Catalog

Terry Rhodes and Ellen Williams write: "Long having been fans of the music of Libby Larsen, we were thrilled to learn that this renowned and prolific composer would be among us in residency at Meredith College for a week in March 2002. And what a tremendous week it was - with Libby coaching young women composers who had gathered from all over the country! Libby epitomizes generosity of spirit. She not only shared her thorough understanding of composition and the realities of the music business, but also her unbounded passion for vocal music. After this wonderfully inspiring time together, we all decided to collaborate on a CD together. Longtime friend and valued colleague, Benton Hess, also had agreed to participate in this project. The summer of 2002 followed, with continuing dialogue among us all, as we researched and finally selected the appropriate repertoire. Autumn 2002, found us readying for a series of recitals of this program to perform in the spring of 2003. The process culminated in several illuminating days in New York City when we had the great fortune to work with Libby herself on her music. As we sang through the program, Libby shared her intentions for each piece, affirming what we had accomplished thus far, but also encouraging and inspiring us to discover that "next level," to really find the essence of each song. What a gift! We finally recorded on May 12, 13, 15 and 16, in Baldwin Auditorium on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina. We'll continue to perform these wonderful songs with great joy and commitment, and we offer our very special thanks to Libby Larsen for creating such distinctive, humorous, heartwarming and honest music."

Paul Sperry is recognized as one of today's outstanding interpreters of American music. He has premiered works, many written especially for him, by more than 30 American composers, including Leonard Bernstein's Dybbuk Suite with the composer conducting the New York Philharmonic (1975), Jacob Druckman's Animus IV for the opening of the Centre Georges Pompidou at Beaubourg in Paris (1977), and Bernard Rands' Pulitzer Prize-winning Canti del Sole with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta (1983). A passionate advocate for American music, Sperry works to insure that the wonderful works he has unearthed will be easily available to others. He has compiled and edited several volumes of American songs for a number of American publishers. In 1989, Sperry became the first non-composer to be elected president of the American Music Center, a 58 year old national organization that provides information about American composers and their music throughout the world. Born in Chicago, Sperry graduated from Harvard and the Sorbonne. He worked extensively with such masters of art-song as Jennie Tourel and Pierre Bernac. Today Sperry is widely appreciated for his own master classes at the Eastman School of Music, the Peabody Institute, Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music and many others. Since 1984, he has taught 19th and 20th century song repertory and performance at the Juilliard School, creating there what many believe to be the country's only full-year course in American song.

Charles Wuorinen writes: "The Haroun Songbook is a collection of excerpts from my opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories (based on the novel by Salman Rushdie), rearranged for four singers and with a newly composed piano part. This latter is neither mere accompaniment nor a simple reduction of the original orchestral score, but rather a newly conceived virtuoso solo part. The selections are arranged so as to make the Songbook a complete independent piece, but for this recording we also include an outline of the plot of the underlying opera, which should help to place the individual pieces in the Songbook in their original context." The Haroun Songbook was commissioned by Works and Process at the Guggenheim and was premiered on October 13 and 14, 2002 at the Guggenheim Museum, performed by the same cast heard in this recording.

Howard Stokar writes: "Religion, specifically the Judeo-Christian continuum, is integral to Charles Wuorinen's view of the world and his own work as a composer. The Latin Mass for the Restoration of St. Luke in the Fields was written to celebrate the rededication of a church in lower Manhattan which had burned to the ground on the night of March 6, 1981, and was subsequently rebuilt. The work is divided into seven sections: the first and last are purely instrumental, the central five compose the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus/Benedictus, Angus Dei and a Communion motet. The motet is a setting of words from St. John which are inscribed on the rood screen of the original church. The Mass is a central work in Wuorinen's catalog. It is actually a Missa Brevis as it does not include the Credo. The reason for this is practical: St. Luke's requires congregational singing of the Credo. The mass was performed for the first time on November 20, 1983 at St. Ignatius of Antioch, New York City. A Solis Ortu and the reworking of the Josquin motet Ave Christe for piano were composed for Stephen Fisher, then President of C.F. Peters Corporation. Fisher, a fine amateur photographer, had given Wuorinen a photo of the sun rising over Yosemite National Park. In response, Wuorinen wrote the lovely short a cappella antiphon, A Solis Ortu, which is based on a related chant in the Liber usualis "From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is to be praised". The first performance took place as part of the Solemn Mass at St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church conducted by Harold Chaney on December 30, 1990. Ave Christie is a re-casting of a portion of a motet by Renaissance master Josquin des Prez. Unlike Busoni, whose transformations of Bach chorales into late 19th century virtuoso showpieces are designed to display the talents of the performer, Wuorinen presents the Josquin simply, with elegant octave doubling, and registeral changes. He transforms the motet into a choral-like work for piano". About the main work on this disc, Genesis, Michael Steinberg writes: "Herbert Blomstedt, Music Director (1985-1995) of the San Francisco Symphony, was not just the first conductor of Genesis; he was in an important sense, the inspiration and godfather of this powerful work. In one of his conversations with Charles Wuorinen during the four years, 1985 to 1989, that he, Wuorinen, was the San Francisco Symphony's composer-in-residence, Blomstedt said 'Wouldn't it be nice if someone wrote a new Genesis' or words to that effect. Moreover, having conducted several of Wuorinen's instrumental works - Movers and Shakers, The Golden Dance, Another Happy Birthday, the Piano Concerto No. 3, and Machault Mon Chou - Blomstedt was curious to see what effect the challenge of writing a new work for chorus might have on the composer's musical language. From these exchanges came the impetus for Wuorinen to add his Genesis to the list - not large, but distinguished - of compositions on that subject by Haydn, Schoenberg and Milhaud."

