Catalog

Barbara White's music subverts our presumptions and compels us to alter the way we listen, to discard tired preconceptions and generic expectations. She projects a sense of stillness in the midst of intense activity and activity within stillness: we are directed to find the calm center in the furiously moving; alternately, we are invited to listen deeply and actively to the quieter music, to sense a vast reservoir of unexpressed energy, to enter the depths of reverberaÂtion and enjoy the subtle decay of harmonics, to be thrown off balance by an unexpectedly delayed or anticipated attack. This music of transparent density and dense transparency compels us. Its surprises enlighten rather than shock. White's music has been presented by ensembles such as the Orchestra of St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Earplay, eighth blackbird, and janus. Honors and awards include a Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship. Ms. White is Professor of Music at Princeton University.

In the compositions here, composer Graham Gordon Ramsay aims to rethink a variety of familiar sacred texts in a fresh way. His music not only challenges but also welcomes the listeners, stimulating as well as being provocative and engaging. Born in California in 1962, Ramsay received musical training at the Tanglewood Institute, Boston University and the Fontainebleau School in France. This recording represents a two-year collaboration between the composer and conductor/organist Heinrich Christensen. Christensen has been a longtime advocate of Ramsay's music and has premiered several of the pieces on this recording. Known for his modern yet tuneful style, Ramsay writes predominantly for solo voice, chorus, solo instruments and chamber ensembles. His music has been performed in settings ranging from the Chapel at Frederiksborg Castle in Denmark to the Basilica of San Simpliciano in Milan, Italy.

Violinist Airi Yoshioka's curiosity in the electro-acoustic medium led her to commission works from five composers -- part of the seven breathtaking works that are all given their world-premiere performances on this recording. The program exhibits a wide range of contemporary styles and reveals a diverse culture of American women composers productive in the electro-acoustic music. Airi Yoshioka has concertized throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Canada as a recitalist, soloist and chamber musician. Deeply committed to chamber music, she is the founding member of the Damocles Trio and Modigliani Quartet and has performed and recorded with the members of the Emerson, Brentano and Arditti Quartets. She has premiered dozens of works and continues to build repertoire for violin through her numerous commissions. A graduate of Yale and Juilliard, Ms. Yoshioka is associate professor of violin at the University of Maryland.

Confession, Raphaël Lucas' award-winning opera, libretto by Jacque Trussel and Margaret Vignola, was created as a "prequel" to Puccini's beloved Suor Angelica. The evocative one-act work came about as Jacque Trussel, stage director for Purchase Opera, began to muse on the possible circumstances behind Suor Angelica's becoming a nun. He realized there was a story waiting to be told and came up with the essence of the libretto that was to become Confession. The music was written by the young French composer Raphaël Lucas and was awarded the National Opera Association Prize as best contemporary opera of 2010-12 and will be staged at their 2012 convention. This is a world premiere recording.

Composer Andrew Waggoner notes that these are five recent pieces that grew somehow out of the narrow space in which experience is transformed into history. Time, memory, the spell of love and the long-sounding echoes of terror inform each of these works, which while stylistically varied, share a common set of musical and emotional concerns. Bookending these pieces are two group improvisations by Open End. They frame and comment on the works they enclose. Born in 1960 in New Orleans, Andrew Waggoner studied at Eastman and Cornell. He has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Academy of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and the Saint Louis Symphony, among others. He is the recipient of an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Roger Sessions Prize. He is Composer-in-Residence at the Setnor School of Music of Syracuse University and a co-founder of the new music ensemble Open End.

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.

Following up on his critically acclaimed 2009 recording of Ives, Copland, Cowell and Rudhyar for Albany Records, pianist Richard Zimdars offers works by three American composers-- Vincent Persichetti and two of his composition students at the Juilliard School of Music-- Marga Richter and Jacob Druckman. The pieces from 1952-1955 in large forms of sonata and variation offer a focused look at the early work of three important American composers and include four world premiere recordings. Richard Zimdars has performed and broadcast throughout the U.S. and Europe. He is professor of piano at the University of Georgia and has given master classes at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart and was artistic director of the 2011 American Liszt Society Festival.

With the exception of the Ravel, trombonist Chris Buckholz has chosen a program that has rarely, if ever, been recorded on trombone. Buckholz is a virtuoso crossover artist in both classical music and jazz. He is on the faculty at the University of Northern Iowa where he received the Outstanding Teacher Award in 2010 and was the lead trombonist for the Army Jazz Ambassadors from 1997 to 2005. A graduate of Wake Forest University, Yale and the University of Michigan, Chris has played on hundreds of studio recording sessions and toured internationally. He has been a clinician at schools and universities throughout the U.S. and his recording credits include an album with The Four Tops on Motown Records.

