Catalog

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.

William Moylan was born in Virginia, Minnesota. His early musical experiences were centered on the violin and guitar, and later on the double bass. He graduated from Ball State University and the Peabody Conservatory. Today he is Chairperson of the Department of Music, and Professor of Music and Sound Recording Technology, at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. About this recording Moylan writes: "Origins is about returning to beginnings. In many ways Origins represents the closing of a circle that brings me back to the beginnings of my musical career and my first compositions. I remember discovering that writing music could emerge from the center of one's core, early in my career. During the process of maturing, learning one's craft, and engaging the conscious mind's desire to forge a unique musical voice, the tendency to look inward and engage one's innate musicality can easily be lost. I have returned to a way of writing that flows comfortably and naturally, and speaks from a voice deep within. It now contains styles and languages enhanced by so many experiences along my career, with something familiar to my earliest works. The compositions also speak to beginnings: to the first sunrise and the beginning of the new day; to childhood and human innocence, and to ancient beliefs and spiritual origins; to the origins of life in the sea, nature and the Earth, and to the original human connection to nature. All three of the compositions on this disc were written for the home listening environment. They are Chamber music for today's Chamber, written to exploit the intimacy and immediacy of the living room, and the unique sound qualities and sound relationships available through recording playback, especially the spatial relationships of stereo."

In January of 1892 when Harry T. Burleigh, the 25 year old African-American baritone from Erie, Pennsylvania, arrived in New York City to audition for a place at the National Conservatory of Music, few could have guessed how significantly this young man would affect the course of American music. His influence on Antonin Dvorak, who served as Director of the conservatory during three of Burleigh's four years of study, is reflected in Dvorak's use of African-American musical elements in his New World Symphony and his other American compositions. Burleigh's vibrant singing of plantations songs and spirituals, alongside the traditional recital repertoire, gave Americans accustomed to minstrel performances new aural images of African-American culture. By the second decade of this century, his secular art songs were being sung by some of the most distinguished international artists. And when he began to publish choral and solo arrangements of spirituals (in 1913 and 1916, respectively), he pioneered in bringing a distinctive African-American voice into the American choral and art song repertoire, making these sorrow songs accessible to singers of all national and ethnic backgrounds. Although he did not formally study with Dvorak, he spent many hours in Dvorak's home singing the songs he learned from his grandfather. The composer often interrupted him to ask about specific music idioms such as the flatted seventh, and asked "hundreds of questions" about the lives of slaves. The hours Burleigh spent discussing music with Dvorak and working as his music copyist profoundly affected him. Dvorak's interest in African-American music, his personal encouragement of Burleigh's own composition, and his demonstration of a sophisticated approach to the use of folk music as a creative resource, inspired Burleigh to work throughout his career to preserve the slave songs. Ultimately, he committed himself to fulfilling Dvorak's challenge to "give those melodies to the world."

Gardner Read writes: "As a longtime, committed composer of art songs and of choral music, I have always been drawn to poetry that is rich in vivid imagery - "where sheep lie down to wait for morning's dew," for instance, or "when moonlight falls on the water," or "while envious fireflies spoil the twinkling dew," and "eager people, banners dreaming, marble gleaming"- all evoke positive musical response to the poem's compelling imagery. On the other hand, poetry that is heavily philosophical in tone, is basically narrative-oriented, or is motivated by social protest, for example, seldom stirs the creative juices for me. Stylistically, my vocal music here recorded ranges from overt romanticism, to various degrees of impressionism, to an almost folklike simplicity, even naiveté. These different vocal styles, however, are not the result of calculated choice but are determined only by the perceived musical potentialities of the poetic text. A clearly defined melodic line and a varied and apt accompanimental support are the twin basic criteria that have always shaped my vocal writing."

David Patterson, Ph.D. Harvard University, names as his teachers Leon Kirchner, Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory. He served as chairman of the Music Department for fifteen years at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Poet TenBroeck Davison, great granddaughter of Richard W. Sears, founder of the first mail-order firm, Sears Company, lived and studied on both sides of the Texas border. Having lived in Corpus Christi, her poems evoke images of her adolescent years spent absorbing the flavor of two cultures converging in that southernmost point of the continental United States. Poet James Merrill (1926-1995), the son of Charles Merrill, who was a founder of the stock brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch, published fifteen books of poetry. Last Words was commissioned for "An Evening of Words and Music" at Washington University with James Merrill, who was then poet-in-residence.

