Catalog

The esteemed American composer Ezra Laderman (1924-2015) composed more than 300 works, which were performed by major orchestras, chamber ensembles, and soloists throughout the United States. His music incorporated a lyrical style into a contemporary context, using tonal material in combination with atonal, polytonal, or aleatoric elements, while seeking out unusual formal structures for his music. This recording contains the first recordings of Laderman's music composed between 2002 and 2013 and complements the nine recordings of his music on Albany Records. Laderman's many honors include three Guggenheim fellowships and the Rome Prize. He was Dean of the Yale School of Music from 1989 to 1995 and served as Director of the Music Program for the National Endowment of the Arts, and President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among many other prestigious appointments.

City Upon a Hill and Inscriptions at the City of Brass are both for Chorus and Orchestra. City Upon a Hill was commissioned by the Boston Winterfest of 1965 where it received a terrible performance. Ten years later during the Bicentennial celebrations it was performed with the Portland Youth Orchestra and the Governor of Oregon as the speaker. The reviewer for the Portland Oregonian called it a work of "moving beauty." Inscriptions At the City of Brass was premiered by the Schola Cantorum of New York under Hugh Ross, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1957, with Vera Zorina as Sheherezad. Avshalomov began work on his Symphony: The Oregon in Portland in 1960 and it was completed there in 1962. Between these dates much of the music was written in Munich where the composer was on sabbatical. The premiere was given by the Portland Youth Symphony. On this disc we hear only the third and fourth movements. Up at Timberline has an unusual history. It was commissioned by the Friends of Timberline to note the Lodge's 50th anniversary. Situated on the slopes of magnificent Mt. Hood, the Lodge is one of the most enduring projects of the WPA (Works Progress Administration). It was dedicated in 1937 by President Roosevelt. It was premiered in 1987 at the Lodge.

Irwin Bazelon died on August 2, 1995 at the age of 73. He composed nine symphonies and over 60 Orchestral, Chamber and instrumental pieces. Born in Evanston, Illinois, he graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor's and master's degree in music. After studying composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale briefly, he went to Mills College in Oakland, California with Darius Milhaud. From 1948 until his death, he lived in New York City and Sagaponack. His Long Island retreat was the perfect counterpoint for the tensions and hustle-bustle of urban life with which his rhythmically complex and often jazz-tinged music bristles. In his early years in New York, Bazelon supported himself by scoring documentaries, art films and theatrical productions. During the 1950's and 1960's he composed more than fifty scores of this kind, which proved to be an invaluable preparation for his Orchestral music. As a valedictory of sorts he wrote Knowing the Score: Notes on Film Music. Published in 1975, this book is widely used as a college text. As a guest composer Bazelon frequently lectured at leading universities and music schools throughout the United States and England. Young people were especially drawn to his feisty spirit and no-nonsense approach to earning a living by applying compositional talents to the commercial world without sacrificing integrity. A long-time horse racing enthusiast, one of his best known works, Churchill Downs (Chamber Concerto No. 2) is named for the home of the Kentucky Derby, and his ninth symphony (subtitled Sunday Silence for the winner of the 1989 Derby) is dedicated to the horse. Definitely an interesting man who gives us interesting music.

The basic story line of this ballet, created by Morton Gould for Agnes de Mille, follows the notorious Lizzie Borden murder case. The conversation between the two collaborators (de Mille and Gould) that opens this recording serves to provide a fascinating description of the creation of the Fall River Legend Ballet and chronicles the historical events leading up to the premiere. Born in1913 in Richmond Hill, New York, Morton Gould gained early critical attention as a piano prodigy, and for his composing and improvising abilities - his first composition was published at the age of six. By the time he was 21, Gould was conducting and arranging a weekly series of orchestra-radio programs for the WOR Mutual Network. Many of his works and orchestral settings were introduced on these broadcasts. Gould's work is known for its distinctively American flavor, integrating folk, blues, jazz, gospel and western elements.

Composer Daniel Thomas Davis says that Family Secrets: Kith and Kin emerged as a series of loosely related portraits, using poetry and prose by seven of the finest writers currently working in and around the Southern voices of American literature. This musical drama is a hybrid form -- an opera on top of chamber music, or a song cycle inside a monodrama -- perhaps best described as a chamber opera. Davis' music has been performed by the Detroit Symphony, Momenta Quartet, London Sinfonietta, Charlotte Symphony, and Anonymous 4, among many others. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Royal Academy of Music, Peabody Conservatory, and Johns Hopkins University and is on the faculty at SUNY Binghamton. Soprano Andrea Moore is a prizewinner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and has received the Yale School of Music Alumni Award. Her commitment to voices from her native North Carolina has led her to produce, premiere, and develop Family Secrets: Kith and Kin with the North Carolina Opera.

