons revolves around the vengeful widow Marquise de Merteuil, who has managed to keep her reputation despite her many amorous affairs, and her sometime lover the Vicomte de Valmont, a well-born rake who does her bidding. The ripple effect of their schemes and amorous exploits results in the deaths of both Valmont and the woman he truly loves, the saintly Madame de Tourvel. Commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, Susa's massive score was reduced by Bob Schuneman in 2008 and it is this version that is heard on the recording. The Dangerous Liaisons was recorded live at the acclaimed 2015 Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater production.

Constellations, with music by Efraín Amaya and libretto by Susana Amundarain, is a chamber opera inspired by the life and work of Spanish artist Joan Miró. American composer and conductor Efraín Amaya was born in Venezuela, where he began his musical studies. A graduate of Indiana University and Rice University, Amaya has served on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon where he conducted the Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble. His compositions have been performed around the world at international festivals. He is currently on the faculty at Minot State University and conducts the Minot Symphony Orchestra. Recordings of his music appear on the Albany Records and Oberlin Music Record labels.

Cellist Gregory Sauer and pianist Heidi Louise Williams perform a program of works for cello and piano by North and South American composers, including world premiere recordings of works by André Mehmari and Daniel Crozier. Both performers are on the faculty at Florida State University and enjoy careers as recitalists, soloists with orchestras, and chamber ensembles. Ms. Williams appears on three previous Albany Records releases, all of which have received critical acclaim. She has also recorded for Naxos, Neos, and Centaur. Sauer’s discography includes recordings with MSR and Mark Records.

This recording is a revised version of Cooperstown, originally released in 2015 and was named record of the month by Stereophile. The libretto is based on an essay by A. Bartlett Giamatti titled The Green Fields of the Mind. Composer Sasha Matson says that "Baseball has its own specific historical musical attributes. One of them is the sound of the stadium organ. That sound led me quickly to scoring the music for a Miles jazz quintet. Matson added a vocal cast of five for this one act, nine scene jazz opera. A graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory and UCLA, Matson has scored music for feature films and other multi-media in addition to his own compositional work.

Formed in 1995 the Corona Guitar Kvartet's repertoire spans music written in the Renaissance to music written in this century. The Kvartet has worked with composers from Denmark, the US, Latvia, Germany, Italy, Canada and Lithuania and actively promotes new compositions for their medium. This second recording for Albany Records is a recital of works that reflects their musical interests.

Since its inception the Mirror Visions Ensemble has explored song repertoire from a number of angles. The initial interest was the back-to-back performance of multiple settings of a single text, leading to programs built around favorite portraits. This has been followed by musical travelogues and concerts at museums that feature music with a connection to the exhibit or museum. During the last decade, the ensemble has commissioned 69 new works, two of which are presented on this recording. Berg's Lincoln Letters is set to texts more personal than political, while Hagen's Songs from Dear Youth are set to letters from the Civil War. Platt's From Noon To Starry Night is a cantata based on a selection of Walt Whitman's poems, including the roughneck Whitman, the democratic Whitman, the transcendentalist Whitman, Whitman the "lover of comrades," and Whitman the bard of war.

Neil Thornock's Cosmology is a set of seven movements, each with a title and scriptural epigraph, but with no pauses to separate them, and a metaphysical program to unite them. That program depicts a soul's cosmic journey via a set of metaphors. Neil Thornock, on the faculty at the Brigham Young University School of Music, has composed works for chamber and orchestral ensembles, electronic media, and a variety of keyboard instruments. His music has been performed in recitals and conferences throughout the United States and Europe. Pianist Hilary Demske has received widespread critical acclaim for her performances. She is regularly invited to perform in prestigious venues across multiple continents and has performed in China annually since 2011, appearing in more than 30 cities on multiple tours. An avid performer of contemporary music, Demske is on the faculty at Utah Valley University.

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.

Robert de Cormier, a graduate of Juilliard, acted as music director of the New York Choral Society for seventeen years. His other conducting engagements have taken him from Broadway and opera to the Berkshire Choral Institute, the Zimriya World Assembly of Choirs in Israel and numerous tours throughout the United States and Europe with the famed Robert de Cormier Singers. He has also been musical arranger and director for Harry Belafonte and Peter, Paul and Mary. In 2000 he established Counterpoint, an eleven-voice vocal ensemble based in Vermont. Here they sing a beautiful collection of carols covering many periods and cultures, celebrating the holiday season in truly memorable fashion. Counterpoint is also featured on two other Albany releases: When the Rabbi Danced (TROY676) and Missa Criolla (TROY746).

