Catalog

Once again, the enterprising Illinois State University Wind Symphony offers two world premiere recordings of the music of the distinguished American composer, David Maslanka. Written as a memorial for flutist Christine Capote, the orchestration for the Trombone Concerto contains one solo cello, representing Capote's cellist husband. Maslanka began the composition process for Symphony No. 8 with meditation and was shown scenes of widespread devastation, but the music is a celebration of life -- new life, continuity from the past to the future, hope, faith, joy, ecstatic vision and fierce determination.

The major work on this recording of music for wind ensemble by David Maslanka is Unending Stream of Life. Inspired by the hymn tune, All Creatures of Our God and King, Unending Stream of Life consists of seven "songs" for wind ensemble, each embodying the original tune, or relating to it in some way. The title comes from the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.

The extraordinary tubist Timothy Buzbee presents a program of new works by American composers for tuba and orchestra. The oldest work was written in 1978 (Broughton) and the most recent in 2004 (York). Buzbee has held principal tuba positions with the Acapulco Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Gavle Symphony and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He has toured throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, Japan and most of Asia giving master classes and performing recitals. He has recorded for BIS, Chandos, Naxos, Sony and Albany Records.

The music of the young Iraqi-American composer Karim Al-Zand has been called "strong and startlingly lovely" by the Boston Globe. His compositions are wide-ranging, from settings of classical Arabic poetry to scores for dance and pieces for young audiences. Many of his works explore connections between music and other arts. He holds degrees from Harvard and McGill Universities and is currently on the faculty of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. This recording, his first for Albany Records, shows his love for chamber music and small instrumental ensembles.

Composer Michael Dellaira and librettist Susan Yankowitz have written Chéri, a musical drama based on the novel by Colette. This recording consists of selections from The Actors Studio Workshop production in 2005. Dellaira chose his favorite musical passages without regard to whether they tell an abridged version of the story but listening to the selections gives one an accurate picture. Dellaira is currently composer-in-residence at The Center for Contemporary Opera and is at work on an opera based on Joseph Conrad's novel, The Secret Agent, with a libretto by J.D. McClatchy.

This second recording on Albany Records of the music of the distinguished American-born Canadian composer Michael Horwood features his music for percussion. The inspiration for the series of Piece Percussioniques, as well as the impetus for composing for percussion ensemble, came from two influential sources for the teen-aged Horwood: the innovative programming of Lukas Foss during his tenure with the Buffalo Philharmonic and from Horwood's exposure to the music of Edgard Varèse. These works for percussion ensemble span Horwood's compositional career: Piece No. 1 was written when he was 17 and Piece No. 6 is his most recent and final composition.

This third recording of the Argentinian composer Florencio Asenjo's music to appear on Albany Records can be described as predominantly "night music," a meditative kind suitable to the dreamy tales selected from The Thousand and One Nights and Don Quijote, with the Sinfonia Concertante as an appropriate nocturnal interlude. Asenjo's music is written in the maximalist style Ñ meaning that his compositions are based on the creation of sequences of themes that, taken in succession, are each a development of the preceding music.

The Atlanta Chamber Winds led by Robert J. Ambrose, offer a sparkling concert of music for wind ensemble by composers who lived and worked in Paris. All but one (the Pierné) are world premiere recordings and offer a substantial addition to the wind ensemble discography. Perhaps most interesting is Francis Chagrin who was born in Bucharest as Alexander Paucker but moved to Paris in 1928 and changed his name. He was most famous for his film music but he also wrote chamber music, two symphonies and songs.

The highlight of this exceptional program of American piano music is the first complete recording of Dane Rudhyar's Third Pentagram. Its fourth movement, "Stars," is a great American nocturne. Rudhyar lived a fascinating life studying philosophy, Buddhism, alchemy and Asian music. He painted (the cover image of the booklet is one of his works), wrote poetry, science fiction and books on astrology. The disc showcases landmark works by four composers who had contact with each other during the 1920s. Richard Zimdars, a professor of music at the University of Georgia, has performed the works on this compact disc to critical acclaim: "He conjured the mythology of clusters with two "Irish Legends" of Cowell... in Copland's Variations of 1930 he compressed a chiseling technique up to heroic force." --Rhein-Neckar Zeitung, Heidelberg "The most valuable contribution came after intermission with the First Piano Sonata of Ives. Confident performances of this big and difficult work are not common, and Mr. Zimdars gave one." --New York Times

For their fourth recording on Albany Records, the Rawlins Piano Trio has once again uncovered gems of the American repertoire including three world premiere recordings of the Grasse, Risher and Wilson and a commissioned work from the brilliant young composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Founded in 1987 the Rawlins Piano Trio performs regularly throughout the United States and abroad. They have formed a reputation as a preeminent interpreter of 19th and early 20th century American music.

