Catalog

The music of Matthew Schreibeis, an American composer based in Hong Kong, spans orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, and includes a series of works for traditional Korean instruments. His personal musical vision is characterized by vivid color, imagination, and a clear sense of drama. His honors and awards include a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music has been performed by noted new music ensembles and he has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, Copland House and the Camargo Foundation, among others. He is a graduate of Eastman and the University of Pennsylvania. The largest work on this recording, Sandburg Songs, was written for the extraordinary soprano Tony Arnold, who gave the world premiere recording.

Elizabeth Chang comments that "This selection of composers derives its rationale from my own artistic heritage and the profound artistic and pedagogical influence Leon Kirchner had on me when I was an undergraduate Kirchner, in turn was a student of two of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, Roger Sessions and Arnold Schoenberg." Ms. Chang enjoys a multi-faceted career as performer, teacher, and arts administrator. Her performing career has taken her to more than 20 countries. She is on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. She is artistic director and co-founder of the Lighthouse Chamber Players, co-founder of the Five College New Music Festival, the UMass Amherst Bach Festival and Symposium and Musique de Chambre en Val Lamartinien (Burgundy, France). A graduate of Harvard, Ms. Chang was recipient of the Presidential Scholar in the Arts award. She is joined by noted pianist Steven Beck, who shares Ms. Chang's passion for music of our time.

Composer Neil Rolnick pioneered the use of computers in musical performance, beginning in the late 1970s. His music has been performed worldwide and appears on 21 recordings. The recipient of numerous awards, residencies, and commissions, his music often explores combinations of digital sampling, interactive multimedia, and acoustic vocal, chamber, and orchestral ensembles. He developed the first integrated electronic arts graduate and undergraduate programs in the US at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's iEAR Studios, where he was a professor for 32 years. The three works on this recording include one for string quartet with computer; a work for piano and laptop computer; and a work for violin, piano, and laptop computer.

Amelia Kaplan is a composer whose music reflects the riotous mix of sounds and cultures cohabiting in our increasingly fragmented world. In recent years her music has mostly responded to the ecological and political crises besetting our plant. A winner of a Copland House residency, Ms. Kaplan has received numerous commissions and performances at festivals around the world, including the Mise-En Festival, the Thailand International New Music Festival, and Darmstadt, among many others. Kaplan has degrees from the University of Chicago and Princeton, with additional studies at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. She is on the faculty at Ball State University. This recording features her music for strings with a string quartet, work for guitar, piano trio, work for clarinet and viola; and a composition for violin and viola.

Don Walker's fifth recording for Albany Records includes music for brass as well as four compositions for orchestra. Walker, born in 1941, is a graduate of Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at Sonoma State, the University of South Florida, and Oregon State University. He was project archivist for the Dave Brubeck Papers at the University of the Pacific. His compositions including 10 symphonies, five operas, string quartets, songs, and many works for chamber ensembles.

Flutist Janet Arms notes that "This joyful collaboration has brought together family, friends, and colleagues to celebrate the music of two dynamic and captivating composers, each of whose music resonates deeply with me. " Robert Carl's music is performed regularly through the U.S. and abroad. His compositions concentrate on works for solo piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra, choral, and electroacoustic media. Carl is chair of the composition department at The Hartt School. Larry Alan Smith is a composer, conductor, pianist, educator, arts executive, and poet/writer. He is on the faculty at The Hartt School, now serving as Dean. He has formerly been on the faculty at Juilliard, the North Carolina School of the Arts and was president of the School of American Ballet. Janet Arms is an orchestral, chamber, and solo flutist in New York City. She has been a member of the New York City Opera orchestra since 1988 and has performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Ballet and Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Arms is on the faculty at The Hart School in in 2019 was awarded the Hartford Anchor Award for outstanding and distinguished alumni by the University.

Noted performers Peter Winograd and David Westfall perform the three violin sonatas by Brahms. Winograd, a member of the American String Quartet, made his debut at age 11. As a young violinist, he was a top prize winner in the 1988 Naumburg International Violin Competition. Since then he has performed as a guest soloists with orchestras around the United States and as a recitalist. He has been a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music School. His violin is by Giovanni Maria del Bussetto (Cremona, 1675). Pianist David Westfall maintains an active career as concert pianist, collaborative artist, and teacher. He has concertized and given master classes throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Europe, and the Far East. A graduate of Indiana University, Texas Christian University, Juilliard, and The Hartt School where he received his Doctorate in Musical Arts, Westfall taught for more than 30 years at The Hartt School of Music and founded the South Church Chamber Music Society in Connecticut.