Nicholas Anthony Ascioti was born in Syracuse, and attended the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York where he graduated in Composition and Conducting. Since then, the College has performed his music and sponsored an entire evening of his works. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in Composition from Bennington College in Vermont. Among his teachers were Allen Shawn, Dr. Amy Williams and Stephen Siegel. Nicholas received his professional debut at 21 with a commission from David Alan Miller. Judge, Jury and Executioner was premiered by the Dogs of Desire, a chamber ensemble of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Nicholas is currently a composer-in-residence with the Society for New Music in Syracuse and as a conductor, focuses on 20th century repertoire. The pieces presented here offer a variety of perspectives in both textural and musical form. They reveal our human desire to connect, to relate - to ourselves, to other human beings, to the cosmic reality of being, and ultimately to the Source of our being.

The saxophone has been an active participant in new developments in classical, jazz and popular music, especially in the past half-century. Equally at home in Classical music and jazz, Noah Getz explores the mixture of these two genres from the classical perspective. Crosscurrents is a diverse exploration of contemporary classical repertoire containing a variety of jazz elements.

Born out of a 2015 music festival at Rice University focusing on classical, contemporary, and cross-cultural music, this recording offers an interesting set of compositions, performed by the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, that embody 21st century interculturality in distinctive ways. Crossings: Contemporary Music for Chinese Instruments features works by six composers who came into contact with Chinese cultural traditions and responded compositionally to that contact in different ways. Two composers (Shih-Hui Chen and Lei Liang) were born in Taiwan and China. The remaining four composers are American-born and non-Chinese, yet each has had varying degrees of engagement with traditional Chinese music. Thus, the recording offers a glimpse into what has become a global network of composers. The Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra is a group from Taiwan whose members perform new music on Chinese instruments. However, in almost every work, the silk and bamboo instruments of the ensemble are joined by additional sonority offering a rich and varied new expression, which is the essence of this recording.

Cruzar La Cara de la Luna/To Cross the Face of the Moon is the world's first opera composed for mariachi. Exploring the fusion of opera and mariachi has taken both art forms in new directions. Commissioned in celebration of the Mexican anniversaries of independence and revolution, Cruzar brought together composer José "Pepe" Martinez, the music director of the storied Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, and eminent Broadway stage director and writer Leonard Foglia. Together they have created an emotional and compelling work that remains true to its Mariachi culture and tells a story that resonates with all. This is a recording of the world premiere performance, which brought this glorious new piece of music theater to life with unforgettable virtuosity, energy and passion.

In the nearly 30 years that Hi Kyung Kim has been living, studying and composing in the Western World, her music has established itself as Asian-American in voice and spirit. But for all the recognizably Korean musical ideas, rhythmic and sonic, in her music these seem to occur not as flags or labels but appear integrally in the music's fabric. And in the hearing of it, a personality emerges that is individual and not specifically or necessarily identifiable as Korean-American. As she has admitted, these Korean elements come into her music unbidden, unselfconsciously, and cites a conversation she had with the late Korean-born composer Isang Yun, in which he said "That he did not have to think about his musical elements intentionally utilizing Korean music, since (these were) already imbedded in him."

Morris Rosenzweig was born in New Orleans, where he grew up among the tailors, merchants and strong-willed women of an extended family which has lived in southern Louisiana since the mid 1890s. His works have been widely presented throughout the United States, as well as in South America, Europe, Mexico and Israel. His catalog of works includes pieces for orchestra, various chamber ensembles, compositions for live instruments and electronics, two song cycles, two piano cycles, solo pieces and one opera. He was educated at the Eastman School of Music, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Points and Tales is a cyclic composition for piano in 12 movements. What is striking about the work is the overall austerity of its language: its searching, spare and unadorned expression. The listener is invited to savor the beauty of harmonies exquisitely voiced, the play of simple, unhurried melodies, and the pure tones of the piano. A Certain Round of Events, based on original, Italian and Chinese texts and words of Rilke, consists of nine songs plus a prelude, interlude and postlude, and Rosenzweig conceives of the texts in terms of three concurrent "senses of time": subjective, seasonal and unchanging.

This recording of works for strings by women composers includes two works for string trio by Victoria Bond and Julie Mandel; a work for solo cello and two works for violin duo by Rain Worthington; and a composition for violin and cello by Adrienne Albert. The performers include Anna Cromwell, assistant professor of violin and viola and the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point; Lisa Nelson, who is instructional professor of viola, violin, and string pedagogy at Illinois Wesleyan University; and Mira Frisch, associate professor of cello and director of string chamber music at the university of North Carolina at Charlotte. Both Anna Cromwell and Mira Frisch appear on Albany Records performing as a violin/cello duo.

