Catalog

Cindy Cox's music emerges from a century whose loyalty oscillates between its concern for pure sound and pure form. But her deep attention to the sound world is held, shaped, and engaged through its purposeful structure, a synthesis that provides a third way. What Cox offers is more than a mere rapprochement one side with its other  but a deep conjunction between them. Cox studied with, among others, Donald Erb, John Eaton, Bernard Rands and John Harbison. Cox's own music is experimental yet has a "grounding" in traditional means of expression, dealing with issues of timbre and musical resonance. She is also an excellent pianist and interpreter, having studied with the famed Lili Kraus.

Jorge Elias Variego is a clarinetist and composer born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1975. He holds a Bachelors Degree from Universidad Nacional de Rosario and a Masters Degree from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied with Michael Rusinek and Leonardo Balada. He has performed as soloist with the most renowned orchestras in Argentina and his works have been performed throughout the world. This recording features Variego performing all the clarinet parts in works written for a variety of clarinet configurations and ensembles.

After more than 100 years, the Negro spiritual is still one of the most beloved genres in American music around the world. Designated a National Treasure by the U.S. Congress in 2007, spirituals offer a unique solace and courage to face personal trials. We also celebrate the iconic arrangers who have helped embed the Negro spiritual deep into the patchwork of American music. Composers including Hall Johnson, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price and Harry T. Burleigh, to mention only a few have created arrangements that are world classics. Likewise there is a long-standing tradition and history of world-class artists whose performances have earned their rightful place in the canon of recital repertory. Bass-baritone Oral Moses has chosen only a few of these magnificent arrangements for this recording. Long a champion of the spiritual, Moses is also known for his performances of art songs by African-American composers as well as for his oratorio and opera performances.

Formed in 2004 the trio Neoteric, made up of faculty members at Southern Illinois University, began their relationship with Bernard Hoffer through a request for works in the American Music Center newsletter. After writing two works for their ensemble, Hoffer suggested the idea of more substantial works, hence the Concerto di Camera and Divertimento included on this recording. Born in Switzerland, Hoffer is a graduate of Eastman where he studied composition with Bernard Rogers and Wayne Barlow. He has written extensively for films, television, and commercials for which he has won several Emmy nominations and Clio Awards. He scored the hit children's cartoon series Thundercats and Silverhawks.

Tim Page, the chief music critic for The Washington Post and the Pulitzer Prize Winner for Distinguished Criticism in 1997, writes: "This collection of new and historic recordings pays tribute to a great man, one who never let his hard-won artistic distinction eclipse his personal duties as a fellow human being. After all these years, it is a wonderful thing to be able to spend more time in the company of Charles Jones. Jones adapted his Five Melodies for Violin and Piano from an earlier set of Five Melodies for Orchestra (1945), and it is a mark of the composer's sure sense of economy that he was able to make such a seamless reduction, without a wasted or extraneous note. One of the delights of this recording is the opportunity to hear Jones' Piano Sonata No. 2 played by William Masselos. Indeed, composer and pianist seem to have been made for each other. And then we have the Symphony No. 3, composed in 1962, and recorded by the brilliant young conductor, Michael Adelson (who has shown a welcome devotion to Jones' music) in 1993. Here - finally! - we have the opportunity to hear one of Jones' major orchestral works on record."

Flutist Margaret Swinchoski, clarinetist Donald Mokrynski and pianist Ron Levy make up the Palisades Virtuosi, a group of friends who wish to promote and enrich the repertoire for their instruments. They present concerts that include existing music for this trio, supplemented by solos, duos and larger works and include a new work for flute, clarinet and piano on each of their programs. This recording includes seven of the works Palisades Virtuosi commissioned and premiered during their first two seasons. What's appealing about this disc (apart from the wonderful sounds these instruments make) is the variety of composers presented. Some are familiar names (Godfrey Schroth, a pupil of Paul Creston, and Richard Lane, an Eastman graduate whose music was recorded by Howard Hanson) and others will be new to you. Nearly all of the works are based on traditional forms and feature strong folk and popular music influences. This is an ideal disc for those who love wind music and an absolute treat for performers who wish to hear new music for their instruments.