Italian composer Alberto Patron is a composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music (aporetic music) and non-standard use of musical instruments, Patron is the leading composer of aporetic music as well as aporetic philosophy. This recording, performed by Lucius Weathersby, includes Patron's Ten Aporetic Tropes and two works from his Les Moments Musicaux. Weathersby (1986-2006) was an organist, composer, educator, and church musician who served on the faculty at Dillard University and Amherst College.

M.C. Maguire is a composer/producer who has created a very quirky post-modern hybrid that combines classical, pop, jazz, electro-acoustic, and world music traditions. He works primarily in his studio's multi-track environment combining live recording, sampling, synths, exotic plugins, and digital editing possibilities. The finished product usually consists of a rigid, hierarchical, multi-layered construct, which is mathematically proportioned to reflect the philosophical/psychological thrust of each individual work's raison d'etre. A Teenage Dream for piano & CPU is based on four songs by Katy Perry; while Sade auf Kashmir for cello and CPU is based on the concept of the sonic intertwining of Sade's No Ordinary Love with Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.

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.

David Claman is on the faculty of Lehman College-CUNY. A graduate of Wesleyan, the University of Colorado, and Princeton, he has received grants, commissions, and fellowships from numerous organizations, including the Fromm Foundation and the American Institute of Indian Studies. This recording offers an overview of his passions and interests — including the poetry and sentiments of Tamil sayings from the first century A.D., the compositions of South Indian composer Syama Sastri; Moby Dick; and The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. His composition armory includes consumer electronics, conventional instruments, and live improvisation.

Thea Musgrave (b. 1928) grew up in Scotland, but has lived in the U.S. since the early 1970s. She is renowned for her ability to create dramatic, expressive music for any musical medium, from solo works and a huge output of varied chamber music, to the large scale concertos and operas with which she made her mark. This recording explores her music for oboe that was composed over a 60 year span. Oboist Elizabeth Sullivan is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is active as a recitalist, orchestral musician and pedagogue. Sullivan is a graduate of Stetson University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her collaborators include flutist Rebecca Johnson, assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University, pianist Cara Chowning, and clarinetist Jessica Lindsey, also on the faculty at UNC Charlotte.

The Gramercy Trio (Sharan Leventhal, violin; Jonathan Miller, cello; Randall Hodgkinson, piano) tours the country presenting concerts and residencies, with programs that include standard repertoire and new works. Their performances are met with critical acclaim with the New York Times calling their performances "distinctive and memorable beautifully wrought and sensitively balanced." Their recordings can be heard on the Newport Classic, Naxos, Parma, and Albany record labels. The three trios performed on this recording are all world premieres. Written in 2012, Schuller's trio is one of his last works; Nicholas Underhill's trio was written in 2005 and came out of a long association with Randall Hodgkinson; and Matthew Aucoin's trio is the most recent composition, having been written in 2015 at the invitation of Jonathan Miller. The Gramercy Trio has made an impressive addition to the piano trio repertoire with these works by three generations of American composers.

Beethoven's ten Sonatas for Piano and Violin are performed on historic instruments by Jerilyn Jorgensen and Cullan Bryant. Instruments include an unsigned Viennese style piano from c. 1795, a Joseph Brodmann; and a Bösendorfer c. 1828-1832, among others. The violin is an Andrea Carolus Leeb from 1797 and a variety of bows from the period including one by Francois Xavier Tourte are used. Pianist Cullan Bryant is among the most active chamber and collaborative pianists in New York City, performing more than 50 concerts a year. His prizes and awards include the Leschetizky International Competition, Miami Arts Competition, and the Memphis Beethoven Competition, among many others. Violinist Jerilyn Jorgensen is a member of the faculty at Colorado College. She was first violinist of the Da Vinci Quartet, which performed throughout the United States to critical acclaim. She is a graduate of Eastman and Juilliard. Both Bryant and Jorgensen have recordings on the Naxos label.

Composer Curt Cacioppo is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been commissioned by prestigious orchestras and chamber ensembles. His music appears on 18 recordings, the most recent of which earned a Grammy nomination. A graduate of Harvard, New York University and Kent State, Cacioppo has been a professor at Haverford College since 1983. This recording includes a work for solo piano; a major a cappella vocal work on poems of Luigi Cerantola performed by the Viva Voce Chamber Singers; and his third symphony, titled Tuscan Folio.

This 2-CD set features performances by the renowned Boston Musica Viva of large chamber works by Bernard Hoffer. Born in Switzerland, Hoffer came to the U.S. in 1941, studying at Eastman He was an arranger and pianist for the U.S. Army Field Band of Washington, DC for several years. He came to New York in 1962 where he worked as a freelance musician, composer, conductor, and arranger, writing extensively for films, television, and commercials for which he received several Clio Awards and Emmy nominations. This is the fifth recording of his music for Albany Records. Founded by Richard Pittman in 1969, Boston Musica Viva was the first professional ensemble in Boston devoted to contemporary music and is distinguished today as the oldest new music ensemble in the U.S. Boston Musica Viva enjoys an international reputation for innovation and excellence and has performed more than 750 works by 320 composers.

