Catalog

This compact disc shares art songs of four living American women composers never previously recorded by mezzo-soprano. With these particular songs, Juliana Hall, Lori Laitman, Judith Cloud, and Libby Larsen have chosen poetic settings that reflect women's personalities, tastes, and life experiences from the 1920s to the present time. Sung by mezzo-soprano Katherine Eberle, the experience of hearing this music created by women composers offers understanding, meaning, enjoyment and enrichment for the listener. Eberle, a member of the faculty at the University of Iowa has presented more than 100 solo recitals in her 25-year career. Performing around the United States, Canada, the U.K. and Russia, Eberle specializes in oratorio, chamber music, art song and opera. Her colleague, pianist Ksenia Nosikova, also on the faculty at the University of Iowa is a graduate of Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the University of Colorado. A Steinway Artist, Nosikova has performed and taught in China, Italy and Hong Kong as well as on guest artist series at more than 80 American universities.

Things Fall Apart, a work for voice/narration and small ensemble, is based on the landmark novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It tells the story of Okonkwo, a village leader, who through a series of unfortunate events and the coming of Europeans, ultimately takes his own life. Things Fall Apart was written in 2011 and was commissioned by Odekhiren Amaize, who gave the world premiere performance with the musicians on this recording. Composer Roger Vogel has more than 140 compositions to his credit. He is on the faculty at the University of Georgia. He has received awards and prizes from the Roger Wagner Choral Composition Competition and the Delius Composition Competition, among others. Nigerian-American Odekhiren Amaize has studied voice at the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University and the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. His other professional teaching and research interests include promotion and marketing of the arts, arts management and creative advertising through literature. He is currently on the faculty at the Canadian University in Dubai. His recordings appear on the Musicians Showcase and MSR Classics labels.

Baritone Stephen Swanson and pianist/composer David Gompper perform a program of songs about animals, including the world premiere recording of The Animals by David Gompper, which is a cycle of nine songs based on poetry by Marvin Bell. Ravel's Histoires naturelles is based on prose poems by Jules Renard. Ravel experimented with new methods of setting text in this elegant song cycle. Reger's songs were based on nursery rhymes and dedicated to his children. The selections from The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann include some of the most popular of this team's collaboration. Beautifully sung by Stephen Swanson, a professor of voice at the University of Iowa, these bestiaries offer animal songs in English, French and German.

Composer Allan Blank has written two song cycles for voice and piano with double bass, both of which are given world premiere recordings on this disc. One cycle uses poetry from the Holocaust and the second is based on poetry by Jane Kenyon. Allen Blank is Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Many of his more than 300 compositions have been published and recorded. Three of the performers are affiliated with West Virginia University (Catharine Thieme, mezzo-soprano, Robert Thieme, piano, Andrew Kohn, double bass). Soprano Jennifer Miller is an active performer in the Pittsburgh area and pianist Robert Frankenberry is a member of New York's Phoenix Players.

The three works of the distinguished American composer Lowell Lieberman contained on this recording all have a German connection that is reflective not only of Liebermann's family heritage but also of formative time that he spent in Germany as a student. Liebermann is one of America's most frequently performed and recorded composers with orchestras worldwide having performed his works. His compositions have been recorded on more than 80 compact discs and his Piano Concerto No. 2 received a Grammy nomination. He has served as Composer-in-Residence of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Pacific Music Festival and the Saratoga Center for the Performing Arts. Three cycles — one for soprano and piano; the second for soprano, viola and piano; and the last for soprano, baritone and piano duet combine poignancy, humor and heartfelt emotion.

With this 2-CD recording, the complete oeuvre of Arnold Rosner's songs is now available on compact disc. The texts range widely and their sources range from the gospel according to St. Luke and the Jewish Aramaic liturgy to Rosner's friends poems. The predominant language is English, but there are songs in Aramaic, French, German and Finnish as well. Born in 1945, Arnold Rosner attended New York University where he majored in mathematics and music. He formally undertook music composition study at the State University of New York at Buffalo, receiving the first Ph.D. in music awarded by that institution. He exemplifies the composite career of a diversely talented musician. He has taught at several colleges, was music director at WNYU and assistant music director of WNYC and is a capable conductor and pianist. He is the recipient of seven awards from ASCAP and a five-time recipient of Meet the Composer grants.

Baritone Robert Peavler takes the opportunity with this recording to offer a program by American composers of the next generation from Charles Ives and John Duke (to name but two) carrying the torch forward as the new modern composers of art song. Kirke Mechem (b.1925) and Dominick Argento (b.1927) are a generation older than the other two composers includedÑThomas Pasatieri (b.1945) and Timothy Hoekman (b.1954). Robert Peavler is on the voice faculty at Eastern Michigan University. An active recitalist and soloist, Dr. Peavler consistently programs and champions new works by American art song composers. His collaborator, Arlene Shrut, is on the faculty of Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music and is an admired keyboard performer.