Arthur Honegger, of Swiss parentage, was born in Le Havre, France. At a young age his father sent him to study at the Zurich Conservatory, and at age 21, he moved to Paris where he was accepted into the Paris Conservatory. After the war, he gained wider notoriety for a period of time by his association with Les Six. Honegger was the only one of Les Six who did not wholly support Satie and all of the ideals the group adopted. While he also rejected the over-exaggerated expressions and the absence of form in the compositions of the late Romanticists, Honegger had little sympathy for the rather whimsical and trivial simplicity of the music of some of the members of Les Six. He wrote more than 40 melodies for voice and piano, which appear as 21 groups of songs, containing a total of 56 individual songs that reflect various levels of sophistication. As a body of work, the songs by Honegger demonstrate a broad range of imagination and expression. Jacques Leguerney, born 18 years later than Honegger, also in LeHarve, France, became fascinated with music and its composition after beginning piano lessons and attending concerts while yet a child. However, as the son of a prominent lawyer raised in a typical upper middle class setting, he was expected to undergo the usual classical education and prepare for a profession such as law even though he continued with formal piano lessons. However, the young Leguerney's interest in music composition was not to be denied. In 1925, after he had begun law studies, he dropped out to take private harmony and counterpoint. At the age of 20, he began study with Nadia Boulanger. This lasted only a year because he resisted her teaching methods as unsuited to his personal goals for composition. He was encouraged by Albert Roussel to continue to compose in his own style. Leguerney's love of French Renaissance poets inspired him to set their poems to music. He was neither a trained singer, nor an accomplished pianist and, despite a minimum of formal musical training, his native talent enabled him to work out the melodies and the precise pianistic sounds that would express the nuances of the poem. The three groups of songs that are included in this album are from Leguerney's collection of his settings of French Renaissance poems that he named Vingt Poemes de la Pleiade. The title was chosen in accordance with the name Pleidade (the seven stars in the Taurus constellation) used by literary historians for the group of seven poets of the 17th century who called for the purification of the French language. Graham Johnson, a noted British pianist/accompanist, writing in a French Song Companion made this observation: "There is so much character and vitality in this music that its neglect is difficult to explain...This music is too good to remain a rarity. It would certainly repay the championing of a new generation of interpreters, and Leguerney's name deserves to be seen on concert programs as a matter of course."

The Mirror Visions Ensemble has had the pleasure of working with many living composers during the past eleven years. This CD continues the tradition, offering first (or second) hearings of new works by five American composers. The ensemble's mission is two-fold: comparing multiple settings - or mirrors - of texts, and also encouraging new visions of texts. The focus here is on visions rather than mirrors. The poetry was chosen by the ensemble from the works of poets who are friends or friends of friends (and now new friends). The five composers are old friends who have written for the ensemble on numerous occasions. What does one hope will result from this process of handing texts to composers who then interpret them with their own musical voices? The match of poet to composer is delicate: the composer needs to feel not only inspired by but at one with the poetry, and the poet needs to be willing to be shocked by the stretching, contorting, coloring and layering that the words might undergo. The results are dynamic, unpredictable, and unique, and - one hopes - of immense interest to those who care about sung words. This program consists of : solo songs with piano for soprano, tenor and baritone, as well as vocal duets and trios with piano. The fifteen-movement work by Tom Cipullo to texts of Linda Pastan is one of the few such pieces for multiple voices with piano. This is a genre not easily defined - part song cycle, part cantata, and part theater work without staging (the music powerfully provides the setting, backdrop, lighting, and action). A new, distinctively American art form can be detected here.