The British composer, Peter Dickinson, was born at Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire. His musical personality ranges widely from the three substantial concertos for organ, piano and violin to the forthcoming witty Rags, Blues and Parodies collection. His layering technique in larger works - and notably in Surrealist Landscape here - enables different types of music to coexist in a way that sounds like no other composer. These song cycles show Dickinson responding to major 20th century writers and his sometimes colloquial manner may derive from some of the poets represented. For this recording, some of the finest British singers of their generation have worked with the composer to create an unusual document in the history of the English song cycle.

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."

The artists on this disc write: "Through the ages, they have played recitals, studied in conservatories, written symphonies, concerti, chamber music, operas and piano works. Their music has been performed and recorded by the world's most prestigious orchestras, chamber ensembles, vocalists and instrumentalists. Although frequently neglected, art songs have consistently appeared in the output of women composers. From the parlor songs of Amy Beach to the jazzy accompaniments and lush tunes of Margaret Bonds, American and African-American women have created well-written and interesting compositions and made exciting contributions to the art of song repertoire. This CD is a compendium of these unsung (and in some instances unpublished) art songs. Some are romantic and rapturous, others folksy and frilly, yet all are replete with charm and dignity and worthy to be heard."

It is common practice in scholarly circles to honor an individual or institution with a festschrift, a collection of essays or articles written by close associates, former students, colleagues, or those with interests relevant to the life’s work of the honoree. In that spirit, Videmus (the non-profit musical organization devoted to furthering the music of African American composers and artists) offers this CD as a musical celebration of Dr. Willis Patterson’s commanding achievements in performance, education, and administration. If a composer like William Grant Still is considered the “Dean of African-American composers,” then “Dean” Patterson, as he is affectionately known by many, could certainly be considered “Dean” of a long line of distinguished black performer/educators that stretch back at least to the 19th century. His commitment to the music of African-Americans exemplified by the 1977 Anthology of Art Songs by Black Composers fostered the scholarly research and performance of this literature by many artists including those on this recording and Jessye Norman.

By the time of the great emergence of the recording industry in the 1930's, John Alden Carpenter's exquisite songs, which had enjoyed such widespread acclaim in the 1910's and 1920's, had begun to lose favor. Even to this day, very few of these songs, most of which date from the early 1910's, have found their way into the recording studio. All the more reason, then, to welcome this recording by Robert Osborne and Dennis Helmrich of nearly all of Carpenter's mature songs. This includes some, mostly from Carpenter's later years, that the composer never even published. (Only someone as unsparingly scrupulous as Carpenter would think twice about bringing out the likes of "Spring Joys," "Midnight Nan," or "The Hermit Club.") Carpenter's choice of texts - from Wilde and Yeats to Tagore and Li Po, from Langston Hughes and James Agee to a few minor poets now forgotten, but still contemporaries of quality - reveals an astonishing sensitivity toward new poetic trends. (It helped that he lived in the Chicago of Harriet Moore's Poetry and Margaret Anderson's Little Review.) Complimenting this refined literary sensibility one finds a highly sophisticated command of harmony and counterpoint, though the music always serves, never overwhelms the poetic idea, somewhat in the tradition of Debussy, whose songs clearly made a deep impression. For all their delicacy, many of Carpenter's songs show a pronounced and rather melancholy preoccupation with loneliness and death, but faced with extraordinary calm and restraint. Even the love songs and humorous songs have a certain wistfulness, a bittersweet quality that is pure Carpenter. Complete texts.

Lori Laitman was graduated magna cum laude, with honors in music, from Yale College, and received her M.M. in flute performance from Yale School of Music. Her principal composition teachers were Jonathan Kramer and Frank Lewin. Her initial compositional focus was writing music for film and theater; in 1980, she composed the score to The Taming of the Shrew for the Folger Theatre in Washington. Since 1991, she has concentrated on composing for the voice. The works on this CD, for voice with a variety of accompaniments, reveal Ms. Laitman's ability to capture and highlight the spirit of each individual text.