John Melby's musical development has followed a circuitous path that might not have been expected to lead to music for digital computer. Trained as an orchestral musician, he spent many years in the trombone section listening. He trained at Princeton in composition after graduating from Curtis. He was intrigued with Babbitt's exploitation of live performance coupled with synthesized accompaniments and before too long, found himself drawn to an electronically-synthesized orchestra. He has written a series of concerti for live instruments and computer, with three of them represented on this recording.

Pianist Jeffrey Middleton, a champion of Joseph Fennimore's music, received his DMA from Yale. His career has included chamber music, vocal coaching and accompanying, solo performances and teaching. Of the music, Phillip Kennicott notes: "Fennimore's insistence on his right to work within a tradition, even if out of fashion, was pioneering. But his compositional style has undergone continual metamorphosis, and today the percussive aspects of the piano are more integral to his music."

Although still in his early thirties, the Thai-born composer Narong Prangcharoen has established an international reputation and is recognized as one of Thailand's leading composers. He has received many international prizes, including the Alexander Zemlinsky International Composition Competition Prize. Prangcharoen's earliest composition studies were in Thailand. He later studied at Illinois State University and at the University of Missouri in Kansas City with Chen Yi. This recording contains his better-known works and offers a snapshot of this young composer's gift.

A singular figure in today's new music scene, Janet Maguire was the recipient of the 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship. Distinguished by her arrangement of the Finale of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot and by her own opera, Hérésie, Maguire has worked in a wide variety of genres. Maguire was music critic for the Paris Herald Tribune and founded a new music ensemble in Venice, Musica in Divenire.

The extraordinary pianist Donna Amato presents a disc of the piano music of Arnold Rosner that includes five world premiere recordings. Born in 1945 Arnold Rosner has pursued a conservative but highly individual style, and his works have been widely performed, recorded, and reviewed. His music is known for it's gorgeous, long-breathed tunes and its powerful emotional appeal.

Lori Laitman, one of America's most prolific and widely performed composers of art song comments: "The songs on this CD are for solo voice and piano, and all have been composed since 2000, making them 21st century art song. The poems were written between 1612 and 2008...My goal is to create dramatic music to express and magnify the meaning of the poem...Each song becomes my musical interpretation of the poem."

Called a "composer to watch" by Opera News, Elena Ruehr's music has been performed by the Borremeo String Quartet, the Shanghai String Quartet, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (where she was composer in residence from 2000-2005), and the Cincinnati Symphony, among others. Dr. Ruehr was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute in 2009 and she teaches in the music department at MIT.

With sparkling articulation, pianist Pola Baytelman probes deeply to the heart of whatever music she plays. Born in Chile, Baytelman made her debut with the Chilean Symphony Orchestra at age 17, and has since played with numerous orchestras. She studied at the University of Chile's National Conservatory as well as at New England Conservatory and the University of Texas, Austin. Baytelman is an active recitalist and particularly enjoys playing music by women and by Spanish and Latin American composers, as this beautiful recording so clearly demonstrates.

Gary Smart notes: The three duo sonatas on this recording are "hot" in that they flow out of the American jazz tradition, "sonatas" in that they utilize classical sonata form and its associated developmental techniques. Composer Gunther Schuller coined the term "third-stream music" to label the musical fusion of the jazz and classical musical traditions. I like his term. I think it suits these sonatas of mine better than most other labels."

Peter Child is Professor of Music and MacVicar Faculty Fellow at MIT. A graduate of Reed College and Brandeis University, Child has received fellowships and commissions from the Fromm Foundation, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and the Harvard Musical Association, among others. His compositions have been awarded prizes from Tanglewood, East and West Artists, WGBH Radio, and New England Conservatory, to mention just a few. Child is presently composer in residence with the New England Philharmonic and his music was featured at the Lontano Festival of American Music in London in 2006 and 2008.

Five works for solo piano plus a sonata for two pianos by the distinguished American composer Adolphus Hailstork are performed by Andrey Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn. Sharing the honors on the solo piano pieces, they join forces for the Sonata for Two Pianos. Hailing from Armenian and Ukrainian families, these musicians were educated at the Moscow State Conservatory and came to the United States in the 1990s. They presently teach at Old Dominion University where they are colleagues of the composer.

This volume of Albany Records' series of the music of Edward Joseph Collins features first recordings of songs, piano solo works and the Piano Trio, Op. 1. The Illinois-born Collins died in 1951, leaving an oeuvre comprised of 12 major orchestral works, three piano concerti, a secular cantata, an opera, several chamber works, more than 20 songs and a dozen piano solo and duo scores.