On October 29, 2004, Angela Brown made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in the great Verdi opera. Hailed in Opera News as "one of America's most promising Verdi sopranos," she was a National Metropolitan Opera Council Audition winner in 1997. The 2003 - 2004 season marked a new high for Miss Brown's career as it encompassed four highly successful role debuts, a Carnegie Hall debut, two glowing reviews each from The New York Times and Opera Now and word to the wise to keep a watch on her career from Opera News. It all began in Spring 2003, as she stepped in for one performance of Ariadne in Philadelphia and received this review from Opera Now: "In one of those dramatic twists that are the stuff of opera, the soprano covering the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera got her chance to sing it - at the Opera Company of Philadelphia. The young American soprano Angela Brown took over one performance...She (Ms. Brown) has a powerhouse of an instrument, shimmering with color and imaginatively used, and she knows how to take center-stage." Then, in the fall of 2004, Angela sang an unexpected performance and her debut as Leonora in Opera Company of Philadelphia's Il Travatore. In January, 2004, she made her debut as Elisabetta in Don Carlo with Opera Company of Philadelphia receiving this praise from The New York Times: "Angela Brown, a soprano, brought dignity and shimmering pianos, and hit a bull's-eye with her final aria." Opera News wrote: "Angela Brown revealed herself as a soprano to watch. Brown displayed good command of Verdi's style, imaginative phrasing and a warm, expressive voice." Opera Now said: "Angela Brown's beautiful lyric soprano voice was ideal for Elisabetta. She floated pianissimos that seemed to hang in space, shimmering, and she had plenty of power for her last big scene." It is an especial privilege for Albany Records to present a magnificent soprano on the brink of a major career.

Julianne Baird writes: "Music and the social status it expressed was an integral part of Jane Austen's life. Her novels are replete with details of domestic musical activities. Accounts of public concerts and private balls as well as music programs with hired musicians fill her letters. A dedicated amateur herself, Austen ordinarily played at the pianoforte at least an hour a day before breakfast from the 8-book music collection now preserved in her home at Chawton. For nieces and nephews she practiced 'country dances,' a number of which appear in her collections. Austen painstakingly copied and bound music that especially interested her. Two books are in her own hand - one of piano pieces and the other (Book III), of vocal music, recorded here in its entirety. Some pieces contain her own suggestions for ornamentation. Prominent themes are naval affairs, country life, drinking songs, love, Turkish and Moorish motifs, female character pieces, and the French Revolution. The novels of Jane Austen reveal her as a keen observer of early 19th century English society. Now, through her Songbook, she herself springs to life: her special likes and dislikes, her boisterous sense of humor, her passions, the way she amused herself and what she was like relaxing with her family and friends." This is a very special album indeed.

Paul Sperry writes: "I've always loved to perform humorous pieces, whether slyly witty or raucously funny. It seemed irresistible to collect these four marvelous pieces together on a CD since they are all by American composers and writers and they all deal with religious topics in, as Woody Allen puts it, 'a somewhat dubious way.'" Classical jazz achieved international recognition in 1925, when Louis Gruenberg's The Daniel Jazz was chosen to represent American music at the Venice Festival of the International Society for contemporary music, where it won overwhelming success. Based on a sermon poem by Vachel Lindsay, this piece was written during a period when Gruenberg was exploring the possibilities of popular jazz as an idiom in classical music. In 1924, he wrote: "It has become my firm conviction that the American composer can only achieve individual expression by developing his own resources...these resources are vital and manifold, for we have at least three rich veins indigenous to America alone: jazz, Negro spirituals and Indian themes." Alla Borzova writes: "Mother Said borrows its title from the book by Hal Sirowitz. His witty and touching poetry is about families and relationships. In Mother Said, I use a variety of musical styles and techniques: rap, Klezmer, Dixieland, a Chinese folk tune and a 12 tone row." The text of Tango was actually compiled by Robert Xavier Rodriguez from news clippings, letters and sermons from the height of the tango craze in 1913-1914. There are three short scenes played without pause and the tenor plays all three roles. Larry Alan Smith writes: "The Scrolls was written for my New York debut concert in 1982, and it was premiered by Paul Sperry. As it was meant to conclude the evening, I looked for something unusual, entertaining and memorable. Woody Allen's tale immediately appealed to me, but only after beginning to compose the work did I realize how challenging it would be to set a humorous text effectively."