Many people think Alec Wilder was our finest composer of American songs. This CD will give you the opportunity to judge for yourself. Alec Wilder was born in Rochester, N.Y. Largely self-taught, he came of age as a composer with the birth of the Eastman School of Music. His relationship to the school was a rocky one, though he was a regular during his student years, he never graduated. He was a composer who was at home with American music in the largest sense - from Broadway to Hollywood, popular or classical - and the idiosyncratic mixture of styles in his music makes it just as much an "American original" as that of his avant-garde contemporaries. The "President of the Derriere-Garde" as he was often called, he simply composed - and often composed simply - music of charm and beauty for the musicians who were his artistic partisans, giving little thought to the categories into which other people might place it.

Lieder, so prominent in German and Austrian culture at the end of the 18th century, did not figure prominently in the output of Franz Joseph Haydn. To most of today's musical public, they are of somewhat secondary importance, and not well known. Only in recent years, such internationally acclaimed vocalists as Elly Ameling, Arleen Auger, Anne Sofie von Otter, and now the great American mezzo Victoria Livengood, have begun to include them in their recitals. Haydn wrote his first songbook in 1781, with a second in 1784. These two sets of English canzonettas were created during his stay in London in 1794-95, where he met the English poetess Anne Hunter. Later, two more English songs were added. The canzonettas are marked by a rhapsodic and elegiac flavor, influenced by Herder's emphasis on the folk song.

The Luzerne Chamber Music Festival presents eight weekly concerts on Monday evenings during July and August in Lake Luzerne, New York. The concerts are held under the auspices of the Luzerne Music Center, a music camp for talented young musicians founded in 1980 by Philadelphia Orchestra cellist Bert Phillips, and his wife, Toby Blumenthal, concert pianist. All the music on this CD was performed as part of this imaginative concert series. Theresa Treadway Lloyd is the head of vocal studies at the Luzerne Music Center and does perform regularly at the Festival.

"This CD is a crossover adventure - a musical cocktail of classic jazz standards with a dash of continental, a Latin twist and a splash of the blues. This eclectic atmosphere has always been my home. My father, a contemporary classical composer (Leon Kirchner, Pulitzer Prize 1967), conductor and pianist, took me to see Ray Charles, played and analyzed Duke Ellington songs with me and pointed out the brilliance of a young guitarist named Jimmy Hendrix as we discussed Mozart, Bach, and Schoenberg. My mother was a coloratura soprano who had performed classical lieder and show tunes in New York supper clubs. I myself have moved from classical, folk and pop music to musical theater and ultimately to jazz." Thus writes Lisa Kirchner as she describes this new album.

The presence of the great Marilyn Horne and the late Henry Lewis on this CD is a special treat. Songs of Flowers, Bells and Death; Contextures IV was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment of Music Composition at Brigham Young University. The premiere took place on March 8, 1994 with Ron Brough conducting the Brigham Young Concert Choir and Percussion Ensemble. The meaning of the work is best expressed in its text which embraces approximately 2600 years of sadness and anger. Silent Boughs "To Jackie" was written in 1963. This song cycle for mezzo soprano and string orchestra on poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay was commissioned by Marilyn Horne and Henry Lewis. It received its first performance on November 15, 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Contextures II is based on nearly 3000 years of anti-war poetry, from Homer to Fanta Bass (1930-1944). A line of oscillating major seconds hovering over a static harmony and funereal bell sounds conclude Contextures: Riots Decade '60, and overlap into the opening of Contextures II. The major seconds refer to the opening of the African-American spiritual We Shall Overcome, so closely associated with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.

Although he was one of the most important British composers of the mid-20th century, during his lifetime Bernard Stevens attracted rather less attention than some of his contemporaries. He was a fine pianist; however composition became his preoccupation after study in the 1930s with E.J. Dent at Cambridge University and R.O. Morris at the Royal College of Music in London. Here Stevens gained the highest awards and later became a distinguished professor. Stevens was highly respected within the musical world. He composed steadily, and his works were performed; but it was more or less inevitable that his professed left-wing sympathies and intellectual and moral integrity sometimes brought him into conflict with the attitudes of the British musical establishment. Despite his solid academic record, Stevens was anything but academic in style, personality and convictions. The two works presented here are the final two vocal compositions that he composed. He adapted the libretto himself for The Shadow of the Glen, from the play by John Millington Synge.