Since the Renaissance, keyboard composers have used the titles Fantasia and Fantasy to designate a work that has a relatively free form, where they could allow their imaginations to take flight without the necessity of being restricted to previously existing models. Similar in providing a vehicle for a free approach to form and imaginative exploration, the term Rhapsody also traditionally suggests an epic quality. Pianist Geoffrey Duce has chosen a program of both these forms for this recording with works spanning the Baroque to the 20th Century. Known as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber music collaborator, Duce has performed in major venues in the U.S. and Europe such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, and the Wigmore Hall. His awards include the Making Music Award from Britain's National Federation of Music Societies and the Prix de Piano at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. Duce studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester University, Universität der Künste Berlin, and the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently on the faculty at Illinois State University, has served as a resident international visiting faculty member at the University of Taipei, and has given masterclasses around the world.

Composer Barbara White discovered the shakuhachi while in college and her fascination with this instrument has continued form more than 30 years. The works on this recording are the result of a ten year collaboration with shakuhachi grand master Riley Lee. White studied the shakuhachi with Lee and has composed numerous works for him. White's music has been described as "provocative even when it speaks in undertones, creating a personal space that is as unique as it is inviting." The recipient of numerous honors and awards, she is on the music faculty at Princeton. Riley Lee began studying the shakuhachi in 1970 while living in Japan. He is the first non-Japanese to attain the rank of "grand master."

Charles Wuorinen is one of the world's leading composers. His many honors include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Pulitzer Prize (as the youngest ever composer to receive the award). His compositions encompass every form and medium, and include works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, soloists, ballet and stage. He has been commissioned to compose his Fourth Piano Concerto for Peter Serkin and the Boston Symphony Orchestra for James Levine's first season as Music Director. Wuorinen has been described as a "maximalist," writing music luxuriant with events, lyrical and expressive, strikingly dramatic. His works are characterized by powerful harmonies and elegant craftsmanship, offering at once a link to the music of the past and a vision of a rich musical future. Both as composer and performer (conductor and pianist) Wuorinen has worked with some of the finest performers of the current time and his works reflect the great virtuosity of his collaborators. He is Professor of Music at Rutgers University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. About Fred Sherry Wuorinen writes: "I've known and collaborated with Fred Sherry for more than three decades. During that time we have often performed together, and I have written many pieces for him - in fact, all the works on this disc have been composed for Fred. Saying that he is a superb player, wonderful performer, and profound musician is true enough, but for me needs to be supplemented with an appreciation for a long and marvelous friendship, a true meeting of minds, and an endless source of stimulation and merriment. I owe him more than I can say."

This recording is a symbol of cross-ocean friendship between composer Faye-Ellen Silverman and guitarist Volkmar Zimmermann and includes two pieces commissioned by Zimmermann and his Corona Guitar Kvartet. All the works feature guitar and range from works for solo guitar, guitar quartet and works for voice with guitar. Faye-Ellen Silverman studied at Barnard College, Harvard University and Columbia. She has received numerous commissions and awards and recordings of her music appear on the Albany, Capstone, Crystal and New World record labels. Her collaborator, German-born guitarist Volkmar Zimmerman studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. He has performed in Europe, Russia, the United States and in Canada as a soloist and as a member of the Corona Guitar Kvartet. A bonus video, playable on QuickTime is included. Titled SPOR, it is a film by Nike Arnold and Clara Bausch and uses the first track from the recording, Processional, as music.

Richard Felciano's interest in musical acoustics led him through language, voice and organ studies to electronic and then computer, as well as to music for architectural and public spaces and music for non-Western instruments. Many of these works demonstrate a strongly ritualistic bent, reflective of the large Portuguese and Asian populations of his Northern California childhood. In the words of his colleague and fellow composer, Howard Hersh, "the vitality of invention and depth of artistic curiosity are clearly enormous, (yet) the major thrust of his contribution...lies in the power with which he has fused his innovative techniques to that timeless element of dramatic immediacy and his acutely-tuned sensibility to the sheer beauty of sound. There has never been any doubt that behind his music - whatever its external form - there stands a human - a humane - sensibility". The composer himself writes: "It has been said that artists spend much of their lives following a path which they somehow know is right but cannot yet clearly define. Scientists know a similar situation: Einstein spoke of 'something which is there but we don't know what it is.' In both instances, knowing that 'something' becomes compelling. In the notes about the works which are on this CD, my own search for that 'something' will become clear - a desire to approach composition through a deepening knowledge of 'what is there' in music - the physical nature of sound itself, so that, as in architecture, whatever structure is possible is defined by the nature of the materials. Picasso observed that the real problem in creativity is the materials, meaning that only through knowledge of them can anything at all be expressed. He was right."