This recording of music by John Harbison and James Primosch contrasts their piano music with compositions for voice, with a major work for each by each of these esteemed composers. Harbison, a faculty member at MIT, has enjoyed a long and distinguished career. His more than 300 compositions have been performer around the world by premiere musical organizations and soloists. James Primosch serves on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, and his discography includes more than 25 recordings of his compositions. Noted for her "dazzling, virtuoso singing" Lucy Fitz Gibbon is a dynamic musician whose repertoire spans the Renaissance to the present. She has performed at prestigious venues in the United States, Canada, and England and is on the faculty at Bard College. Pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has an impressive career as soloist, lieder and chamber music collaborator, and recording artist. His discography includes many world premiere recordings and has taught piano and courses in electronic composition at Cornell University.

This recording of duos by American composer Ketty Nez span a ten year period, reflecting an ongoing fascination on the part of the composer with different ways of exploring musical responses to folk songs and instrumental melodies of the southern Balkans. Nez is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Eastman, Curtis, and Bryn Mawr. She also participated in the year-long computer course at IRCAM and worked with Louis Andriessen in Amsterdam, co-founding the international contemporary music collective Concerten Tot and Met. Her music has been performed in festivals around the world. Ms. Nez joined the faculty at Boston University in 2005, directing the Time's Arrow new music ensemble for four years.

Composer/performer Kurt Rohde is artistic advisor with the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and the Composers Conference, as well as a curator at the Center for New Music. A professor at University of California-Davis, Rohde received the Rome and Berlin Prizes as well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Barlow, Fromm, Hanson, and Koussevitzky Foundations. The sequence of poems Rohde chose for the first work on the recording (It wasn't a dream ) are by Diane Seuss and is written for soprano (Charlotte Mundy), tenor (Andrew Fuchs), and piano four hands (Michael Brofman and Miori Sugiyama). The second work, Treatises for an Unrecovered Past is for string quartet and was inspired by music treatises and is performed by the Lydian Quartet.

Across the Ages features cello works written by the prolific American composer Alan Hovhaness (1911-200). Inspired by elements of ancient Armenian, Japanese, and Indian music, the collection of works reflects Hovhaness' renowned ability to synthesize different musical traditions. Utilizing the cello's rich and expressive nature, Hovhaness' music reveals the timeless connection we have to past civilizations, to nature, and to one another. Cellist Christina Gullans is an avid performer with an interest in music semiology. A former member of the Boston String Quartet, she has participated in numerous festivals, including Aspen, Spoleto, and Music Without Borders. She plays an American cello made by Charles Albert in 1886.

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.

Trio Accento (Limor Toren-Immerman (violin); Garik Terzian (cello); Nora Chiang Wrobel (piano) is known for its advocacy of contemporary compositions. This recording features five varied works, one of which was commissioned by the ensemble. All three members of Trio Accento have distinguished performing and teaching careers and as a trio have performed to critical acclaim. Jeff Beal's Almost Morning is a dance work composed for choreographer Claudia Schreier. Russell Steinberg's Paleface was inspired by the acclaimed paintings of "psychological pop" artist Jerry Kearns, while Gernot Wolfgang's Jazz and Cocktails was inspired by the goings-on of an imaginary cocktail party. Juhi Bansal's Wings evokes a day in the montains and the image of a solitary bird flying through a rain-filled sky. Kenneth Froehlich's Polarized is a study of contrasts, conceived as a response to our ever-increasing polzarized society.

Don Walker's esthetic stems from the example of Charles Ives. Like Ives, Walker prefers to embrace all styles, as long as they produce music that is original, expressive, and involving for the listener. Many of the works on this recording date from the 1980s. During this time, Walker was often influenced by the Post Modern esthetic, which seemed to be taking over from Serialism and Chance Music. The music is lyrical, tonal, and often manifests jazz and world music influences. This is Walker's fourth recording for Albany Records.

This recording features six chamber works by Donald Reid Womack combining East Asian and Western string instruments. Intertwined, the title of this album, offers just the right combination of simple imagery and layered meaning, not only with the intertwining of Eastern and Western string instruments, but also with Womack's compositions interlock and meld rhythmically, motivically, and stylistically. Womack, the composer of almost 100 works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, solo instruments, chorus and voice,has concentrated on compositions for Korean, Japanese, and Chinese instruments. His music has been performed and broadcast around the world and his composition appear on more than a dozen recordings. A faculty member at the University of Hawaii since 1994, Dr. Womack has chaired the music department and presently serves as professor of composition and theory, as well as a faculty member of both the Center for Japanese Studies and Center for Korean Studies.