Marilyn Taylor writes: "My voice sat down in this music. It kicked its shoes off and felt cold bare earth and said 'this is home.' The events leading to the creation of this disc took place over many years. A motivating factor in producing it was bringing the songs of Charles Vardell to light, as well as other unrecorded works of composers either born, or living in North Carolina. Synchronicity has proven that a link exists between myself and each group of songs, sometimes becoming obvious only after the fact. Moving to Winston-Salem in 1992 to teach at the North Carolina School of the Arts was made easier because the terrain and homes reminded me of Louisville, Kentucky, my birthplace. Here I discovered I share with Frazelle and Vardell a love of land and hills and an appreciation of rural life and music, instilled in me by childhood visits to relatives in 'the country' and long jaunts in the woods there. The songs of Robert Ward do not evoke these types of images; however, a connection between Millay (from whom the text is taken) and myself exists in the passion for a younger man, which in my case became a marriage and a musical collaboration lasting fifteen years."

Best known for his opera, Blake, his art songs and choral writing, Harrison Leslie Adams has made significant contributions to the genres of vocal and instrumental music. Currently a full time composer living in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, his music has earned him national attention. He graduated from Oberlin. Among his teachers were Herbert Elwell, Joseph Wood, Robert Starer and Vittorio Giannini. It is appropriate that this first compact disc dedicated to his music be of his songs for he is certainly one of the most gifted and immediately lyrical composers of our time. About Darryl Taylor the great MET tenor George Shirley writes: "It was a foregone conclusion that Darryl Taylor would one day record the works of composer H. Leslie Adams. From the day of our first meeting in Los Angeles in the mid-1980's, it was apparent to me that this young tenor was an artist with a two-fold mission: to champion the works of African-American composers, and to commission and otherwise encourage composers of whatever race or ethnicity to create new works for the singing voice. This CD recording of songs from the prolific pen of Leslie Adams is a shining example of Dr. Taylor's sterling artistry and dedication to the perpetuation and performance of the American art song.

The life of composer, poet, artist and publisher Carrie Jacobs-Bond reads like a classic American rags-to-riches success story. Hailed during her lifetime as the "James Whitcomb Riley of Song," many of Bond's 400-some "home" songs have become standards in the popular repertory and have been near and dear to the hearts of generations of listeners. She was born in a small town in southern Wisconsin and enjoyed some celebrity as a child because of her ability to play the piano. She received minimal formal music training. After a first failed marriage, during which she had her beloved son Fred, she married her childhood sweetheart Dr. Frank Lewis Bond and moved with her young son to Iron River, Michigan. It was here she began to compose her songs, but sadly, after only seven years, her husband died, leaving her almost penniless. To support herself and her son, she "peddled" her songs. She founded her own publishing house "The Bond Shop" and it was run by her and her son until he committed suicide in 1929. Here is how she was described: "In a voice drenched with tears, almost basslike in quality, she would sit at her old grand piano and intone these quaint melodies for us. These were certainly not distinguished compositions, by any means, but there was a quality about them, a wistfulness that was part of her nature, that made each new song seem a revelation." A composer of American melodies in the tradition of Stephen Foster, Carrie Jacobs-Bond's songs epitomize the Victorian and post-Victorian parlor song: unapologetically sentimental, yet displaying a genuine lyric gift. In the words of one biographer, her songs "represent a final flowering of the 19th century genteelly sentimental song in American popular music."

In his second CD recording, bass-baritone Oral Moses offers art songs and spiritual arrangements by African-American composers and arrangers whose work spans the 20th century and spills over into the 21st century. Mr. Moses, a South Carolina native, began his singing career as a member of the United States Seventh Army Soldiers Chorus in Heidelberg, Germany and a member of the famed Fisk Jubilee Singers while attending Fisk University following his military career. Upon completion of his undergraduate studies he was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship which provided him the opportunity to return to Europe for further study in vocal performance and opera. Upon his return to the United States, he attended the University of Michigan where he earned a Masters of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree in vocal performance and opera. He is the co-author of Feel the Spirit: Studies in 19th Century Afro-American Music. He is currently Professor of Voice and Music Literature at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Just as she blends a masterful mix of musical genres in concert halls across the country, engaging oratorio soloist Dawn Holt Lauber will inspire the musical choices you make for your wedding day with this collection of the old and new, appropriately titled "Something Borrowed, Something Blue." Listen in and you will be lured by a handful of selections that are a bit off the beaten path - a beautiful marriage of classical and jazz that promises to be a perfect accompaniment to the beginning of your new life together. Dawn Holt Lauber has appeared extensively with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. She first performed Duke Ellington's sacred works at the Riverside Church in New York City with members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. She has been a soloist at the Riverside Church for five years.