The art song cycles and collections crafted by the American composers on this recording musically document African-American culture through poetry, historical subjects, the diaspora and vernacular elements. This is a contemporary view of the art song tradition in world premiere recordings. Louise Toppin has received critical acclaim for her operatic, orchestral, and oratorio performances around the world. In addition to opera performances, including Lee Hoiby's one-woman opera The Italian Lesson, Ms. Toppin tours in Gershwin on Broadway.

The Seasons, a cantata in five section--Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, Final--is organized with four song cycles made up of five songs that can be performed separately and a Finale uniting all the voices and instruments. The major work on this program, lasting in excess of 75 minutes, The Seasons sets the profoundly intimate and vividly imagistic poetry of Elizabeth Kirschner. Composer Larry Bell's music has been widely performed in the United States and abroad by the Atlanta Symphony, Seattle Symphony, RAI Orchestra of Rome, Juilliard Philharmonia, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Boston Civic Symphony, the Boston Chamber Music Society, Speculum Musicae, and the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, among others. His music appears on North/South, Vienna Modern Masters and Albany Records. He is the recipient of the Rome Prize and the Charles Ives Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Two works for voice by the internationally recognized composer C. Curtis-Smith are offered on this recording. The first -- Gold Are My Flowers -- is a cantata/melodrama for soprano, baritone and chamber group. The work tells the story of the coming of European civilization to the wildernesses of the world using poetry by the Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan, portions of the Navajo Night Chant, excerpts from Columbus' Log and Book of Prophecies and Biblical passages quoted by Columbus in his Log. A Civil War Song Cycle, the second vocal work, follows the emotional and chronological sequence of the Civil War. C. Curtis-Smith is the recipient of more than 100 grants, awards and commissions. He was the youngest faculty member ever awarded the Western Michigan University's Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award. His Twelve Etudes for Piano were selected for the repertoire list for the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001. His music has been performed throughout the United States, Germany and Japan.

Written in commemoration of September 11, Reflections upon a September morn sets two poems by Walt Whitman. Performed by Kate Maroney, mezzo-soprano, Virginia Brewer, English horn and oboe, and James Adler, piano, this is a poignant tribute to our national tragedy. Available only as a digital download through our online digital store.

The two works on this recording are concerned with time-cycles: Book of Hours with the ordering of days, Helian with the changing of seasons. Book of Hours uses the medieval Book of Hours, a devotional book containing prayers and psalms, for its structure while Helian is a setting of a poem by Georg Trakl and is concerned with years, not days. Active as a composer, conductor and pianist, Jeremy Gill studied at the Eastman School of Music and at the University of Pennsylvania. He has received awards from BMI, ASCAP, Meet the Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League. He is Music Director of the Delaware County Symphony. This is the second release on Albany Records devoted to his music.

This CD presents songs by some of America's reigning composers, many known for their cross-genre writing, including jazz, pop, classical, folk and art songs written with distinguished authors for concert, theatre and film venues. The elements are universal--melody, groove, harmony, story and imagery--the musical passport to a chapter in The Great American Songbook. Lisa Kirchner is joined by a group of world-class performers in jazz and classical genres. They offer a unique take on these gorgeous songs crossing the borders of musical genre.

What unites this fascinating disc of song cycles is the poetry of Constantin Cavafy (1863-1933), a beloved Greek poet. The four composers have offered their personal musical response to his art. Baritone John Muriello has maintained a varied performing career in opera, operetta, musical theatre and concert work. He has concertized in London, Moscow and throughout the U.S. and has performed at international contemporary music festivals. A voice teacher at the University of Iowa, he is joined by his colleague, composer/pianist David Gompper.

Countertenor Darryl Taylor and pianist Brent McMunn have assembled a superb selection of classics from the still growing corpus of spirituals, including a number of arrangements by key figures in the history of black musical composition. With this project, Taylor and McMunn contribute powerfully to the continuous translation of this aged music from oral tradition to written composition Ñ from folksong to art song. Darryl Taylor has sung in concert halls across the United States and Europe. A native of Detroit, Taylor holds degrees from the University of Southern California and the University of Michigan. He is on the faculty at the University of California, Irvine.