As Susan Hawkshaw points out in her notes, Jack Beeson is primarily known for his large scale opera, Lizzy Borden, premiered and revived by the New York City Opera. But actually five of Beeson's ten operas are chamber operas because of the scale of the story. The two operas on this recording fall into this category. They are gems of vocal beauty, formal construction and evocative musical writing that deserve wider recognition and a fresh performance. They stand as major contributions to the corpus of 20th century American opera. More than 30 years separate these two operas: Hello Out There, written when Beeson was 32, was premiered in 1954 and Dr. Heidegger's Fountain of Youth, written with librettist Sheldon Harnick, was premiered in 1978.

The Stentorian Consort (David Begnoche, Barney McCollum, Brent Phillips and Jonathan Whitaker) offers a program of works for trombone that includes five world premiere recordings. Praised for inspired performances and innovative programming, the Consort has established itself as one of the nation's premiere trombone quartets. They maintain an active performance schedule of recitals and master classes and have performed by invitation at several trombone conferences. This, their second recording celebrates and reflects their continued interest in new repertoire. The Stentorian Consort is joined by guest soloist Joseph Alessi, principal trombone of the New York Philharmonic, for two works on the recording.

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 creation of Darkling, an opera with music by Stefan Weisman and libretto by Anna Rabinowitz, is a story of transformations. It is a story that maps the trajectory of bits of memorabilia found in a shoebox to publication of a book-length poem to production of a multi-media experimental opera performed in fully staged and concert versions to its current incarnation as a CD. The faceless, mainly nameless voices of Darkling emerge from a world that is lost to us: that of Eastern European Jewry destroyed in the Holocaust. Darkling spans the period between the two World Wars, interweaving the phenomenal and emotional lives of its characters with the catastrophic events of history. Darkling shows what is possible for music and poetry now and in the years to come.

Jan Krzywicki (b. 1948) is active as a composer, conductor and educator. He has been comÂmissioned by prestigious performers, and organizations such as the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, the Chestnut Brass Company, and performed across the United States by ensembles such as the Colorado Quartet, the Network for New Music, the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Alea III, and others. He is the recipient of a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, a Rockefeller Foundation residency (Bellagio, Italy), a Bogliasco Foundation residency (Bogliasco, Italy), ASCAP and Meet the Composer awards, and has been a Fellow at the MacDowell, Yaddo, Millay, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts artist colonies. As a conductor he has led chamber and orchestral groups in literature from the middle ages to the present, including a large number of premieres. Since 1990 he has been conductor of the contemporary ensemble Network for New Music. Krzywicki is a professor of music theory at Temple University. All the compositions on this recording were composed in 2000 or later and complement his first disc of chamber works on Albany Records (TROY337).

A graduate of the New England Conservatory, Northwestern University and Arizona State University, trombonist Brett Shuster was a member of the Chestnut Brass Company, traveling with the ensemble internationally. He has appeared with the Louisville Orchestra, San Diego Symphony Phoenix Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Arizona Opera and the Boston Philharmonic. He has performed as a soloist and conductor at the Seminario de Musica de Montenegro in Brazil. Shuster served on the faculty at Temple University and Western Illinois University before joining the faculty at the University of Louisville where he teaches trombone to classical and jazz students. He offers a varied program of world premiere recordings of works by five gifted American composers.

A world premiere recording of Liberation is paired with Maslanka's almost 45-minute saxophone concerto on this recording by the Illinois State University Wind Symphony. Commissioned by the Japan Wind Ensemble Conductors Conference, Maslanka used the ancient Roman Catholic ritual chant as the basis for Liberation. He realized that the Japanese are the only people on earth to have suffered the devastation of nuclear bombs and from this place of greatest devastation, now rises a musical voice of love and peace. Born in 1943, David Maslanka studied at Oberlin, Michigan State University and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. His works for wind ensemble have become especially well known. They include seven symphonies, 12 concertos and numerous concert pieces.