The Palisades Virtuosi was established in 2003 to promote and enrich the repertoire for flute, clarinet and piano. Their programs combine standard repertoire with works that are a product of its aggressive and zealous commissioning program. More than 20 composers have received commissions and this recording, their second on Albany Records, highlights five of these. From the oldest composer, Frank Levy, born in 1930, to Carlos Franzetti and Allen Shawn, both born in 1948, to Caroline Newman and Gary Eskow, sharing 1951 as their birth years, this recording give us a range of styles and generations, all exquisitely performed by the ensemble.

The Palisades Virtuosi (Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet, Ron Levy, piano) lays claim to a special achievement with this recording. Their mission of commissioning and recording works for the instrumentation of their ensemble has resulted in more than 40 new pieces, six of which are heard on their third recording in this series for Albany Records. No other ensemble has done as much to enhance the repertoire for flute, clarinet and piano. Their musical and heartfelt approach coupled with their dazzling virtuosity has endeared them to audiences and composers alike.

The Palisades Virtuosi continues their commendable series of commissioning new works from outstanding American composers for their trio's instrumentation of flute, clarinet and piano. This fourth volume brings the total to almost 50 new works the ensemble has added to the repertoire. Two of the works on this recording have the added attraction of the formidable Marni Nixon joining the group to narrate the poetry in the Unitarian Hymnal that forms the background for Gwyneth Walker's work and the information about crows that precedes each movement of Amanda Harberg's Birding in the Palisades. Palisades Virtuosi consists of the virtuoso musicians Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet and Ron Levy, piano. The ensemble has received rave reviews for its previous three releases on Albany Records.

The Palisades Virtuosi (Margaret Swinchoski, flute, Donald Mokrynski, clarinet, Ron Levy, piano) have an admirable and well-earned reputation as "The Commissioners" because of their ongoing program of commissioning and premiering works for their ensemble from American composers. This recording, the fifth in their series of New American Masterpieces, features new works from seven distinguished composers whose music displays an array of styles, while exhibiting richness and depth. In all, the Palisades Virtuosi have commissioned and premiered almost 70 new works, giving performances throughout the northeastern United States. Palisades Virtuosi have been appointed "Visiting Artists" at Bergen Community College in New Jersey.

Dubbed "The Commissioners" by Chamber Music America magazine, Palisades Virtuosi (Margaret Swinchoski, flute; Donald Mokrynski, clarinet; Ron Levy, piano) has established an enviable presence in the chamber music world since its inception 14 years ago. To date, the ensemble has commissioned and performed more than 75 new works and has now released six recordings of some of the best of these commissions. All the music on these recordings are world premieres and all are American composers. Palisades Virtuosi has been named Visiting Artists at Bergen Community College and are in residence at The Ridgewood Conservatory. Established to promote music for their ensemble of flute, clarinet, and piano, Palisades Virtuosi is to be commended for their work on enhancing the repertoire.

Druckman's The Sound of Time started out as a piece for soprano and piano which was premiered in 1964. This chamber version was first heard in 1965 and lasts about 12 minutes. It is a setting of texts from Deaths for the Ladies (and other Disasters) by Norman Mailer. Augusta Read Thomas' Spirit Musings for Violin and Orchestra was composed in 1997 and is actually a version of her Van Straaten Concerto No. 1 for flute and chamber orchestra. The version of the piece recorded here is the first performance in the new form. John Musto was born in Brooklyn and received his earliest musical training from his father, a jazz guitarist. Self taught as a composer, he studied piano with Seymour Lipkin and Paul Jacobs. His piece Encounters was premiered by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony on September 21 and 22, 1992. Jeffrey Jacob was educated at Juilliard and the Peabody Conservatory and he also studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum. His piece The Persistence of Memory here receives its premiere performance and recording.

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.

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.