Jeremy Nicholas writes: "Phrases that chill the heart: 'I want a volunteer from the audience.' 'Is this your car, sir?' 'Have we shown you our holiday snaps?' Or how about "Tonight's lecture is on the art of writing comedy." Go to that seminar and one thing you know for sure in advance is that you are consigning yourself to an evening devoid of any humor. Dissecting comedy, analyzing jokes or, in this case, comic songs, has all the allure of pulling off the wings of a butterfly to see how it flies. Setting off writing a comic song is rather like being your own crossword compiler, designing the grid, filling in all the squares, setting your own clues. No, it's not, really. It's more like taking a pile of kid's building bricks and making a spectacular skyscraper from them. No, that's not it either. But there are elements of both that are pertinent (a good word for seminars)." In other words, comedy (and comic songwriting) is hard work. Think of the last time you told a joke and it didn't come off. The material was right but maybe the delivery was off. But remember the joy when the response was perfect: not only did they laugh, but you sensed the anticipation: this is going to be funny. And for this album, the anticipation certainly pays off. Anyone who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's will recall the wonderful humor of the works of Tom Lehrer, the classic HMV (Angel in this country) LP's of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. More recently we've seen how Stephen Sondheim and William Bolcom can easily move back and forth between the serious and the humorous. And just to prove that comedy can be serious business, we have the participation of Marc-Andre Hamelin, one of the most highly regarded concert and recital pianists as accompanist and composer, joined by his wife Jody Karin Applebaum. Her resume includes performances of Bach's Christmas Oratorio and St. Matthew Passion, Handel's Messiah, to contemporary works by Stephen Albert, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Gorecki. Together they have performed in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Canada, England and the Middle East. Together they have recorded music of Britten, Schoenberg, Bolcom, Wolpe, Weill, Satie and Poulenc. Here both they and you have some fun for a change!

Joseph Summer's preoccupation with the works of Shakespeare began in 1991, when he set the soliloquy "To Be or Not To Be" for tenor and piano. This project kindled a spark that grew rapidly and forcefully, and has burned undiminished to the present day. The tally now stands at over fifty settings contained in six books, known collectively as the Oxford Songs. These range from short arias for solo voice to fully orchestrated cantatas for several singers lasting over half an hour. In June 2000, a twenty-minute setting of the famous balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet was commissioned and premiered at Merkin Hall in New York City. Beyond the Oxfordian realm, Joseph Summer has completed seven operas and numerous orchestral works. In 2003, in collaboration with music director John McGinn, Summer founded The Shakespeare Concerts. To date, this series has presented concerts of Bard settings (by Summer and others) to audiences across Massachusetts, as well as St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. In its second season, it featured singers from Opera Unlimited of London, England. This CD is drawn from the Oxford Songs and represents the debut album of the Shakespeare Concerts.

Composer-pianist Gary Smart composes, performs, and improvises music that reflects an abiding interest in Americana, world musics and jazz, as well as the western classical tradition. An artist with a wide range of constantly developing interests, Smart has lived and worked in the eastern, midwestern and western USA as well as in Germany, Japan and Indonesia. He has studied with composers Yehudi Wyner, Toru Takemitsu and John Corigliano; worked with jazz composer David Baker and film composer Henry Mancini; and studied piano with Jorge Bolet, Yale scholar-keyboardist Ralph Kirkpatrick and jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the Yale School of Music. Dr. Smart is currently Yessin Professor of Music at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. Smart talks about his relationship to songs. "As a child I learned hundreds of pop songs, the great tunes of Berlin, Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers, Ellington, etc. My sense of melody, harmony, and textural inflection is as much influenced by classic American popular songs as it is by the great European art song tradition, which I love, but which I discovered only after entering college. These genres of course have much in common: primarily, an equitable marriage of words and music....For me, a song doesn't work unless the two become one, inseparable." Set to poems by Elizabeth Barett Browning, Langston Hughes, Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, Sara Teasdale and Emily Dickinson, as well as a moving letter from a Civil War major to his wife, Smart's song cycles show his commitment to the song as a form of chamber music.

Louis Karchin was born in Philadelphia in 1951. His advanced musical training at Eastman and Harvard University included composition studies with Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Earl Kim, Fred Lerdahl, Arthur Berger and Leon Kirchner. He is a recipient of the Tanglewood Koussevitsky Award, the Bearns Prize from Columbia University, and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. This new release exemplifies two complementary trends in Louis Karchin's recent vocal output: an ever-increasing comfort with and mastery of large-scale vocal and dramatic forms, powerfully represented here by Orpheus, and a concomitant reawakening of interest in the more intimate medium of voice and piano, illustrated by a choice and varied selection of his latest songs, which run the gamut from the most simple and restrained in texture and gesture to the most intricate, mercurial and virtuosic. Listeners whose taste in American music (particularly vocal) of a more advanced style will greatly appreciate this new release. If Karchin's style can summed up easily, one could say it exhibits the intensity of Kirchner (such as his vocal/chamber work Lily) combined with the spacious, impressionistic colors found in Schwantner's music.