The Kobayashi/Gray Duo is in demand throughout the world for their skillful presentations of works by 19th to 21st century women composers. They have presented their discoveries of new and unknown works at national and international conferences. This recording reflects their interest and enthusiasm and contains four world premiere recordings of music by women from the U.S., Poland, Norway, France, Spain and the Czech Republic.

This recording is an outgrowth of the Pan Pacific Ensemble's mission to enable and promote new compositions with a global outreach through high-level performances. This disc of commissioned works includes compositions by Chinese-American Chin Yi; Chinese composers Yi Qiao and Xinyan Li; Thai composers Tanapon Chiwinpiti, Siraseth Pantura-Umporn, and Naarong Prangcharoen; Malaysian composer Yii Kay Hoe; and Vietnamese composer Do Kien Cuong. Instrumentation for the Pan Pacific Ensemble includes flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn. The Pan Pacific Ensemble has appeared at the 2016 China-ASEAN Contemporary Music Festival and the 2017 Thailand Iternational Composition Festival in Bangkok in addition to their active concert schedule in the United States.

Joseph Fennimore has written songs, chamber music, orchestral works, and two one-act operas. His works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera Studio, the New York City Ballet, at the Almeida Festival in London, and the Ravinia, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, and Tanglewood festivals, among others. His music has been performed nationwide, in Europe and Japan and broadcast worldwide on Spectrum, Nonesuch, and Albany Records. Born in New York City, Fennimore has been composing since childhood. He attended the Eastman and Juilliard Schools of Music, receiving degrees with honors from both. After a brief but distinguished career as a pianist, he founded and or its first five years directed the Hear America First Concert Series in New York City devoted to American music. The piano works on this disc include Armistice, a set of three pieces named for the intermission between the two world wars; Variations on a Theme of Beethoven; The Woolworth Man and The Hen's Snuffbox are stylized rags taking their titles from poems in Afro-American dialect by Herbert Woodward Martin. Foxtrot is a sonata in two movements. Blues conjures smoky bars, a haze of booze, hangovers and regrets for the sour love of one-night stands. An Old Soft Shoe is danced by a vaudeville tatterdemalion in top hat and tails, deftly bouncing his rubber cane, executing comic bits and pratfalls while proudly recalling better times long gone. Bernini's altarpiece of St. Teresa in ecstasy and St. Teresa's own writings about the experience give some notion of the central portion of the Second Romance: Calentura de Teresa. The first performance of Concerto Piccolo was at the Eastman School with Howard Hanson conducting.

William Ferris studied composition with Leo Sowerby, orchestration and conducting with Alexander Tcherepnin, choral conducting and organ in Chicago. Like Sowerby before him, he wrote for the church and the concert hall. Ferris was fond of saying that his first aesthetic experience came as a boy soprano in the Cardinal's Cathedral Choristers of Holy Name Cathedral. The inherent drama of the Catholic liturgies moved him greatly and when his voice broke, he was appointed Cathedral organist, a position he held for seven years. During the turbulent sixties, he moved to Rochester, New York, to become organist and choirmaster for Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. He returned to Chicago in 1971, served as organist at The Church of Our Savior and after 10 years teaching composition and theory at the American Conservatory of Music, became Music Director and Composer in Residence at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, where he established one of the nation's finest Catholic liturgical music programs, composing psalms, anthems and Masses for the weekly liturgies. In 1972, he founded the William Ferris Chorale, an ensemble specializing in 20th century choral music. Ferris was a distinguished conductor who championed 20th century music. He received numerous awards and honors and was the first American composer to teach at the Vatican. Stylistically, his music is informed by the Gregorian chant and polyphony he sang as a child, by the formal structures he absorbed as an organist and in his studies with Sowerby and by his love for the emotional directness of Italian opera, especially the works of Verdi and Puccini. The basis for his musical language is a lyrical gift for long-lined melody - even his instrumental works "sing" with a vocal character. He died suddenly on May 16, 2000 while conducting a rehearsal of one of his favorite works, the Verdi "Requiem.