Bernard Rands' Ceremonial is a monothematic composition in which a single, extended melody is repeated ten times during the course of the work. The mood and pace of the piece gradually, deliberately and inevitably moves through its own rituals. John Harbison's Olympic Dances was commissioned by a College Band Directors National Association consortium of twelve wind ensembles-bands including the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Harbison writes: "When I was asked to do this piece, it immediately suggested something classical, not our musical 18th century, but an imaginative vision of ancient worlds. I thought of an imagined harmony between dance, sport and sound that we can intuit from serene oranges and blacks on Greek vases, and most important to this piece, the celebration of the ideal tableau, the moment frozen in time, that is present still in the friezes that adorn the temples, and in the architecture of the temples themselves." About his Concerto, William Kraft writes: "The Concerto is transcribed from the original version for orchestra. Wind instruments, including brass, played a strong part in the orchestra version, so much so that when Erich Leinsdorf performed the work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he rearranged the orchestra seating so that the winds were brought forward and the strings pushed back. Therefore it was quite natural to do a transcription for Wind Ensemble." Karel Husa's Les Couleurs Fauves was commissioned by alumni and friends of the Northwestern University School of Music for John P. Paynter, in honor of the 40th anniversary of his appointment to the faculty. Unfortunately this wonderful musician and teacher died before the work's premiere. It was played for the first time at a memorial concert on November 16, 1996, conducted by the composer.

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

Flutist Janet Arms notes that "This joyful collaboration has brought together family, friends, and colleagues to celebrate the music of two dynamic and captivating composers, each of whose music resonates deeply with me. " Robert Carl's music is performed regularly through the U.S. and abroad. His compositions concentrate on works for solo piano, chamber ensemble, orchestra, choral, and electroacoustic media. Carl is chair of the composition department at The Hartt School. Larry Alan Smith is a composer, conductor, pianist, educator, arts executive, and poet/writer. He is on the faculty at The Hartt School, now serving as Dean. He has formerly been on the faculty at Juilliard, the North Carolina School of the Arts and was president of the School of American Ballet. Janet Arms is an orchestral, chamber, and solo flutist in New York City. She has been a member of the New York City Opera orchestra since 1988 and has performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Ballet and Metropolitan Opera. Ms. Arms is on the faculty at The Hart School in in 2019 was awarded the Hartford Anchor Award for outstanding and distinguished alumni by the University.

Violinist Julie Rosenfeld has invited five composers with whom she had worked over the past 30 years, to each write a work for violin and piano. The composers include Kenneth Fuchs, Katherine Hoover, John Halle, Laura Kaminsky, Tamar Muskal, and Stefan Freund. There is a wonderful diversity in the styles of the pieces and this recording will surely provide important additions to the contemporary violin repertoire. Julie Rosenfeld was first violinist of the acclaimed Colorado Quartet for many years before joining the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Music in 2014. Pianist Peter Miyamoto enjoys a brilliant international career, and studied at Curtis, Yale, Michigan State, and the Royal Academy. He is also on the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Music.

From the well-known (Ran, Adler, Daugherty) to the less well-known (Bryant, Ruo, Ross), this series continues to offer music of distinction and variety with comments by each of the composers preceding the actual performance. The works evoke programmatic concepts, particularly Shulamit Ran's Vessels of Courage and Hope, inspired by the tragic story of the voyage of the SS. President Warfield (Exodus 1947) during World War II. The ship carried Jewish Holocaust refugees who were refused permission to land in Palestine and were forcibly returned to Germany.

The Bowling Green Philharmonia offers another fascinating mix of new music in this sixth volume of the series. Ranging from the young Avner Dorman's Variations Without a Theme for Large Orchestra to the even younger Raymond Lustig's Unstuck to 103-year-old Elliott Carter's Pastoral for English Horn and Strings with works by Marilyn Shrude and Steven Stucky occupying the generations in-between, the recording gives the listener an opportunity to hear fine music in excellent performances.

The seventh volume in the New Music From Bowling Green features works by Chinese composers Shen Yiwen and Xiaogang Ye; German composer Martin Herchenröder and American composers Braxton Blake and Ingram Marshall. The music includes music for orchestra (First Orchestral Essay and Winter 1; concertos (Concerto for Two Guitars and Concerto for Clarinet); and a work for orchestra and tape (Bright Kingdoms). As with all the recordings in this series, the composers have recorded their thoughts about their works.

The eighth volume of New Music from Bowling Green includes orchestral compositions by Aaron Jay Kernis, Marilyn Shrude, Richard Cornell, Dalit Warshaw, Martin Kennedy, and David Liptak. Conductor Emily Freeman Brown has been the driving force behind this series, which now has recorded more than 40 works by American composers. Brown has appeared as conductor with orchestras in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. In addition to her work for Albany Records, she has recorded for Naxos, Linn, and Opus One Records. Soloists include violinist Ioana Galu, a native of Romania and now on the faculty at the University of South Dakota, and trombonist Brittany Lasch, who is on the faculty at Bowling Green State University.