Variations of Greek Themes was commissioned by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and received its first performance on November 20, 1977, with Maureen Forrester as soloist. "Variations of Greek Themes," Edward Arlington Robinson's collection of twelve poems based on texts by ancient authors, was published in 1915. Eight of the poems are set in this cycle. Innocence and Experience is a cycle of songs from the poems of William Blake. It was commissioned by the friends of Music at Yale (where Mr.Lewin taught music from 1971 to 1992) and received its first performance in 1961, with Helen Boatwright as soloist. Seven poems by Blake are arranged into a cycle of two contrasting days; they are set to music for soprano solo, and an ensemble of flute, oboe, horn, harp, two violins, viola, and two cellos. The text forms a cosmos of recurring images and ideas, several of which are reflected by corresponding musical devices. A Musical Nashery is a cycle of songs from the poems of Ogden Nash and was commissioned by Naomi Lewin, who gave its first performance on March 5, 1980, at the Yale School of Music, as part of her recital for a Master of Music degree. Complete texts are included in the program booklet for all the songs.

Rossini cherished a lifelong fondness for Venice, the scene of his first operatic triumphs. During long years of "retirement" (he composed his last opera, Guillaume Tell in 1829 at the age of 37), he led a restless existence, leaving Paris in 1836 for Milan, Bologna, and Florence, until finally embracing Paris for good in 1855. Only there, it seems, could his muse express herself through the intimate genres of the solo song and the small piano piece. Except for a certain feline aria - which is exceptional in every way - all the works on this program come from two Parisian collections: the 1835 Soirees musicales with its eight solo songs and four duets, and the Peches de vieillesse ("Sins of old age"), with its thirteen volumes of songs, vocal ensembles and piano pieces composed after 1856. So here we have the superb American soprano Julianne Baird and some of her friends, accompanied by the fortepianist Andrew Willis, performing a delightful program of Venetian barcarolles, love duets, ensembles and gondolier songs, all by Rossini.

The title of this CD tells the listener all that needs to be known about what to expect from this disc: A Superb Gathering of Poets and Musicians. Here we have music by composers Melissa Shiflett, Lee Hoiby and Elliot Z. Levine to poems by poets Sara Teasdale, Jeffery Beam, Shauna Holiman and Katha Pollitt, performed by musicans Shauna Holiman, Arlene Shrut, Barbara Stein Mallow, Brent McMunn, Amelia Watkins, Ann Salwey, Jeffery Beam, and Katha Pollitt. In the booklet there is complete biographical information about all of the artists who take part in this production. The number is considerable because the poets are integral to the music making.

Lisa Kirchner's latest collection fits all seasons of the heart. During the very first listening one moves easily to the soul light flowing in. And you keep going back again and again  finding yourself pleasantly pinned inside a wall of exquisite and beguiling sounds. Her eclectic musical background includes recordings, concerts and nightclubs, where she has performed her multi-lingual repertoire of American jazz standards and international music. Her appearances have included numerous New York City nightclubs, among them Birdland, Maxim's, The Copacabana, The Village Gate and Tatou. When Lights Are Low is Lisa Kirchner's second album on Albany Records and follows One More Rhyme (TROY409) which garnered high praise from critics.

Lori Laitman is an art song composer whose works are performed widely in the United States and abroad. She has served as composer-in-residence at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; and as guest artist at The Grandin Festival (associated with the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music). Lori Laitman was graduated magna cum laude with honors in music from Yale College. She received her M.M. in flute performance from the Yale School of Music. Her principal composition teachers were Jonathan Kramer and Frank Lewin. Her initial focus was composing music for film and theater and in 1980, she wrote the score for The Taming of the Shrew for the Folger Theater in Washington. Since 1991, she has concentrated on composing for the voice.

First and foremost a composer of songs, Christopher Berg has been called "an American Hugo Wolf" by the American Record Guide. Though self-taught as a composer, several composer mentors have encouraged him, most significantly the late Robert Helps with whom he studied piano. The Mirror Visions Ensemble was formed in New Haven, Connecticut in 1992 to explore and perform song repertoire, in particular multiple settings of texts. The ensemble's first concert was sponsored by the Yale University Art Gallery, and since then exhibitions and poetry have provided the inspiration and focus of much of their work. In 2000, the ensemble created a program which accompanied the exhibition Edward Lear and the Art of Travel at the Yale Center for British Art. Also in 200, the ensemble inaugurated the Leo Smit Concert Series at the Jones Library in Amherst with a performance of compositions based on the poetry and letters of Emily Dickinson in celebration of the poet's 170th birthday.

