Catalog

Composer/pianist Ketty Nez joined the composition and theory department at the Boston University School of Music in the fall of 2005. Ms. Nez completed a residence of several months at the École Nationale de Musique in Montbéliard, France, prior to the premiere of her chamber opera An Opera in Devolution: Drama in 540 Seconds, at the 2003 Seventh Festival Avantgarde in Munich. She comments: "The five recent chamber works on this recording, Postcards from the 1930's, timed curves, between, before, and wind down ii, were written for myself to play, and were composed after moving to Boston in 2005 to start teaching at Boston University while the most recent work on this recording, and marking a departure of sorts, Postcards from the 1930's was the byproduct of my everlasting curiosity for the sounds and rhythms of my own ethnic backgrounds, a mixture of Slovenian and Slavic Macedonian.

The music of Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun (1907-1991) is often framed as a bridge between East and West. Upheld as a central figure in the musical life of the Turkish Republic, Saygun represents a nationalistic stance based on an embrace of European compositional models combined with an appreciation for Turkish traditional music, particularly folk sources from Anatolia. The distinguished pianist Kathryn Woodard offers a fascinating and sympathetically performed program of his music for that instrument.

The story of the wide-eyed lad from Kansas City who became the toast of Paris via Harvard, one of America's most influential music critics from his decades' long perch at the New York Herald Tribune and a truly unique and productive composer, is almost hackneyed now, but still bears that "only in America" cachet. It was as a long-term resident of the Chelsea Hotel in New York that Gregg Smith and his Singers got to know the redoubtable Virgil in the later decades of his long life (born in 1896, he died at the age of 92 in 1989.) The present CD is an offering of gratitude for Virgil's support and friendship, as well as a concise overview of his work in the choral field--along with a brief excursion into his solo output.

Described by the Chicago Tribune as "an ensemble that invites you--ears, mind, and spirit--into its music," the Avalon String Quartet has established itself as one of the country's leading ensembles. Formed in 1995 at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Quartet came to the fore after participating in Isaac Stern's Chamber Music Workshop at Carnegie Hall in 1997. As a result, Mr. Stern invited the Avalon Quartet to perform in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music Encounters in Jerusalem and presented the ensemble's Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall. The quartet captured the top prize at the ARD Competition in Munich (2000) as well as the First Prize at Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York (1999). The quartet is in residence at Northern Illinois University. Their recording on Channel Classics won the Chamber Music America/WQXR Record Award in 2002.

Rarely has a composer exhibited such an extraordinarily heightened awareness of the very details of music-making, every physical, acoustic and emotional gesture of performance, painstakingly arrived at and indicated with astonishing clarity in the score. Nuance -- that is what Donald Martino wished to capture in his music and to pass on -- it's the demand he makes of the performer and it's the poignant, comprehensive, detailed world that draws the listener in. The ultimate result is a musical intimacy of great and intricate energy. Some of the best performers of 20th and 21st century music offer beautiful performances of this great composer's music.

William Appling, who died in 2008, felt that the music of Joplin and Bach were perfect compliments to each other. He was passionate to have people hear that the two composers were comparable in the caliber of their work. Bach wrote tightly structured works within the baroque style and his music became more complex over time. Joplin worked the tightly structured rag style, developing and expanding it throughout his career. Both stylistically created music having melodies within melodies. These were two geniuses writing at the highest level and thus the idea for a recording pairing the music of both was born. Those people who heard William Appling play knew that his gifts as a pianist were equal to those as a conductor, teacher and mentor. This recording is a small sample of his genius.

Performing his own music for piano on this recording, Gary Smart considers himself an improvising composer-pianist who finds ideas at the keyboard and works them out in an active engagement with the instrument. Smart contends that the piano can create subtle and complex orchestral textures, wonderful tonal variations and most of all -- the piano can sing. This recording adds to his discography on Albany Records. Previous recordings include a disc of sonatas, one of rags and one of songs.