The music generally recognized as most authentically American - blues, ragtime, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and its descendants - has deep roots in African-American culture and musical traditions. Equally important in African-American life though less well known is the tradition of concert music. The concert genres of art song and spiritual arrangements have a history dating back to the Federal period when the United States was still struggling to separate its own unique cultural and artistic identity from European influences. As the minstrel show assumed a prominent place in American musical life, mainstream American composers and African-American composers such as Frank Johnson, A.J.R. Connor and Henry F. Williams wrote charming, light-hearted parlor songs reflecting the forms, harmony, and limpid melodies of their British antecedents; some Louisiana composers wrote equally attractive songs using French texts and occasionally showing the influence of opera. Enclaves of free black Americans formed many of the first benevolent societies and African-American churches where educational opportunities and economic independence were more available to them than in other parts of the young United States. It is from this background that William Brown has drawn the delightful collection of songs that appears on this disc.

Kenneth Frazelle was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina and was a student of Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School. He attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he now teaches. He is composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Santa Rosa Symphony. His score for Still-Here brought him international acclaim. The music, written for the folksinger Odetta and ensemble, was written as part of a multimedia dance theatre work. The film version of Still-Here has been viewed by millions on National Public Television and in Canada, France and Japan. Composer and percussionist Aaron Bachelder has composed Chamber, choral, Orchestral and electronic music, as well as songs in popular genres. In addition to his compositional activities, he is a founding member of the improvisational Chamber group, the Spool Ensemble, and the rock band Chapsticks. Robert Ward writes that his piece Appalachian Dances and Ditties "reflects the interest I have had in American folk music in general since the 1950's and in Appalachian music in particular since the 1970's when my wife and I had a second home in Sparta, North Carolina. The richness and vitality of that music is unparalleled by that of any other region of the country." Lukas Foss writes: "I wrote my Three American Pieces at a time when I was in love with my newly adopted country. All the music possesses an open-air quality I think I learned from Aaron, but I have handled it my own way. And there is always the influence of folk music - I looked at it a lot. I was also in love with jazz. The only popular idiom I never got close to was Broadway."

Whether it is as a composer, concert pianist or actor, Robert Owens has earned a career and respect that many would envy. He has written extensively for solo voice, with a particular emphasis on texts by great writers. As an African-American, he is quick to emphasize that his songs are not written for any particular race. They are to be sung by all people who appreciate fine song writing. He was born in Denison, Texas, but grew up in Berkeley, California, raised by his mother who taught him piano. Following her death in 1937, he continued his piano and theory studies and, at 15, performed as soloist in the premiere of his Piano Concerto. During this same time he composed his first songs, Images. These offer the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Waring Cuney. From there Owens went on to compose songs to the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Countee Cullen and, most notably, Langston Hughes. Over the following decades, after serving in the armed forces and studying in Europe, he continued to compose with an emphasis on vocal works, reflecting his own life, his exposure to racism, and his desire to express the core truth of the poetry he was setting. Founder of the African-American Art Song Alliance, tenor Darryl Taylor's international itinerary includes performing both in the United States and throughout Europe. He has premiered numerous works. He is much in demand as a lecturer on African-American Art Song, having given recitals and master classes at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music and at Cambridge College, England.

This is a disc that contains music that should be pleasing to everyone. Berends composes in a style that is romantic and accessible. He was born in Baltimore where he graduated from the Peabody Conservatory with honors in 1973. In 1978, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in a curriculum emphasizing electronic and computer-generated music. The music contained on this disc is about as far removed from what one normally associates with a composer with these credentials as one could imagine. In this 30 years as a keyboard artist, he has performed with everyone from jazz guitar innovator Stanley Jordan to Rock and Roll pioneer Chuck Berry. Fifteen Exceptions for Piano is a collection of his original piano music written between 1978 and 1991.

Frank Lewin was born in Breslau, Germany in 1925. After settling in the United States his composition teachers included, among others, Roy Harris, Richard Donovan and Paul Hindemith. Over the years Lewin has composed incidental music for plays ranging from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams, and surround-sound scores for historical outdoor dramas in various parts of the country. He has also written a number of concert and ceremonial pieces, several of them for solo voice and instruments, as well as a number of choral works and two operas. A particularly fertile area for Frank Lewin has been composing for films, both dramatic (fictional stories requiring either "source" music [such as a radio playing in the background] or dramatic musical cues to signify changes in mood or to underline emotions), and documentary (films about real people, situations or scientific advances). Many of the films were independently made, many commissioned by such companies as Western Electric and Alcoa, and a couple were commercial releases (The Angel Levine was a 1970 release featuring Zero Mostel and Harry Belafonte; The Plot Against Harry was directed by Michael Roemer, director of the classic 1964 drama Nothing But a Man). It's possible that you may have seen some of the documentaries in a classroom as a child! In all this is a comprehensive document of one of the most important composers in this field. Other works of Lewin on Albany are the opera Burning Bright (TROY469/71), Three Song Cycles (TROY528) and Sacred Music (TROY769).