Composer and conductor, Victoria Bond has written for every medium including opera, orchestra, ballet and chamber music. She was born in Los Angeles into a family of professional musicians. She studied composition with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, and with Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School, becoming the first woman to earn a doctorate degree in orchestral conducting in 1977. While still at Juilliard, she worked with composers Pierre Boulez and Aaron Copland as assistant conductor of the Contemporary Music Ensemble. Chosen by Dennis Russell Davies to be his assistant at the Cabrillo Music Festival in California and The White Mountains Music Festival in New Hampshire, she premiered numerous works including her own compositions. She has served as Music Director and Conductor of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra from 1986-1995 and Artistic Director of Opera Roanoke (1989-1995) and The Hamburg Opera (1997-2003).

In 1619, twenty-two persons from different countries and tribes on the continent of Africa, landed in Jamestown, Virginia and were quickly bought and sold into the non-human existence of slavery. From this arduous and painful slave life sprang a poignant and powerful music genre that has become one of the most significant segments of American music. As you listen to this unique recording of unaccompanied Negro Spirituals, bass-baritone Oral Moses transports you into this deep dark world of bondage. Moses' deep resonant voice is well suited to command the strength, power and aesthetic beauty needed to maintain and support the strong tradition and characteristic elements that are so essential and inherent in the Negro Spiritual. The Negro Spiritual, sometimes referred to as plantation songs, sorrow songs or slave-songs, originated from the innermost being of enslaved Africans who were captured from the West Coast of Africa and transported to the Americas. While in bondage, they were forbidden to talk or make the musical instruments they had used in Africa, but they could sing whatever they felt. The gift of singing became an invaluable tool of expression and a relief from the cruel and brutal existence of the slave-life. It is in these simple African melodies, which, "sprang into existence," where the enslaved Africans expressed their pain, anger, grief, faith and joy. Just as Africans communicated among themselves using drum language in their own countries and tribes, so did the enslaved Africans continue to do so in America by using "cries," "hollers," "calls," "shouts," which eventually evolved into spirituals and work songs. This recording was made at Zion Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia. Founded in 1856 by slaves, this historic church proved a fitting location for the recording.

Gena Branscombe was a major figure in song writing from the turn of the century through the 1930s, the period when the solo recital was a viable venue for the professional singer. Gena grew up immersed from an early age in the musical life in the small Canadian town of Picton, Ontario. She studied with local teachers, finished high school with honors at 15, and then went to Chicago where she enrolled in the Chicago Musical College as a scholarship student of Rudolph Ganz. Basically on her own from age 16 onwards, she taught piano students and accompanied singers to supplement her income. In 1901, she joined the Musical College as a piano teacher. In 1907, she moved to Walla Walla, Washington, to establish the music department and teach at Whitman College. In 1909-1910, she studied in Berlin with Ganz and Englebert Humperdinck. She returned to America in 1910 and married and then settled in New York City where she and her husband had four daughters. She then moved to Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, where she began to participate in local choruses. She wrote much choral music and succeeded Mrs. H.H.A. Beach as the second president of the Society of American Women Composers. The 1930s marked the creation of the Branscombe Choral, a women's chorus. The chorus was finally disbanded in 1954, when Gena was 73 years old. She spent the rest of her life traveling with her daughters and composing. Her first songs were published in Chicago in the 1890s, while she was still a student. Her last song was published in 1957. Her greatest activity as a published song composer was between 1906 and 1922, after which her attention turned to choral works.

The works on this CD present a collection of songs that reflect the richness and sophistication of the American song tradition from the 19th century up through the end of the 20th century. The first half of this recording includes Battle Pieces, a song cycle written by Warren Michel Swenson; the second half contains 11 19th century songs by European and African American composers. All the works on this CD interact with two central themes: the Civil War era and the interconnections between the Black and White culture in America. In his song cycle, Swenson, a contemporary American composer, sets Herman Melville's Civil War poems, Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War. Also included on the disc are 19th century songs that come out of the minstrel and parlor song tradition. With easily available published sheet music, the dissemination of popular music in the 19th century reached a large audience that both reflected and helped shape values of that time. Considered all together, this collection presents two views, a century apart, of how music can articulate the culture and themes surrounding the Civil War era.