The Bowling Green Philharmonia continues its unique approach of having composers speak about their compositions. This ninth volume in the series includes works by Mikel Kuehn, Shulamit Ran, Gabriela Frank, Louis Karchin, and Augusta Read Thomas. Conductor Emily Freeman Brown has spearheaded this important series that includes works written for the Bowling Green Philharmonia. A graduate of Eastman, Brown has appeared as a conductor with orchestras in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. Her recordings appear on the Naxos, Linn, and Opus One as well as Albany Records.

David Heuser's degrees are from Eastman and Indiana University and his composition teachers have included Samuel Adler, Joseph Schwantner and Warren Benson. A native of New Jersey, Mr. Heuser currently resides in San Antonio, where he is a faculty member at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Cauldron was commissioned and premiered by the New York Youth Symphony. Donald Crockett was born in Pasadena, California. He is Professor of Composition and Director of the Contemporary Music Ensemble at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music where he joined the faculty in 1981. From 1991-1997 he was composer-in-residence with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Roethke Preludes was commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and given its premiere performances in February 1995. It comprises six short movements, with the entire piece taking a little over a quarter of an hour. Pulitzer Prize and Grammy award-winning composer Stephen Albert, whose tragic death in 1992 stunned the music world, was recognized in his lifetime for a body of work at once powerful, dramatic, colorful and deeply emotive. He won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for his symphony River Run and from 1985 to 1988 served as composer-in-residence with the Seattle Symphony. Albert's gift for writing vocal music is also reflected in his last concerto, the sweetly lyrical Wind Canticle for clarinet and orchestra, tailor-made for soloist David Shifrin and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Bernard Rands is considered one of the world's most renowned composers. He has been acclaimed as a major figure in contemporary music with more than 90 works for a wide range of genres, including large choral and symphonic compositions, chamber music and music theater pieces. ...body and shadow... was composed in 1988 in response to a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was first performed by that orchestra in 1989 under Seiji Ozawa. It is, in effect, a concerto for orchestra in that over the course of the work's two movements, each section of the orchestra is featured.

About her piece blue cathedral Jennifer Higdon writes: "Blue...like the sky. Where all possibilities soar. Cathedrals...a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression...serving as a symbolic doorway into and out of this world. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. These were my thoughts when the Curtis Institute of Music (where she teaches) commissioned me to write a work to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Curtis is a house of knowledge - a place to reach towards that beautiful expression of the soul which comes through music. Coming to the writing of this piece at a unique juncture in my life, I found myself pondering the question of what makes a life. The recent loss of my younger brother, Andrew Blue, made me reflect on the amazing journeys that we all make, especially at Curtis, where the pursuit of "the singing soul" is what music and life are all about. This piece represents the expression of the individual and the whole of the group...our journeys and the places our souls carry us." Braxton Blake studied composition with Samuel Adler, Warren Benson and Joseph Schwantner at Eastman, where he also served as director of the school's Musica Nova ensemble. He has also studied at the Bayreuth Festival, the Dartington Festival and the Staatliche Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Germany. "In composing these songs, I decided to mirror the directness of Dorothy Parker's poetry in my music. I enjoy composing in a variety of styles, and it seemed appropriate to borrow just a bit from Parker's era, as will be immediately clear to the listener. These songs are cabaret songs - though not specifically meant for a cabaret. Like many cabaret songs, they are narrative scenes, all with contrasting music." Daniel S. Godfrey earned bachelor's and master's degrees in composition from Yale University and a Ph.D from the University of Iowa. He is professor of music in the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University and has held visiting faculty appointments at the Indiana University School of Music, the Eastman School of Music and the University of Pittsburgh. "Lightscape was commissioned for and premiered by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra in 1997. The idea of light in this work is abstract, having as much to do with 'inner' as outer light. The concluding measures, however, do have an external source: the deep glow and fade of sunsets among the islands of the mid-coast Maine. The high-point of the piece reflects a line in the Rig Veda (with which the score is inscribed): "May we soar like birds, far beyond the sun, blazing with Thy light." About his Tuba Concerto John Williams writes: "I really don't know why I wrote it - just urge and instinct. I've always liked the tuba and even used to play it a little. I wrote a big tuba solo for a Dick Van Dyke movie called Fitzwilly and ever since I've kept composing for it - it's such an agile instrument, like a huge cornet. I've also put passages in for some of my pets in the orchestra - solos for the flute and English horn, for the horn quartet and a trio of trumpets. It's light and tuneful and I hope it has enough events in it to make it fun."