Italian opera was all the rage in German courts at the turn of the 18th century and the young Handel's trip to Italy from 1706 to 1710 allowed him to immerse himself in Italian music. This spurred a remarkable output of cantatas, many written for the meetings of the Arcadian Academy, a group of noblemen and artists who gathered in Rome to further their literary agenda and raise the level of Italian poetry. Though their main interests were in pastoral subjects, these three cantatas dealt with portrayals of tragic heroines, the scorned and betrayed: Agrippina, Lucrezia and Armida, whose stories were drawn from Roman history and myth. No doubt the Academy was impressed with subject matter, which would have been at home in full operatic treatment! Hailed as "outstanding" by the New York Times, soprano Melissa Fogarty's wide range of experience has taken her from the stages of the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera to the world of early music. She has appeared in concert with the Seattle Baroque, New York Collegium and Concert Royal. Her unusual experience (in rock bands during her college days) has given her the kind of versatility to branch out into other fields, including the works of Harry Partch and even klezmer music.

We lost one of the great American composers in June of 2005 when David Diamond passed away. However, we have been fortunate to have heard his Symphonies, chamber works and complete String Quartets (TROY504, 540, 613 and 727) on record over the years, yet this is the first CD devoted entirely to his songs, though he wrote nearly 100 of them. The songs range in emotion from the sweetly lyrical and wistfully elegiac to the humorously satirical and ironic, from plaintive innocence to homespun world-weariness, from mysterious enigma to heart-rending poignancy, from compassion with souls in torment to the need for humans to connect with others even though the connection may be painful, and from deceptive quasi-simplicity to unearthly and nearly orchestral passion and power. All but one are in English and encompass the full poetic gamut of human emotion and experience. Soprano Helene Williams and pianist Leonard Lehrman have collaborated on performances in Amsterdam, Paris, Germany, the United States, as well as song recitals on CD. This, their first Albany release, is a wonderful memorial to an important American composer.

Will Marion Cook was one of the earliest African-American composers to achieve significant commercial success in musical theater. However, even though his talents were admired at the turn of the twentieth century, he and his work have since been largely forgotten. With the interest in African-American culture sparked by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and revived interest in all American music during the Bicentennial celebrations of the 1970s, Cook has been rediscovered by such music historians as Thomas L. Riis and Marva Griffin Carter, as well as by such performers as the Black Music Repertory Ensemble of the Center for Black Music Research and, of course, tenor William Brown, who had previously recorded some of Cook's songs on the album Fi-yer! (TROY329). Having studied with Joseph Joachim in Berlin and Antonin Dvorak in New York City, Cook was respected for his pioneering achievements in popular songwriting, Black musical comedies and syncopated orchestral music. His career as a songwriter spanned some 40 years from 1893 to 1934. Cook's memoirs reveal that he believed his ultimate challenge was to right social injustice while at the same time creating beautiful music. Renowned tenor William Brown's repertoire encompassed practically all musical genres. He was a particularly avid performer of American music from all ages and had appeared with major orchestras and ensembles all over the world. Sadly, Mr. Brown died shortly after this recording was made. This CD is a tribute to the memories of both Cook and Brown.

Always in pursuit of versatility, Theresa Treadway Lloyd's career has been an evolutionary one. By 12 she was an accomplished pianist with her own roster of students in southwest Oklahoma. She honed these skills after receiving a full scholarship to the Sherwood Music School in Chicago at 15. Her mentor at Oklahoma University, Jack Harrold, discovered her rare and expressive coloratura abilities. She eventually joined the Metropolitan Opera Studio in 1970. In a few years her Carnegie Hall debut would receive acclaim and lead to engagements with the opera companies of Boston, Miami, Tulsa, etc., with a repertoire that includes all the major mezzo-coloratura roles. With this re-release of Blue Moods, Theresa memorializes some of the music of her late brother-in-law, Timothy Lloyd, whose work inspired the recordings of these songs by her contemporaries, Ned Rorem, Jack Beeson and Thomas Pasatieri. Departing from her bel canto style of singing, she explores American music with a more popular vocal sensibility. The result is a "cross-over" album long before the term was popular. She can also be heard in song cycles by Seymour Barab, William Bolcom, Libby Larsen and Andre Previn on TROY408, Music from Luzerne.