The Pan Pacific Ensemble, a woodwind quintet based in the State of Washington, has a history of commissioning and performing contemporary music. This second recording of the ensemble includes works by American Nick Omiccioli; Chinese-American Chen Yi; Indian-American composer Asha Srinivasan; Thai composers Chaipruck Mekara and Siraseth Pantura-Umporn; Chinese composer Zhong Jun Cheng; and Vietnamese-American composer P.Q. Phan. 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.

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.

Composer David Gompper has lived and worked professionally as a pianist, conductor, and composer in New York, San Diego, London, Nigeria, Michigan, Texas, and Iowa. He studied at the Royal College of Music, and the University of Michigan. Since 1991 he has been Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. His many awards include an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City, and a Fromm Commission. Recordings of his music appear on the Albany and Naxos record labels. He has chosen recent chamber music written for string instruments for this recording, which are given stellar performances by violinist Wolfgang David, cellist Hannah Holman, double bass player Volkan Orhon, and pianists Réne Lecuona and David Gompper.

American composer Richard Aldag is also known as an educator and arts administrator. He holds a Ph.D. in Music from the City University of New York Graduate Center. He has received numerous commissions and served as composer-in-residence for the Sitka Summer Music Festival and the El Paso Pro Music Chamber Music Festival. Aldag has served on the faculties of San Francisco State University, San José State University, Pacific Union College, the Aaron Copland School of Music, Fordham University, and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. He was a special lecturer at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1991 and 1992. His arts administration career includes executive director positions with the Napa Valley Symphony, the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and the Los Lupeños de San José, among others. With this first recording of his music, Aldag shares some of his most recent chamber music, offering a range of ensemble and instrumentation. The inspirations and expressive intentions are similarly diverse. This recording offers a rich and finely curated showcase for Aldag's latest music with a chance to get to know this original and compelling composer through the intimate expression and vivid textures that are the distinguishing hallmarks of chamber music.

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.

This intriguing and ingenious album by Gernot Wolfgang bridges sophisticated Viennese elements with edgier and rawer textures found in more contemporary American works. Wolfgang is taking us on an autobiographical safari with this "groove-oriented" classical album that will be a pleasure for the listener to explore. The compositions are for eclectic chamber groups, beginning with a bassoon-piano opener and concluding with a piano quartet. These many forms reveal the multiplicity of Wolfgang. Described as a "master composer with important things to communicate to his listeners," Gernot Wolfgang was born in Austria in 1957. Currently he lives in Los Angeles where (among many other musical activities) he works as an orchestrator in the film and TV music industry. He has been a lecturer at the University of Music in Graz and offered master classes at numerous universities in the U.S. and Mexico. He has received more than 40 commissions from organizations such as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Jazz Festival of the European Broadcasting Union, and the Debussy Trio. This is his fourth recording for Albany Records.

Inspired by a work for viola and clarinet by Rebecca Clarke, clarinetist Elizabeth Crawford and violist Katrin Meidell formed Violet and began working on expanding the literature for this sorely underrepresented genre of classical chamber music. All the works on this recording were written for their duo. Since its inception in 2015, Violet's efforts have produced more than 100 new compositions. Elizabeth Crawford is on the faculty at Ball State University. Prior to this appointment, she was a member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. She has performed and taught at festivals around the world and has transcribed a number of works for E-flat clarinet. Her recording of music for this instrument appears on the Albany Records label. Violist Katrin Meidell enjoys a prolific career as a performer, pedagogue, and lecturer, traveling around the world to perform and present. She is on the faculty of Columbus State University.

The tradition of performing the repertoire on this recording came directly from French wind instrumentalists who were brought to New York in 1905 by Walter Damrosch to join the New York Symphony. The arrival of these performers, trained at the Paris Conservatory, was a turning point in the development of woodwind playing in this country. Flutist Georges Barrère was a key figure in this evolution. He became a tireless advocate of the music of his adopted country, insisting that all programs of his Wind Ensemble include at least one American work. He consistently promoted new repertoire and was responsible for the premières of more than 150 works. The Sylvan Winds are heirs to this rich heritage, one established by Barrère and his French colleagues, and are dedicated to preserving and continuing it. This recording will help listeners to appreciate our inherited classical music tradition. The Sylvan Winds, established in 1982, are an integral part of New York City's cultural offerings and have earned both critical and audience acclaim for their spirited performances and innovative programming.