Xylem is a short, energetic piece that amplifies a microscopic world, creating perpetual motion punctuated by explosive bursts. It takes its name from the tissue made of long tubular open-ended cells that conducts water from the soil up to the various parts of plants. Orianna Webb currently teaches composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music where she is a founding director of the Young Composers Program. Shulamit Ran writes: "My having been commissioned by the National Flute Association for a flute concerto in celebration of that organization's year 2000 convention was, for me, a much-relished opportunity to further explore the direction I found myself pursuing in earlier works." The work was premiered on August 19, 2000, with Patricia Spencer, flutist, and Ransom Wilson, conductor. Samuel Adler writes: "Nostalgia plays a role in the creation of many works of art. This was certainly the case in my writing this particular orchestral work that was composed for the Texas Little Symphony and John Giordano in the summer of 1982. For a long time now, I have had a love affair with Texas and also with music of the rather distant past. The resulting work was one which I had wanted to do for many years, namely, a dance suite based on Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque themes. These dances are treated as recompositions rather than arrangements. While the actual tunes in most of them are from a bygone era, the compositional techniques employed are of the 20th century and result in a metamorphosis of the old material. In other words, it is as if a contemporary composer took a journey into the past, fell in love with seven dance forms, brought them back to our century and rewrote them for he felt they still give off the same charm, excitement and contemporaneousness which they did when they were originally conceived." Chen Yi is currently the Cravens/Millsap/Missouri Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in music composition from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and a doctorate from Columbia University. Her composition teachers include Chou, Davidovsky, Wu and Goehr. She has served as composer-in-residence for the Women's Philharmonic, the vocal ensemble Chanticleer and the Aptos Creative Arts Center (1993-1996) supported by Meet the Composer. Kevin Puts's Inspiring Beethoven was commissioned by the Phoenix Symphony, Hermann Michael, conductor, for their Beethoven Festival in January 2002. The work is a musical tale of Beethoven transcending the grim realities of his life and finding the inspiration to compose the joyous first movement of his Symphony No. 7. Puts has received degrees from the Eastman and Yale University Schools of Music, and currently serves as assistant professor of composition at the University of Texas at Austin.

Four of the five works on this compact disc of new works for voice, viola and piano performed by the Chiaroscuro Trio are world premiere recordings. The only professional chamber ensemble dedicated to this instrumentation, the Chiaroscuro Trio has appeared as guest ensemble at various festivals and concert venues in the United States and will make their European debut in the summer of 2013. The Trio has selected contemporary American works that vary greatly, whether in personal styles of the composers, their background, the texts or the contradictory yet congruent aspects of life that they evoke. What makes these works American, is the sense that unity comes from diversity and plurality and that embracing and encouraging a melting pot of disparate voices and cultures, leads to a healthy and cohesive society and art. These five works are mindful of the past, reflective of our epoch, and relevant to the future.