This world premiere recording of With Blood, With Ink, a dramatic opera with music by Daniel Crozier and libretto by Peter Krask, was made in 2014 at the acclaimed Fort Worth Opera Festival. The opera is based on the extraordinary life of the 17th century Mexican nun, Juana Inés de la Cruz, beloved poet, intellectual, and heroic champion of women's freedom. Her choice of life in a convent over marriage protected her brilliant creative life until she was betrayed by ecclesiastical authorities. Celebrated as the "Phoenix of America," Sor Juana is the first great literary figure in the Americas. Influenced by the operas of Verdi and Britten, With Blood, With Ink, explores how an individual destiny tragically collides with the implacable forces of history and community.

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.

This is a recording of reimagined masterworks arranged for brass quintet by Chris Van Hof. The idea of dance is a significant influence throughout, highlighting Baroque forms such as rigaudon and minuet, popular Central and South American dance genres, and selections from ballet scenes. The Emerald Brass (Brett Long and Max Matzen, trumpets; Leslie Hart, horn; Chris Van Hof, trombone; T.J. Ricer, tuba) was established at the Eastman School of Music where all the members were graduate student colleagues. The Emerald Brass Quintet has gained recognition as a dynamic and virtuosic collection of performers and educators and has performed and presented masterclasses throughout the U.S. Members of the quintet serve on the faculties of Utah State University, Ball State University, East Tennessee State University, University of Hawaii, and Santa Clara University.

The music of John Allemeier has been described as having a "sweet sense of mystery." His music has been performed throughout the United States and Europe in chamber concerts and at international festivals. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Northwestern University and Augustana College, he also studied at the Internationalen Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. He teaches composition and music theory at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This CD presents four premiere recordings of his music for various chamber ensembles. Each of these pieces resulted from commissions and collaborations with education and and artistic organizations between 2007 and 2010.

The significance of this four-volume recording project is its celebration of 20th century compositions for piano and some Chamber works written by Americans of African descent that have never been recorded or have had limited recorded performance. The contributions of the American composer of African descent to classical music is rarely addressed, and as a result, this music remains virtually unknown. Of the estimated 300 American composers of African descent listed in Readings in Black American Music: A Biographical Dictionary, few are known by most musicians, and little of their music is heard in concerts or on radio today. Furthermore, recordings of their classical music are difficult to locate because so very little of the music is available on compact disc. This compilation of works will be vital in addressing this problem. The works presented on this disc include a unique historical content and a variety of styles both quoted and extracted from the various traditional idioms of the composer’s heritage. The selected works presented in this first volume are representative of many 20th century styles and compositional ideas; the 12-tone serial techniques of Hale Smith, the multimetric and asymmetrical writings of Adolphus Hailstork, the Neo-Classic style of Roger Dickerson, the polymetric writings of Jeffrey Mumford, and the Cuban-African traditions of Tania Leon.

The special appeal of this CD should be the presence of Ellis Marsalis as a composer, who is the father of Branford, Jason and Wynton. All the works on this CD are world premieres except the Marsalis piece and they represent a variety of styles both quoted and extracted from the various traditional idioms of the composer's heritage. The works offered here are representative of 20th century styles and techniques such as serialism and the tone row; atonality and polytonality; polymetric, multimetric and asymmetrical writings; the integration of Cuban and African rhythms; and the classical structure embracing the vocabulary of Jazz, Blues, Gospel, and Spirituals variously used by such composers as Ellis Marsalis, Adolphus Hailstork, George Walker, Alvin Singleton and others. The display of the breadth of artistic styles in these American compositions lends to the necessary integration of this music into the standard classical repertoire and helps facilitate familiarity with this music independent of color, race or gender.

José Luis Greco's premiere recording of works for strings and piano is a stunningly beautiful illustration of what can be achieved when one's personal philosophy of life is translated into sound. Indeed, what may not be known about the New York-born, Madrid based composer (whose musical output encompasses works for theatre and ballet, piano, orchestra, voice, and opera) is how much his philosophy, largely influenced by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, inspires his compositions. Dark Love in Wonderland may be heard as a metaphor for how we experience our world within the totality of its contradictions. Greco is a member of the Royal Spanish American Academy of Science, Arts and Letters and his music has been performed all over the world.