Victoria Bond is the only woman composer/conductor to receive commissions from major organizations and also hold music director positions with leading ensembles. Her extensive catalog includes works written for the Houston, Shanghai, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestras, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. This recording highlights some of her enchanting music, including Bridges, a work for two clarinets and two Chinese instruments, the Erhu and the Pipa.

William Kraft (b.1923) has had a long and active career as composer, conductor, timpanist/percussionist and teacher. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara and was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 26 years, where he also served as composer-in-residence. His music has been performed by major orchestras throughout the United States and he has been commissioned by many distinguished ensembles. This is the sixth disc devoted to his music on Albany Records.

So, what is Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines? Is it an opera? Yes, it is, but more specifically it is "A Romantic Comedy in Music." Based on the play by Clyde Fitch, Sheldon Harnick wrote the libretto for this opera that was first performed in 1975 by the Kansas City Lyric Theatre. Born in 1921, Jack Beeson became interested in opera after listening to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts and as a teenager wrote a five-act libretto. His interest in opera revived while teaching at Columbia University and he has gone on to write 11 operas as well as works for orchestra, concert band, vocal and choral groups and solo and chamber music. He is the MacDowell Professor Emeritus of Music at Columbia. This recording, originally issued on Columbia and long out of print, brings this delightful opera back to the catalog.

Gilbert & Sullivan's hilarious 1887 Gothic comic opera, complete with dialogue and music, was recorded at the 2009 Festival of the Ohio Light Opera. Originally titled Ruddygore, the name, which meant bloody gore, gave offense at the premiere and the more acceptable Ruddigore was substituted. Cat-calls sayings "Give us back the Mikado" during the bows prompted a substantial reworking of the action. Despite the initial reception, the show ran for almost 300 performances. The score, full of ingratiating melodies, also boasts some novel touches as well as the usual comic patter songs and tuneful ballads. The extraordinary music for the ghosts in Act II represents Sullivan at his most inspired.

This recording of world premieres commissioned and performed by the Texas Christian University Percussion Ensemble is highlighted by Eric Ewazen's Symphony for Percussion Ñ a joyful celebration of the world of percussion with its kaleidoscope of colors and expressive possibilities. Conductor Brian A. West has developed a percussion program at TCU that is recognized for excellence in performance and education. Under his leadership, the TCU Percussion Ensemble has twice won the Percussive Arts Society International Percussion Ensemble Competition. A fascinating exploration of new works for percussion ensemble.

Donald Wheelock is the Irwin and Pauline Alper Glass Professor of Music at Smith College, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1974. His works include five string quartets, several pieces for solo instruments, eleven song cycles, and many larger ensemble and orchestral works. Among his awards are a first prize in a competition sponsored by the Hartford Symphony, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and two from the Guggenheim Foundation. This compact disc, a retrospective recording of Wheelock's music, offers a wide-ranging survey of his music for chamber ensembles.

Laderman comments, "This ninth cd with Albany Records brings me to the end of a musical exploration started October 1, 2000. This culminating cd, the final three string quartets I will ever compose represent the most recent evolution of my compositional esthetic...The excitement, the fun, the joy that composing has afforded me is due in no small measure to the unknown path traveled each morning as I sit before the blank sheet of music paper. It's a great way to spend a life. I recommend it without reservation."

The four compositions here might seem very disparate: a string quartet; a piece for unaccompanied choir; a sextet with electronic ambience; and finally a trombone solo in which the electronic interventions come right into the foreground. On listening, however, the differences begin to dissolve, leaving behind them the outlines of a distinct creative personality. One feature they share is fearlessness; another is their rhythmic dynamism and another is the containment of rhythmic and harmonic tensions in small motifs. The composer, David Felder, has long been recognized as a leader in his generation of American composers. His works have been featured at many of the leading international festivals for new music and he earns continuing recognition through performance and commissioning programs.