Eric Moe writes: "The waltz traffics in weightlessness. By adding an extra step to the one-two/left-right of pedestrian movement, it forces the waltzer and listener off the ground and into the air (left-right-UP). Some of these waltzes tackle gravity head on (Roger Zahab's Levitation of pianos during a waltz), others are more insinuatingly buoyant, but all share this attribute. These new waltzes are not exclusively American - there are contributions from Poland (Zygmunt Krauze's Music Box Waltz) and Nigeria (Akin Euba's Study in African Jazz 3) - but they are indebted to vernacular American rhythms which add even more bounce. Their distinguished European ancestry is recognizable, but these waltzes are very much of our time - only lighter. I have revisited Robert Helps' and Robert Moran's Waltz Project of the mid-1970s - half of the 22 waltzes on this CD are from the collection published by C.F. Peters. They include works that have become standards of the repertoire, such as Milton Babbitt's Minute Waltz and Philip Glass' Modern Love Waltz, as well as other gems. The remaining 11 waltzes are new, ten composed especially for this recording, with Ricky Ian Gordon's Waltz a happy discovery. The variety is enormous. Some have a direct connection with jazz: Anthony Cornicello's PostModern Waltz deconstructs a famous McCoy Tyner solo; my own Pulaski Skyway Waltz begins with a quotation from Mal Waldron's Firewaltz, Akin Euba's "African Jazz" study draws from the musical wells of Africa and Vienna, while Andrew Imbrie infuses a one-to-the-bar waltz with the headlong energy of bebop. Lee Hyla's One Moe Time has an improvisational feel, eventually cutting loose ecstatically before returning to its senses. Other waltzes comment trenchantly on the genre itself, like Ron Caltabiano's Character Sketch: About a Waltz. Virgil Thomson's birthday card to Mrs. Efram Zimbalist subverts the waltz rhythm with a thumping duple cross-rhythm in the process of quoting "Happy Birthday." Charles Wuorinen's Self-Similar Waltz operates on a deeper level of wit, reflecting its muscular self in myriad ways; the listening experience is like walking through a set of fun-house mirrors."

This recording is a collection that includes eight world premieres and is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging album of Chinese solo string works to date. Encompassing music by two generations of contemporary Chinese composers, celebrated and emerging, the featured works are inspired by global literature, the tonal Mandarin and Cantonese languages, Chinese folk culture, and the soundscape of Hong Kong. Praised for his "deeply expressive, finely nuanced playing" (The Strad), Honolulu-born violinist Patrick Yim has performed on stages around the world. His recordings appear on the Naxos, Navona, Ravello, and Acis labels. A strong advocate of contemporary music, Yim has commissioned more than 40 works to date. He is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and Stony Brook University. He is currently Assistant Professor of Violin in the Department of Music and a Faculty Fellow at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet was founded in 1986. From the beginning, aside from the challenge of learning to play together as a quartet, the musicians dedicated themselves to creating, through commissioning, a larger and more substantial repertoire so that the elegance and power of this medium might be successfully conveyed to a wide audience without excessive reliance on transcription. This recording presents the works of six composers whose creative talents have been focused directly on the quartet medium. The music by Kechley, Bassett, Sekiya, Vandervelde and Hovda was all premiered by the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet. The respective musical styles of these five composers represent some of the variety and wealth of musical expression that has flourished in the late twentieth century. Of the six composers, only Brouwer is a guitarist, familiar with the intricacies of the instrument as well as the guitar quartet medium; ironically his piece is a transcription of his own music. The other composers have had to find their own way - create as they compose. Together, these six are in the vanguard of those helping to create an important body of literature for guitar quartet. This is a most pleasing disc.

Conductor Mark Mandarano and the Sinfonietta of Riverdale offer live performances of American music recorded at their annual series of concerts. The program ranges from America's past to present with luminaries from the past (Walter Piston) to the present time with three generations represented by John Corigliano, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Byron Adams, and Oliver Caplan. A survey that shows us where we have been, where we are, and where we are headed. The Sinfonietta's reputation for fine musicianship and stimulating programming has been recognized by the public and the press. The ensemble has performed the music of world-renowned composers and has a history of commissioned works, one of which (Lunastella) is offered on this recording. Founded in 2008 by artistic director and conductor Mark Mandarano, the Sinfonietta's recordings also appear on the Arabesque label. In addition to the Sinfonietta, Mandarano has served as principal guest conductor of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and has led performances of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and Nürnberger Symphoniker, among others. He is a graduate of Cornell and the Peabody Conservatory music and is director of instrumental music at Macalaster College.

Composer Eric Schorr says that the poems he chose for the compositions on this recording were ones that immediately resonated with him emotionally and musically. The range of the poems’ styles and subject matter necessitated a varied musical vocabulary. Always lyrical, the music veers from romantic to jazz to chanson to bossa nova. Schorr expanded the palette of sound by adding a chamber sized acoustic orchestra to his original scoring for voice and piano. Schorr composes music for theater, television, and film as well as art songs. He studied at the New England Conservatory, Yale and Harvard. He is a recipient of a Japan-United State Arts Program Fellowship and Opera-Musical Theatre Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Critically acclaimed singers Eve Gigliotti, Jesse Darden, and Michael Kelly are the featured performers on this recording.