Hall Johnson was a noted violinist, conductor and arranger of spirituals. The slave songs and spirituals that he heard his grandmother sing were a catalyst for him founding the Hall Johnson Choir in 1925. The ensemble appeared on Broadway and in movies such as Green Pastures. To quote Eugene Simpson, curator of the Hall Johnson Collection at Rowan University, "Johnson's entire compositional output was governed by three beliefs: that his role in life was the preservation and propagation of the Negro Spiritual in its authentic form; that the melodies and rhythms of the spiritual and Negro folk song were worthy material for compositional development into art and extended forms and that the spiritual itself is essentially a choral form." Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim for her operatic, orchestral and oratorio performances both here and abroad. Along with pianist Joseph Joubert, they have undertaken this unique project to present a CD that focuses entirely on Hall Johnson's solo vocal works. In presenting arrangements both familiar and lesser-known, this collection celebrates the historical importance, innovation and contribution of Johnson as a preserver of the spiritual while acknowledging his influence on subsequent generations of arrangers.

Here are three comedies, featuring divas of a "certain age" and the devoted, exasperated, long-suffering people who adore them. Thomas Pasatieri, one of America's most revered opera and song composers, entered Juilliard at 16 and eventually became the school's first recipient of a doctoral degree. Among his 19 operas are Black Widow (1972), The Trial of Mary Lincoln (1972), Washington Square (1976) and The Seagull (1972, available on TROY579/80). Producer John Ostendorf writes, "Tom Pasatieri's work was all the rage in the 1970's when we were both young musicians newly-arrived in New York. I knew of the glamorous Ashley Putnam at the time, but best remember the incandescent singing of Sheri Greenawald...Both sopranos both still look and sound terrific and must be applauded at undertaking and recording new roles when each is more-or-less "retired" from the diva business...As for the notion on this CD, "Divas of a Certain Age," they are easily identifiable in the first two works. But they can also be spotted in Signor Deluso: the interesting character Rosine, a blowsy maid who states her claim early in the "I need a man" song, and the compelling Mae West type, Clara, who is more attracted to the young tenor than to the old Mr. Deluso, but still concludes that all men are 'cads.' Anyway, the results are wonderful. It was a joy- and a hoot -to be in on it all."

Lori Laitman is an award-winning composer whose art songs are performed widely in the United States and abroad. The Journal of Singing calls Laitman “one of the finest art song composers on the scene today… who deservedly stands shoulder to shoulder with Ned Rorem for her uncommon sensitivity to text, her loving attention to the human voice and its capabilities, and her extraordinary palette of musical colors and gestures.” A graduate magna cum laude from Yale, she studied under Jonathan Kramer and Frank Lewin, and concentrated initially on flute performance and theatre and film scores. Her music has been performed all over the United States, particularly at Merkin Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, and at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress in Washington. Albany has previously issued two highly-acclaimed CDs of her songs, Mystery (TROY393) and Dreaming (TROY570). Of this new release, she says, “The songs on my third CD are compositions in partnership with contemporary poets from the U.S., Ireland, Great Britain and Sri Lanka. It has been a joy for me to set such wonderful and diverse texts. I am grateful not only to “my” poets, but also to the incredible artists who have brought my songs to life so beautifully.”

Born in New York, David Chaitkin followed his early experience as a jazz musician with studies at Pomona College and the University of California, Berkeley, where he received its Prix de Paris. His teachers included Luigi Dallapiccola, Seymour Shifrin, Max Deutsch, Andrew Imbrie and Karl Kohn. He has taught at Reed College, New York University and Brooklyn College. Noted for his lyrical and harmonically adventurous music, Chaitkin has composed symphonic as well as a variety of chamber and vocal works. His music has been performed by the BBC Philharmonic, the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, the DaCapo Chamber Players and St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble. Recent commissions include a Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Orchestra, Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, and a new work for the U.S. Marine Band. As he writes about this release, "The works on this disc share a harmonic language, one which can refresh a long line, allow for the possibility of setting a melody in a number of different contexts, and to extend the possibilities for progression and contrast, balance and rhyme. All of the music reflects my natural desire for clarity of line, harmonic recognition and a sense of phrase."