The University of Baltimore County Wind Ensemble (UMBC) has a history of pioneering new works for wind ensemble. They regularly commission and perform works by living composers and this recording reflects their commitment. With works by Brad Ellis, Samuel Winnie, Anna Rubin, Janice Macaulay, and Daniel Bernard Roumain, the ensemble gives life to a diverse group of composers' compositions. Conductor Brian Kaufman also is a tubist, educator, social entrepreneur, and publicly engaged scholar. He is a co-founder, artistic director, and conductor of The Sounding Board, an organization that creates productions that integrate music, multimedia, spoken word, and commentary from noted public figures to inspire new perspectives and cultivate dialogue on today's most pressing social issues.

Pianist Findlay Cockrell has had a long and distinguished career in upstate New York as a soloist, chamber musician and concerto soloist. He served on the faculty at the State University of New York at Albany, where he taught piano and classes in music as well as creating a radio course titled Keyboard Masters. A graduate of Juilliard, Mr. Cockrell has performed around the United States and in Russia, where he appeared in recital at the Moscow Conservatory and a guest soloist at Tchaikovsky Hall with the Ossipov Orchestra. This recording includes three American composers whose last names begin with G: Gershwin, Gould and Gottschalk with some seldom recorded arrangements by Earl Wild of Gershwin songs.

Wolfgang David (b.1971) has become ensconced on the international stage, both as a recitalist, and as a guest soloist with many of the world's leading orchestras. His teachers included Rainer Kuelchl, the concert master of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Igor Ozim at the Berne Conservatory and Yfrah Neaman at London's Guildhall School of Music. David Gompper (b.1954) has lived and worked professionally as a pianist, a conductor, and a composer in New York, San Diego, London, Nigeria, Michigan and Texas. He is currently Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. In 2002-2003, he was in Russia as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching, performing and conducting at the Moscow Conservatory. He has performed with Wolfgang David in Moscow, the United States and Vienna.

With this disc, we proudly welcome the Cleveland Chamber Symphony to the Albany Records family. It is one of the finest ensembles of its kind in America. It is a professional ensemble-in-residence at Cleveland State University whose mission is to present new music along with neglected masterworks from the past. It was founded in 1980 by its Music Director, Edwin London. Minnesota-born Ross Lee Finney, now emeritus professor and Composer-in-Residence at the University of Michigan School of Music, has been a prominent American composer and teacher for more than 55 years. Edwin London is a great champion of the American composer. He was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Oberlin. He began his career playing French horn, jazz and classical. He studied with Philip Greely Clapp at Iowa State. Francis Thorne, a founder of the American Composers Orchestra, left a highly successful career as a Wall Street investment broker in the mid-thirties to become first a jazz pianist and later a composer of concert music. His maternal grandfather was Gustav Kobbe, noted critic and author of the celebrated Kobbe's Opera Book, still in print and widely used. This performance of Thorne's Symphony No. 6 is a live recording of the premiere performance held on March 4, 1996.

Born in LaGrange, Illinois, Scott Steidl grew up in Minneapolis. There he studied piano, bassoon, and saxophone and developed an interest in playing jazz. Later as an undergraduate at Brown University, he studied composition with Ron Nelson and continued his activities in the field of jazz as director of the Brown University Stage Band. After graduating from Brown, Steidl studied composition with David Diamond and Elliott Carter at the Juilliard School, earning his Masters and Doctoral degrees in composition. He then completed his education by pursuing his other major interest: medicine. He also holds a doctoral degree in medicine from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and specialty training at Harvard Medical School. His music is rooted in the vernacular of our time and represents the varied influences and rich imagination of the current American culture. His work strikes a balance among contrasting influences. A lover of popular music, jazz, music theater and western classical music, his musical point of view is inclusive rather than exclusive. In a concise description of Scott Steidl's music in The New York Times, John Rockwell characterized his work as "All-American."