The Young Debussy comprises the songs composed by Claude Debussy before his 30th birthday that he felt were good enough to publish. The vocal writing varies, but in most of them there is the emphasis on the middle and low range characteristic of much French vocal music. Darren Chase sings all of the songs in the composer's original keys. Recordings of Debussy's songs now go back more than 100 years but the large majority feature sopranos or mezzos with the rest sung by lyric baritones. This is the first recording since 1975 where this repertoire is sung by a tenor and as such offers an enlightening experience of this music.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

For her third recording on Albany Records, Lisa comments: "This album presents a number of songs I wrote both on my own and in partnership with some terrific musicians with whom I have performed over many years..." New songs written for this album include Manhattan Under the Paris Moon, In the Shadow of a Crow and I Don't Believe in Romance. Kirchner performs an international jazz repertoire embracing American standards, French classics and Brazilian music. She is a singer, songwriter and actress equally at home in clubs and in theatre.

Born in New York City, Alan Seidler studied at The Juilliard School, but after leaving Juilliard, his career took a left turn and he soon became one of the pioneers of the Blues and Ragtime revival of the 1970s. The most successful of his recordings from this era was The Duke of Ook, which became and still remains a cult classic. In the late 1980s he returned to composition and in the past decade, he has focused primarily on vocal and choral works.

These are first recordings of two dramatic works by American composer Thomas Pasatieri. Written for Beverly Sills, Before Breakfast dates from 1978 and has an unusual history (including having the original score accidentally thrown in the trash by the maid). After an unsuccessful performance the score was put away and it wasn't until 2002 that it was revived and revised for Lauren Flanagan. Flanagan was the inspiration for Lady Macbeth and premiered the work in 2008 with the forces on this recording.

Cary Ratcliff, a native of California, studied composition and piano at the Eastman School of Music. He says in his notes that, "Accompanying in the voice studio of the late Jan DeGaetani exposed me to depth of interpretation and commitment to the artsong tradition that plays in my head whenever I write songs....Composed over the years for many singers and occasions, my solo songs vary widely, but Katie [Kathryn Lewek] has taken on the lion's share of them and unified them under her wide-ranging and vibrant artistry."

This program grew out of Stephen Swanson's frustration with the coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom and with his son's decision to enlist. He and his wife began researching song dealing with war and formulated a program of songs about the individuals involved in America's historic military conflicts, their friends and their families. The primary consideration was the texts rather than the settings. The fervent nationalistic patriotism of World War I; the intimate personal glimpses in to World War II; the satirical songs from the Cold War; the Vietnam-era protest songs; the setting of Abraham Lincoln's letter to a mother who lost five sons Ñ all demonstrate the conflict between the need to fight and the horrific losses war imposes.

The distinguished composer Carson Cooman writes,"The works on this disc date from an eleven year period (1997-2008) and were chosen to create an interrelated program of songs and piano pieces. As a composer who has always believed strongly in the need and importance of music for all purposes and the value of new music in everyday life, these small pieces are something I take every bit as seriously as writing a large-scale concerto or symphony. The overall intent is a life-affirming celebration of the American experience: emotional, physical, and natural." Cooman (b.1982) has an extensive catalogue of works in many forms, ranging from solo instrumental pieces to operas, and from orchestral works to hymn tunes. He is in continual demand for new commissions and his music has been performed on all six inhabited continents.

Drifts and Shadows: American Song for the New Millennium beckons us to an exhilarating journey--via these stimulating songs of integrity, substance and passion. Baritone Elem Eley has worked with each of the six composers. Their compositional styles range from aggressive, hyper-kinetic, and jazzy to compellingly melodious and richly harmonized. Eley enjoys an amazingly varied career, from opera, oratorio and recital to premieres of contemporary vocal works. A native of Georgia, he hold degrees in voice from Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and completed doctoral coursework at Indiana University. He is Professor of Voice at Westminster Choir College of Rider University.

Highlighting this recording of vocal works by Harold Blumenfeld is his half-hour Baudelaire cycle for orchestra with baritone and mezzo coloratura, Vers Satanique, in a world premiere recording. The work was long in evolving, beginning life scored for three voices and instrumental ensemble. It was not until numerous reworkings that Blumenfeld was fully satisfied with the version you hear so magnificently performed. Harold Blumenfeld is a composer given to language, opera and the human voice as this recording so dramatically demonstrates.

The songs heard on this recording are the outgrowth of several recital projects by Valerie Errante and Jeffry Peterson. Both artists are professors of music at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and have collaborated with all of the composers whose works are represented. Richard Faith (b.1926) was professor of piano at the University of Arizona in Tucson until his retirement in 1988. John Downey, who died in 2004 was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Henry Mollicone is a graduate of the New England Conservatory and is currently teaching at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont. Yehuda Yannay is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is the creator of more than 100 works for virtually all musical media. Stephen Paulus is one of America's most prolific and accomplished composers, with more than 200 works to his credit.