This recording project began with a concert in October 2000 at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, New York, a community college with a vision. Larry Berk, then director of its library and information services, had recently created an Artist in Residence Program, with the support of the Ulster Foundation, to leaven the practical course offerings typical of most community colleges with a healthy dash of inspiration from working artists. Soprano Danielle Woerner was the resident artist for the fall of 2000, and designed a program for students of varying ages, backgrounds and experience. The residency required one major public presentation, and the concert of October 2000 featured some of her favorite Hudson Valley composers. Some of the music had an extra Hudson Valley flavor: words by Woodstock writers Pearl Bond and Gail Goodwin. Nearly all of the composers took part in the musical preparation and several participated as performers in both concert and on this CD. Since the project began, both Alan Shulman and Robert Starer have passed on, adding some additional poignancy to the presentation. Soprano Danielle Woerner is acclaimed for her performances of concert and operatic repertoire ranging from early Baroque to modern works. While maintaining active professional ties to New York City, she has lived in the mid-Hudson Valley. An alumna of Barnard and Bard Colleges, she counts among her most influential singing mentors Nora Bosler, Martha Gerhart and Bethany Beardslee Winham.

Nicholas Anthony Ascioti was born in Syracuse, and attended the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York where he graduated in Composition and Conducting. Since then, the College has performed his music and sponsored an entire evening of his works. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in Composition from Bennington College in Vermont. Among his teachers were Allen Shawn, Dr. Amy Williams and Stephen Siegel. Nicholas received his professional debut at 21 with a commission from David Alan Miller. Judge, Jury and Executioner was premiered by the Dogs of Desire, a chamber ensemble of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. Nicholas is currently a composer-in-residence with the Society for New Music in Syracuse and as a conductor, focuses on 20th century repertoire. The pieces presented here offer a variety of perspectives in both textural and musical form. They reveal our human desire to connect, to relate - to ourselves, to other human beings, to the cosmic reality of being, and ultimately to the Source of our being.

Begun in 2003 with concerts in Massachusetts and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Shakespeare Concerts has presented recitals of music inspired by the immortal Bard - from original English text settings by many British composers, to settings in translations by Schubert, Brahms, Berlioz, Gounod, Thomas and Verdi, to purely instrumental pieces by Britten, Beethoven, Prokofiev and Korngold. The mainstay of this series has been the music of Joseph Summer, with premieres of two dozen of his sixty-odd Oxford Songs for one or more voices and various ensembles, as well as non-vocal pieces such as the ballet Dance of the Mechanics for string quintet. This disc, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day, presents works premiered during the third and fourth seasons, including several in collaboration with Boston-based string quartet QX. The previous release in this series is What a Piece of Work is Man (TROY750).

This unique disc features the artistry of soprano Judith Kellock in works by composers either American-born (Womack, Moss and Askim), or now an American citizen (Chen Yi) or born and active in Japan (Hosokawa). These works show each composer's fascination with Asian culture, primarily that of China and Japan as well as settings of Vietnamese poetry (Askim's Spring Essence). Judith Kellock has been described in the press as "a singer of rare intelligence and vocal splendor, with a voice of indescribable beauty." A primary influence in her musical life was the late Jan DeGaetani, with whom she studied for many years. Ms. Kellock has been featured with the St. Louis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New World Symphony and many more. Highly acclaimed for her song recitals and chamber music performances, she is also sought after by composers for her interpretation of contemporary music. Ms. Kellock has also sung major operatic roles in Italy and Greece, toured with the Opera Company of Boston and performed with the Mark Morris Dance Company. She serves on the performing faculty of Cornell University, and is much in demand as a master class teacher.

Ruth Schonthal's compositions, which reflect the concerns of today's world, display a unique blend of deeply-rooted European traditions, depth of feeling and masterful blending of traditional and contemporary techniques. Born in Hamburg of Viennese parents, she began composing at five. She was the youngest student ever accepted at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin but, being Jewish, she was later banished. Her family fled the Nazi regime by settling in Stockholm, where her exceptional talent was recognized, leading to her being accepted at the Royal Academy of Music. Again, on the run, the family settled in Mexico City, where Schonthal studied with the famed Manuel Ponce. She eventually continued her studies at Yale under Paul Hindemith. Through the exposure to diverse influences and methods in her travels, Ruth Schonthal was able to extrapolate an unusually rich mixture of compositional techniques. She never followed "current" trends, instead finding her own unique voice. In these songs, composed both early and late in her career, one can sense the emotional qualities she considered foremost in her music. She once said that she envisioned her work as a mirror held up to a world full of complex human emotions. In short, these are works that reveal the innermost soul of a complex and fascinating composer.