Jack Beeson writes: "This selection of 26 songs (and two arias from operas) comprises about a third of my works for solo voice and piano and most of those written for soprano. The poetry dates from the end of the 16th century to the late 20th century and encompasses a wide variety of styles and subject matter. In order to reflect this variety, the music ranges widely in style, from the simplicities of the Blake settings to the 12-tone serialism of Fire, Fire, Quench Desire. Hughes's black-magic Death by Owl-Eyes invokes a traversal of musical idioms from early Renaissance open fifths to some of the habits of the 1960s. The song is dedicated to Otto Luening, another 20th century time-traveler. It is often forgotten that a musical setting is an arrangement of a poem: it is the composer's interpretation of the words, made audible by means of his or her choice of pitch, tessitura, accentuation, and phrasing in the vocal line, and choice of style, mood, and implied action in the accompaniment."

Highlighting this recording is Ward's First Symphony, written in 1942 when he was a graduate student in composition and conducting at Juilliard. This was his first work to bring him national attention with a critic noting that "...he has the gift for the lyric line...strong melodic expression is supported by an active and resourceful imagination for contrapuntal design, by a great talent for rhythmic variety....The sum of these excellencies is greatness." Ward comments: "In the years after the war I have written many works for diverse media and under other influences. Looking back I hope these efforts might still merit the high praise that critic Glenn Dillard Gunn gave my First Symphony."

"First Takes" features world premiere recordings of four new works by outstanding American composers from the younger generation: Chris Theofanidis; Paul Moravec; Lisa Bielawa; and Michael Gatonska, beautifully performed by the String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC). SONYC was founded in 1999 and is already acclaimed as one of the leading ensembles in New York City. Performing without a conductor, the individual members each have an impact on the artistic process. Whether performing standard repertoire or the kind of new music on this CD, SONYC strives to inspire and educate its audiences.

Eric Salzman writes: "The first impression that Michael Dellaira's work gives is that of simple beauty, no small virtue in and of itself. But listen again. Repeated hearings reveal a musical world of depth and subtlety, marked by the kinds of surprises that are the mark of a sure and confident ear. Michael has something to tell us. He has created a personal musical language that combines the harmonic vocabulary and rhythmic interest of rock music with the technical rigor of the best modern classical music. It is this combination and synthesis of seemingly contradictory elements which points to the direction of new American music in a new century and which gives both surface tension and excitement, and deeper value to Michael's music." Michael Dellaira was born in Schenectady, N.Y. A passable clarinetist, violinist, and chorister as a child, he also performed as a drummer, singer, and guitar player in rock and folk groups. After graduating from Georgetown University with a degree in philosophy, he pursued a career as a guitarist and songwriter and at the same time began the formal study of music theory with Robert Parris, Milton Babbitt, Mario Davidovsky, Goffredo Petrassi and Franco Donatoni. During the 1980s, he withdrew into a private period of musical self-examination and re-evaluation, exploring styles and genres he had previously considered off-limits, simple-minded, or too abstract. This period lasted until 1995, the year he completed Three Rivers. That work, a turning point, employs the vernacular rhythms and harmonies characteristic of Dellaira's musical voice.

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

Mathias Wexler comments in the notes that "Perhaps a musician's greatest responsibility is finding and championing important new works, forging an ongoing relationship with the music of his time and expanding the repertoire for future generations. If he is very lucky, the work is a great pleasure both artistically and personally. In certain extraordinary circumstances, the music also speaks profoundly to him and allows him to shine as a performer..." This is certainly true in the case of these five new works for solo cello.

The history of the Five Seasons ensemble goes back to 2012 when Estonian composer and guitarist Robert Jürjendal heard a recording of the Corona Guitar Kvartet and contacted one of its members, Volkmar Zimmermann. Zimmermann initially asked Jürjendal to write a work for him and soprano Sara Fiil and their collaboration continued with the instrumentation expanding to the existing ensemble. The special membership of Five Seasons (acoustic guitar, soprano, trumpet, percussion, and electric guitar) encouraged Jürjendal to choose more academic writing, influenced by early guitar and lute music with the essence of romantic melancholy together with a complex contemporary harmony and sound conception. Five Seasons has appeared at Estonian Music Days to great critical acclaim.

The fine American conductor David Amos presents three CD world premieres of American music for chamber orchestra. The composers represented in this new disc are all from the conservative mainstream of America's music; their music is tonal and accessible. Morton Gould, the 1995 winner of one of the Kennedy Center Honors, is represented on a number of other Albany discs.