Lee Hoiby writes about this recording: “The Ames Quartet worked closely with me on the development of Dark Rosaleen, collaborators from the word go, and continually bless it with loving insights and efforts. Together we have explored some evocative remnants of James Joyce c. 1900; Mangon, the deranged Dublin litterateur of the 1830s; and the dolefully passionate Hibernian ethos. As I myself am a Midwesterner who has chosen to express himself musically in a classic European vocabulary, it is gratifying to hear the Ames players of Iowa display their great reservoirs of nuance and schwung and historical imagination. They are simply superb musicians and I warmly thank them.” William Bolcom writes about the performance of his work: “Your performance is the most emotionally intense I have heard…you sustain the emotional curve extremely well…the slow tempo (of the last movement) pays off at the end – really frightening! I don’t compose quite as I did 30 years ago, but the feeling of the piece seems so present right now. Where we are today had its roots in that time. The Intermezzo seems particularly sad to hear at this moment, and you have played it with much personality.” Richard Willis’ Variants, commissioned in 1990 by Quadriga (a piano quartet then in residence at Texas Tech University), follows similar principles to Hoiby’s Dark Rosaleen. It, too, is a set of variations built upon a melody presented first by the viola, in which an internal interval (this time a minor second heard in the first two pitches), serves as the principal unifying element of the composition. Both begin with a haunting quality and then present the motive in a variety of guises ranging from virtuoso to angular to jazzy to lyric, highlighting the late 20th century composer’s dual interests in maintaining a tightly controlled form based upon restricted motivic material, while still exploring a wide range of moods.

Founded in 1998, the Equinox Chamber Players Ensemble is one of St. Louis' most dynamic musical groups. They celebrate community life by performing commissioned works inspired by environmental surroundings, historical and present day culture, and everyday heroes. They have appeared on PBS and NPR and have performed for thousands of adults and students. Members of Equinox include Paula Kasica, flute; Jeanine York-Garesch, clarinet; Ann Homann, oboe; Donia Bauer, bassoon; and Carole Lemire, horn.

The creation of Darkling, an opera with music by Stefan Weisman and libretto by Anna Rabinowitz, is a story of transformations. It is a story that maps the trajectory of bits of memorabilia found in a shoebox to publication of a book-length poem to production of a multi-media experimental opera performed in fully staged and concert versions to its current incarnation as a CD. The faceless, mainly nameless voices of Darkling emerge from a world that is lost to us: that of Eastern European Jewry destroyed in the Holocaust. Darkling spans the period between the two World Wars, interweaving the phenomenal and emotional lives of its characters with the catastrophic events of history. Darkling shows what is possible for music and poetry now and in the years to come.

Commissioned by the College Band Director’s National Association, Bandanna received its world premiere staged production in March, 1999 by the University of Texas Opera Theater, Michael Haithcock, conductor. The European concert premiere was presented in Warrington, England by the North Cheshire Concert Band and Manchester Chamber Choir, Mark Heron, conductor in April 2006.

Das Dreimaderlhaus was an early example, and one of the most successful, of the operetta sub genre called the pasticcio. The Italian word (like operetta itself) literally means something pasted together from existing material, in this case from music by a single composer. Weiner Blut, arranged from existing Johann Strauss II selections in 1899, with the approval of the composer, was another early Viennese pasticcio that still holds the stage over a century later. Das Dreimaderlhaus however, takes the hommage a step further: the libretto deals with the supposed life of the composer himself. The original idea was to transform into an opera the popular romantic 1912 novel Schwannerl (Toadstool) by Rudolph Martsch. Heinrich Berte, an Hungarian-born, Vienna-based composer who had several operettas produced in Vienna and elsewhere without much success, had the notion to dramatize the Schubert story that the novelist Martsch had already embroidered well beyond the actual facts. Berte composed a new score around one original Schubert song used prominently, the "Ungeduld" ("Impatient") Lied. Wilhelm Karczag, then managing the Raimundtheater, was presented with a draft version. He wanted more Schubert and less Berte. The libretto was then modified to incorporate a selection of suitable all-Schubert songs and orchestral pieces, rearranged for theatrical use by a reluctant, but skillful Berte. The music Berte chose may have been somewhat familiar, but not entirely so. For every familiar number, there were reworkings of then-comparatively obscure themes from Schubert's piano or chamber works, or his Rosamunde incidental music. The libretto that accommodated these enchanting pieces may have stretched the historical facts, but it managed to incorporate a considerable number of real people alongside the composer to give some appearance of historical reality. The first night, January 15, 1916, was a triumph; this proved exactly the show the Viennese wanted to escape to in the wartime period. Not only could the Vienna public hear their beloved Schubert, they could see him in a quaint courtyard, a dainty salon, or a Hierzing square, all in the cozy Biedermeier era.