Described by the New Yorker's Andrew Porter as a composer of "fearless eloquence," Louis Karchin has received performances of his music worldwide, by groups ranging from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Louisville Orchestra, to South Korea's Veritas Musicae and the Delta Ensemble of Amsterdam, Holland. Born in Philadelphia, he went on to advanced studies at the Eastman School and Harvard University, where his teachers included Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner, Earl Kim, Fred Lerdahl and Leon Kirchner. As Hayes Biggs writes in his notes to this CD, "Although this disc takes its name from its final selection, Matrix and Dream, the title Matrix is apropos in more than one sense. One of the word's definitions is that of a medium or situation out of which some other entity originates, or in which such an entity is embedded. Louis Karchin's highly personal, supple and elegant musical language, evolved over the course of a distinguished career as composer and performer, is by that definition the matrix within which this music is able to take form, substance and nourishment, and consequently to take flight...many of Karchin's compositional preoccupations, with regard to both genre and gesture, are represented on this recording...all of the new worlds that you can discover on this disc - from the smallest to the largest - emanate from and are contained within Louis Karchin's matrix; they will amply repay return voyages."

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

Thomas Pasatieri has proven over the past 30 years, starting while he was still a Juilliard student, to be one of America's most significant opera composers. Among the many works to his credit are The Seagull, available on TROY579/80, and a collection entitled Divas of a Certain Age on TROY841. By 1984 he had had many operatic triumphs in this country. "But I was weary of the enormous effort it took to create a new stage work only to have it premiered and then not performed again," he writes. Around that time he left for the West Coast, working as an orchestrator for film scores, with many fascinating stories to tell of his experiences. Just the same, Pasatieri has made it clear that his true calling has been as an opera composer. With such an interest in writing for the voice, he has composed lieder and song cycles such as the ones on this disc. The cycles span some thirty years, and we both performed and dedicated to important singers for whom he has written his operas, and who recognized his superb gifts. Three Poems of James Agee "are dark and both poetry and music reflect the fearful prospects the innocent faced in the oppressive Cold War epoch. Yet the works are passionate, somehow romantic. The Oscar Wilde Poems were chosen by Pasatieri for their introspective atmosphere. A Rustling of Angels "displays innocence, optimism and simplicity, and perhaps a suggestion of divine inspiration." Six other solo songs, including the popular comic piece I Just Love My Voice, close out the program, performed by a group of singers with whom the composer has long worked. These are all works in which the composer reveals his soul, his inspirations and his love.

All composers of vocal music struggle to find texts suitable for musical setting. The search for words that ignite invention, inspire harmony, dictate rhythm, and suggest texture - all the while submitting to purely musical exigencies of form - is a perpetual and integral part of the creative process. Though the songs on this CD focus specifically on manifestations of love - infatuation, passion, anxiety, fidelity, betrayal, delusion, loneliness and reminiscence - their texts come from a wide range of sources. The larger theme is nonetheless poignantly epitomized by a phrase from James Joyce, The Unquiet Heart, which tells of the unsettled, unnamable and unutterable sensations we all experience in our lifelong search for love. Karen Smith Emerson's extensive concert career has included performances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Boston Music Viva and the Marlboro Festival. Equally at home in music of the Baroque and early Classical music, she has performed leading roles in operas by Gluck, Handel and Mozart.

Robert Schumann was unwell in the years preceding the composition of Dichterliebe. The year 1840, however, proved to be one of unexpected delight. He was finally able to marry the woman he loved and coveted, Clara Wieck, the daughter of his former teacher, Friedrich Wieck, a musical icon in Leipzig. It seems odd, then, that after a five-year struggle to obtain the right to marry the woman he loved and the constant success of such works as Davidsbundertanze, Op. 6, Kinderszenen, Op. 15 and the song cycles Liederkreis, Op. 24 and Frauenliebe und Leben, Op. 42, he should turn to such a dark subject as the one presented in his sixteen-song cycle Dichterliebe, set to texts by the German poet Heinrich Heine. "A Poet's Love" is a murky tragedy with its early flourish of love, its eventual deterioration and the poet's despair of every loving again, even preferring death to a new attempt. American poet Elizabeth Kirschner, who teaches at Boston College and who has collaborated with many modern composers, has created a new set of texts for Dichterliebe, which breaks the cycle into four distinct sections of four songs each (Spring I-IV, Summer V-VIII, etc.). Kirschner has taken the "season of love" in the Heine poems and transformed them into a full year of desperation, elation, introspection and rejection. Soprano Jean Danton has performed widely on the opera, oratorio, musical theatre and concert stage, and has previously performed in the world premiere of Carson Cooman's Seducing Summer by the Sea, on a libretto by Elizabeth Kirschner.

Eric Moe has been described by the New York Times as a composer of "music of winning exuberance," and has received numerous grants and awards. His works are edgy but with an almost pop-like appeal. This collection of recent vocal works on very diverse texts joins his previous two releases of original works on TROY506 and TROY597.