This most recent recording from the ever-adventurous Illinois State University Wind Symphony includes a new work by David Maslanka using poems by Illinois native Carl Sandburg. The 11 poems tell both an American, and a very deep human story. Maslanka brought folk songs from the Ruth Crawford Seeger collection into the music enhancing the American spirit of the work. The other major work, Symphony No. 3, is by Kimberly Archer, a former student of Maslanka's and currently am assistant professor of composition at Southern Illinois University.

Jeanne Golan gives us performances of music by American composer-pianists who understand and write beautifully for the piano, making a collection that ranges from the virtuosic to the introspective. With American Hand Stands, pianist Jeanne Golan continues her active involvement in the fostering of works by new composers and discovering relatively unknown musical treasures.

Composer Mary Lee Taylor Kinosian is also the violinist for the Upton Trio. Her music draws on and celebrates the American experience. The Upton Trio was formed in 1989 to present chamber music concerts for schools in South Carolina. The Trio has performed at Weill Recital Hall in New York City, at the Kennedy Center, and has been featured on NBC Nightly News. The Trio maintains an active commissioning program and has recorded several compact discs. The Upton Trio is permanent artist-in-residence at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina.

The eminent violinist Andrés Cárdenes offers a world premiere recording of David Stock's Violin Concerto, written for and premiered by him, as well as Aaron Copland's Violin Sonata arranged by Gerald Elias for violin and chamber orchestra along with a staple of the repertoire, Barber's violin concerto. Mr. Cárdenes holds the Rachel Mellon Walton Endowed Concertmaster Chair of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, teaches at Indiana University and maintains an active career as a soloist.

Composer Tom Cipullo's works have been heard at major concert halls on four continents, from San Francisco to Tel Aviv, from Stockholm to La Paz. He has received numerous commissions and awards including fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and the Copland House, among many others. He was honored for his contributions to the American art song repertoire with a retrospective concert given by Joy in Singing in 2000. The works on this disc span almost two decades with the first, The Land of Nod, being written in 1993.

Touch: The Toccata Project is a collection of post-1900 piano toccatas written by American composers. The distinguished pianist Philip Amalong has uncovered many unknown gems of the genre. Amalong is known for his intelligent, passionate interpretations and diverse and challenging repertoire. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Mr. Amalong is an active recitalist and chamber music performer.

This disc marks the first commercial recording of the music of Donald Sur -- one that is long overdue. Donald Sur was born in Honolulu of Korean parentage. He studied at UCLA, Princeton and Harvard. He resided in the Boston area, teaching occasionally at Harvard, M.I.T. and Tufts. Among contemporary composers in New England, Donald Sur was one of the best known and best loved. His colleagues and friends have universally respected his eclectic style, which reflects a variety of interests but remains unmistakably personal. His music is permeated with a quiet, sometimes bemused expressivity, and simultaneously a structural firmness quite unlike anyone else's today.

By the time composer Victor Herbert began work in 1905 on his comic opera Mlle. Modiste, he already had 14 Broadway shows to his credit and a reputation as America's most prominent composer of stage music. With Metropolitan Opera star Fritzi Scheff in the title role of Fifi, the hatgirl with dreams of a stage career, Mlle. Modiste opened on Christmas Day of 1905 and ran for 202 performances. Herbert's musical score remains one of the supreme gems in the American operetta canon and it is fitting that the Ohio Light Opera celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth with this delightful operetta.

Highlighting this recording is the chamber opera, The Birth of Something on a libretto by Will Eno. Commissioned by Da Camera of Houston, The Birth of Something represents an important, elegant, and highly personal contribution to the genre. An associate professor of composition at Rice University, composer Anthony Brandt earned his degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and Harvard. Among his many honors and awards are a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New England Foundation for the Arts. He is co-founder and artistic director of the Houston-based contemporary music ensemble Musiqa.