"...Melodious and engaging..." "...a musically vivid theatrical debut..." "...the score is continually inventive..." These were some of the comments from the press on the world premiere production of Bruno Skulte's masterpiece, The Heiress of Vilkaci. This DVD is of the world premiere, June 23, 2011 and compliments the recording of the opera previously released by Albany Records (TROY944/45). Devoted to Latvian music, Bruno Skulte was one of the most prominent Latvian composers to flee Latvia and find refuge in exile. Born in 1905, Skulte studied at the Latvian Conservatory and worked as an organist, composer and artistic director of the Latvian Radio and the Liepaja Opera. He came to New York in 1949 and became organist for the Latvian congregation in New York. His 25 year tenure with the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in New York boasts many achievements with his activities promoting Latvian music. The Heiress of Vilkaci is possibly his crowning achievement and offers a delightful listening and visual treat with this DVD. Sung in Latvian with English surtitles.

Horn soloist Bernhard Scully has been described as among the elite musicians of his generation, both as a performer and a pedagogue. Equally at home with solo, orchestral, and chamber music, his diverse performance experience includes positions as horn player with the Canadian Brass, principal horn with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and horn player with the Summit Brass. Among his many awards are top honors at numerous competitions, most notably becoming the first classical brass player to win a McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians. A horn professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Scully studied at Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and colleague Joanne Minnetti perform French masterpieces for horn and piano.

In this recording of Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen's chamber music, he explains that "Throughout my life, I have had two basic sources of inspiration, the power of nature and the power of the mind." While most of his compositions have been for orchestra, he uses the same sources of inspiration for his chamber music, but the textures and colors are varied to suit the chamber medium. Prangcharoen has established an international reputation and is recognized as one of Thailand's leading composers. Among many other awards, he has received the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Commission and the Audience Choice Award. His music has been performed in Asia, America, Australia and Europe. He is the founder of the Thailand International Composition Festival and is on the faculty of the Conservatory of Music, University of Missouri in Kansas City.

This new American opera by Evan Mack had its genesis in a lecture in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Mack heard the story of the murdered nun, Dorothy Stang. His research led him to the Ohio Province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur where he was given access to Stang's letters from 1969 until the week before her death. In five years time, the opera went from page to stage and won the Boston Metro Opera Main Stage Award. This recording is of the original New York City production. Evan Mack, a noted composer and pianist, has composed five musicals as well as numerous popular songs and classical works. He received his DMA from the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music.

The chamber music repertoire for horn may not be vast, but it can boast of exceptional works that employ the instrument in myriad intriguing ways as so elegantly demonstrated by Richard King on this recording. King, principal horn of the Cleveland Orchestra since 1997, has been featured numerous times as soloist with Cleveland as well as with the Tokyo Symphony and Auckland Philharmonia. A graduate of Curtis, King was a member of the Center City Brass Quintet. He is on the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music. King is joined on this disc by his colleagues from the Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Institute.

Victor Herbert's exotic 1898 three-act operetta score abounds with Hussar marches, gypsy love songs, comic numbers, romantic duets and brilliant finales. The eighth of more than 50 Herbert stage works, The Fortune Teller was presented in London in 1901 with its star from New York, Alice Nielsen. The cast, orchestra and chorus of the Ohio Light Opera bring this delightful work back to life.

For his third recording on Albany Records, tuba phenomenon Tim Buzbee has produced an excellent selection of recorded works for the tuba, this time featuring an eclectic group of composers (including Buzbee himself) and their unique styles. One could say that Buzbee's approach to music and playing the tuba is emotionally charged and perhaps even spiritually driven, and that underlying energy clearly reveals itself through the music in the pieces recorded here. Adding to that energy is a certain spiritual dichotomy that conjures up mental images of angels and demons or good versus evil. Many of the pieces presented here delve deep into the soul triggering a range of emotions from sadness and pain to exuberance and joy. The music is so emoÂtional and moving that it is easily forgotten you are listening to a tuba, and in doing so Buzbee has achieved what every musician strives to accomplish.

For his third recording on Albany Records, flutist Leonard Garrison has chosen a diverse program of music for flutes by American composers. Music for flute and piano, solo flute and solo alto flute represent some of the best repertoire written for this family of instruments. Garrison, a faculty member at the University of Idaho and flutist for the Northwest Wind Quintet is principal flute of the Walla Walla Symphony and artistic director of the Red Lodge Music Festival. A former member of the flute section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Garrison has served as chairman of the National Flute Association.

Clarinetist Dennis Nygren has recorded a wonderful program of music written especially for him, music that he has arranged and works that have not been previously recorded on clarinet. Dr. Nygren was on the faculty at Kent State University from 1983 to 2012, receiving the Distinguished Honors Faculty Award in 2008. He has been in demand as a guest soloist, recitalist, orchestral player, chamber musician, clinician and lecturer. A graduate of Michigan State University and Northwestern University where he earned a Doctor of Music degree, he is an acknowledged expert on the clarinet music of Debussy and Berg, Nygren is also known for his arrangement of Victor Babin's Hillandale Waltzes for clarinet and wind ensemble. His arrangements on this disc include the Mozart Church Sonatas, originally scored for violins with organ continuo, the Montbrun Six Pièces and the Debussy Four Songs.