The performers, Mary Nessinger, mezzo-soprano and Jeanne Golan, piano asked ten American composers from a variety of backgrounds to write songs in response to the ten individual songs that make up two visionary cycles from the cusp of the last century, Claude Debussy's Trois Chansons de Bilitis and Alban Berg's Sieben Frühe Lieder. The juxtapositions between the commissioned songs range from natural progressions to shocks of contrast in a way that the performers had not imagined, but that honor the pacing of the original cycles to an uncanny extent.

Viva Concertante! showcases works for chamber orchestra involving soloistic display, and features the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Conservatory Studio for New Music, as well as the University of Iowa's Center for New Music Ensemble. The compositions were either written or revised in the last dozen years. And just as old- and new-world connections are forged by means of the performing groups, a like situation extends to the ethnicity of the composers, with Italian, German, and English contributors as well as Chinese-, German-, Macedonian- and Welsh-Americans.

John Musto's one-act opera, Later The Same Evening is set in Manhattan in the 1950s and was inspired by a series of paintings by Edward Hopper. Later the Same Evening enjoyed a New York premiere at the Manhattan School of Music. The New York Times lauded "Mr. Musto's musical-theater-like score, which features recurring marimba riffs, chromatic interludes, fugal passages and hints of blues and jazz." Musto's music displays a rare and creative integration of all the idioms available to the 21st century composer.

A stunning program of works for soloists with wind ensemble is presented in this recording made by the University of Arizona Wind Ensemble. Acclaimed saxophonist Timothy McAllister performs a work by Daniel McCarthy inspired by the funk-horn band, Tower of Power. Brian Luce, a superlative flutist, performs in one of a handful of works written for flute with wind ensemble, while the great Jonathan Haas is joined by timpanist Gary Cook in performing Glass' work for 14 timpani with wind ensemble, creating a new sound out of the incredibly large sonorities.

The release of So Many Journeys marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare's sonnets. This recording, performed by members of The Shakespeare Concerts, contains two of the 26 sonnets set by composer Joseph Summer, an unabashed Oxfordian, as well as pieces from his opera Hamlet. The Sonata is a set of variations based on a baritone aria from Summer's opera Courting Disaster.

Lee Hoiby is widely recognized as one of the most significant composers in the genre of the American art song -- a genre to which he has been contributing for more than half a century. His affinity for setting texts of great literary value, and of considerable variety, is evident in the songs recorded here. From the haunting melodies of Winter Song to the tongue-in-cheek drama of Jabberwocky; from the biting ironies of The Message to the sweet simplicity of The Shepherd; and from the densely chromatic textures of Evening to the charming humor of The Serpent -- Hoiby's prodigious gifts for lyricism, atmosphere, and characterization as a song composer are much in evidence in this collection. Exquisitely performed by Ursula Kleinecke-Boyer and Maria Perez-Goodman, this is the only recording available dedicated exclusively to Hoiby's songs.

First performed in 1986 by the Des Moines Opera with Jacque Trussel as Caliban, the opera has come full circle with this recording of the Purchase Opera where Jacque Trussel served as director. Hoiby, born in Wisconsin in 1926, was infused with operatic ambitions during his studies at Curtis with Gian Carlo Menotti. He has written a number of operas, including several on Albany Records (A Month in the Country, Bon Appetit!, and This Is the Rill Speaking).

The origin of this project lies in a grant obtained by flutist Asako Arai for commissioning and performing four new works. After the pieces were performed, Arai conceived the idea of making a recording and presenting a wide panorama of music for flute from both sides of the border. Moreover, there are no strict borders as far as musical languages and chronology are concerned with the six works. Not only is there a time frame of almost half a century between the earliest and the latest of these pieces, but there is also a wide spectrum of technical and expressive means.

Dominick Argento, considered by many to be America's pre-eminent composer of lyric opera, was born in 1927. He studied at Peabody and the Eastman School of Music. He is professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, where he taught for 40 years. Although Argento's instrumental works have received consistent praise, the great majority of his music is vocal. This emphasis on the human voice is a facet of the powerful dramatic impulse that drives nearly all of his music.

The 11 works on this compact disc represent four generations of American composers and a compositional time span of eight decades. In the ensemble repertoire for voice and flute, only Corigliano's Three Irish Folksong Settings and Copland's As It Fell Upon a Day enjoy wide recognition; the remaining works are relatively unknown and deserving of a broader audience. The artists comment: "In selecting music for this disc we sought works that define skillful text setting and showcase contrasting compositional styles. Just as American "character" defies definition because of its rich cultural blend, the American musical "style" comprises myriad voices--each distinct in its conviction." Five of these compositions are world premiere recordings Ñ Martin Amlin's Two Songs on Poems of Anne Fessenden; Kenneth Gaburo's Cantilena One for solo soprano; Braxton Blake's Three Songs on Poems by Marianne Moore; Ralph Shapey's Lullaby; Scott Gendel's Patterns; and Kurt Stallmann's Lumina II for solo flute.