The texts for this magnificent oratorio, The Revelations of Divine Love, are adapted primarily from the writings of Julian of Norwich (c. 1342-1416); an excerpt from the Book of Margery Kempe; two poems by Robert Herrick and one by Elizabeth Kirschner. The primary concept underlying this oratorio is the presence of two distinct discourses. One is a sequence taken from Julian's religious visions and the other is a "sonic geography" of Nantucket Island.

Originally from Texas, Turner has resided in Luxembourg for more than 25 years. He is a member of the world-famous American Horn Quartet and a member of the Luxembourg Philharmonic. Turner has been composing since the age of 10. His principal successes as a composer have been in the chamber music genre, more specifically for brass. The works recorded here were all composed by Kerry Turner in the mid-1990s and represent four of his major works Ñ in gorgeous surround sound.

Argentine pianist Rosa Antonelli enjoys an active and varied performance career. Hailed by critics as a leading exponent of Spanish and Latin American music, Ms. Antonelli has premiered the works of important Latin American composers including Piazzolla, Ugarte, Gianneo, and Guastavino, among others. She has performed extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas with orchestras, in recital and as a chamber musician. She served as chairwoman of the piano department at the Provincial Conservatory of Music Alberto Ginestera and was professor of piano at the National University of La Plata in Buenos Aires. She currently teaches at Adelphi University.

Shamayim, a film by Elliot Caplan (filmmaker) and David Felder, (composer) began with Felder's work with Nicholas Isherwood on a piece for voice and electronic sounds and Caplan's interest in a series of images having to do with nature. Shamayim uses Hebrew letters as the base structure for the music, while Caplan uses the numeric values of these letters as inspiration for the images. In some cases, Caplan attempted to be as close to the sound as possible in creating the images and in others Felder would compose based on the images.

The 99 Beautiful Names of God are the names by which Muslims regard God. Composer J. Mark Scearce was inspired to interpret these names into music from a desire to heal. He created 99 Beautiful Names in order to help a pianist friend, ill from cancer, by giving her a set of small pieces that she could play to bring her back to her instrument and through it, back to health. Pianist John Cheek comments that "Mark's nobilissima visione for solo piano aims to heal and give the listener some soul time: Intimate, respectful ruminations on the Godhead or visions of Almighty Power."

Violinist Scott Conklin and pianist Alan Huckleberry have assembled an impressive group of new American compositions for violin and piano, which, with the exception of the Bolcom and Sheng, are world premiere recordings. Scott Conklin is Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Iowa School of Music. He appears regularly as a recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and teaching clinician throughout the United States and abroad. He was named the 2008 Iowa String Teachers Studio Teacher of the year and was a featured artist at the 2004 Music Teachers National Association Conference. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Conklin earned his D.M.A. from the University of Michigan School of Music.

Robert Xavier Rodríguez is one of the most significant and often-performed American composers of his generation. His music has been described as "Romantically dramatic" and "richly lyrical" by the press. He first gained international recognition in 1971 when he was awarded the Prix de Composition Musicale Prince Pierre de Monaco for his Trio I heard on this recording. A student of Nadia Boulanger, Rodríguez also studied composition with Jacob Druckman, Bruno Maderna and Elliott Carter. He holds the Endowed Chair of University Professor at The University of Texas at Dallas. His music has been performed all over the world by orchestras and at chamber music festivals. This recording offers a much-welcomed survey of his chamber music.

Born in Illinois, conductor/composer James Bolle studied at Harvard, Aspen, Antioch and Northwestern University. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by both Franklin Pierce and Notre Dame Colleges. Bolle studied composition with Darius Milhaud and conducting with Richard Lert. His music has been performed in the United States, Israel and Canada. He founded Monadnock Music in 1966 and was music director of the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra for 28 years. He has recorded for Musical Heritage, Monitor, Titanic, Serenus, CRI, Gasparo, Koch International and Albany Records.