Before departing for New York to conduct the premier of Pirates on New Year's Eve, 1879, Sullivan had completed sketches for the first act, intending to finish the opera after his voyage. Upon arrival, he discovered he'd left the first act at home. Following an all-night reconstruction, the New York rehearsals began while the composer hastily created the second act, finishing everything only hours before the premiere. The show as a success and ran for more than three months. The Pirates of Penzance remains popular today, taking its place along with The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore as one of the most frequently played Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

The Moores School Percussion Ensemble serves as the cornerstone of the Department of Percussion Studies at the University of Houston. Directed by Dr. Blake M. Wilkins and established in 1997, the ensemble's selection as a winner in the 2003 Percussive Arts Society International Percussion Ensemble Competition and its appearance at the 2003 Percussive Arts Society International Convention distinguished the ensemble as a premier collegiate percussion ensemble. Winning the competition again in 2006 marked the ensemble's second such success in consecutive opportunities, and its selection once again in 2010 solidified its reputation internationally as a leader in percussion performance. The ensemble has also emerged as a leader in the advancement of new music for the medium. In the fall of 2002, the Moores School Percussion Ensemble initiated a commissioning project to encourage new works for large percussion ensemble. Since the inception of this project, the ensemble has commissioned twelve major works from such composers as Donald Grantham, Pierre Jalbert, Rob Smith, Marcus Karl Maroney, and David Heuser. Their third recording on Albany Records includes a selection of superlative new works for percussion ensemble that surround the classic Ionisation by Edgard Varèse.

The most recent volume in the series on Albany Records devoted to the orchestral music of George Walker includes two concertos -- one for piano and the other for cello -- interspersed with works for large chamber ensembles and Icarus, commissioned by the New Jersey Youth Symphony in 2004. George Walker's music has been performed by every major American orchestra and many international orchestras, including those of Great Britain, Europe and South America. Recordings of his music appear on Sony, BIS, Klavier Centaur, Naxos and Albany Records, among others. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1996, Walker has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He is the recipient of six honorary doctoral degrees.

A world premiere recording of Anthony Plog's Concerto 2010 is the featured work on this recording by the Texas Christian University Wind Symphony. The concerto, written for brass quintet and wind ensemble, has the esteemed American Brass Quintet as soloists. Celebrating its 50th year, the American Brass Quintet has been internationally recognized as one of the premiere chamber music ensembles of our time. The ensemble has created a legacy unparalleled in the brass field. A must-have for brass lovers, this disc is the first commercial recording by one of the outstanding collegiate wind ensembles in the U.S.

The University of Western Ontario Wind Ensemble makes its debut on Albany Records with a program of contemporary works by composers from the U.S., Canada, England and Japan. The youngest composer, Newfoundland-born Jason Noble (b.1980) offers the most recent composition with Doppelpolitik, written in 2009, followed by Yo Goto's Lachrymae, completed in 2005 and Jim Territo's Fanfare: 1, written in 2004. Richard Rodney Bennett's Elegy for Miles Davis was completed in 1993, with Apparitions by Anthony Iannaccone dating from 1986. The oldest work dates from 1951, the Suite of English Folk-Dances by Ernest Tomlinson.

Two world premiere recordings are offered on this most recent recording by the Illinois State University Wind Symphony -- David Maslanka's O Earth, O Stars, a double concerto for flute and cello -- and a work commissioned by the Wind Symphony from Latin Grammy Award Winner, Carlos Franzetti -- his Symphony No. 3. Born in Argentina, Carlos Franzetti studied there, in Mexico and at Juilliard. From symphonies to big band jazz, from chamber works to Latin American music and film scores Ñ he has no limits as a composer. Especially well known for his music for wind ensemble, composer David Maslanka has also written a wide variety of chamber, orchestral and choral works.

A program of transcriptions and original works for trombone of fantasies is performed by Rick Stout. Rick has a distinguished performing career both as a member of The Cleveland Orchestra and through his many solo and chamber music performances. He is on the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music where he directs brass chamber music and is a graduate of The Curtis Institute. He is joined by pianist Christina Dahl who is director of chamber music for Stony Brook University. The two collaborators commissioned Caleb Burhans' Phantasie for this recording in honor of their first recorded collaboration.

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.