Catalog

This string quartet by noted American composer Joseph Summer is a musical interpretation of the named stories of the preeminent 20th century fabulist, Jorge Luis Borges. Born in 1956, Joseph Summer studied at Oberlin and was on the faculty at Carnegie-Mellon. Summer has written four comic operas based on the stories of The Decameron. These operas are part of a planned seven opera cycle, which follows the exploits of a half dozen characters over the course of a week in an imagined 14th century Naples. Founder of The Shakespeare Concerts, Summer's music inspired by Shakespeare appears on three previously released recordings on Albany Records.

Acclaimed saxophonist Christopher Creviston offers arrangements, piano reductions and a world premiere recording for his second recording on Albany Records. The arranger of the popular Poulenc Sonata for flute, Creviston has done a magnificent job of adapting this work for the saxophone. Composer Dorothy Chang wrote Two Preludes for Christopher Creviston in 1993 and they are receiving their world premiere recordings on this disc. As a soloist and with the Capitol Quartet, Christopher Creviston has been featured with bands and orchestras across the U.S., including the Baltimore, Indianapolis and National Symphony Orchestras and is in demand as a recitalist and clinician. Now on the faculty at the Crane School of Music, Dr. Creviston has held positions at the Greenwich House of Arts, the University of Windsor and the University of Michigan.

Molly Morkoski introduces her disc noting that "The selections on this disc encompass my musical journey as a college and graduate student through my time as a beginning professional in New York City. Three of the works represent my time in study with teaches whose musical input and genius still instructs my work today...There is the traditional repertoire of my youth and undergraduate studies, the period of discovery and love of new harmonic and rhythmic structures from my time as a master's student, and a final synthesis and balance of all styles from my time as both a doctoral student and professional musician in New York City." Morkoski has performed as a soloist and collaborative artist throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan, and has appeared at major concert halls and festivals around the world. She was a Fulbright scholar and the recipient of the Teresa Sterne Career Grant and the Thayer-Ross Awards. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Indiana University and SUNY-Stony Brook. Currently she is on the faculty at CUNY's Lehman College.

The intensity and focus of David Glaser's music reflect the concentration of his life. He has lived in New York City for the entirety of it -- raised in Queens, and for the past 25 years, living in Manhattan. What characterizes virtually all of his music heard on this recording is its intentional direction towards New York concert-music performers, their ensembles, and the culture and tradition that they embody and extend. His music calls visual metaphors to mind: the luminous radiance of its sparkling timbral textures is a reflection of the focus of an intense conception, asking that an audience shut its eyes in order to see. Glaser is a graduate of Columbia University and is the recipient of awards and commissions from the Fromm Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Alice M. Ditson Fund, and the American Music Center.

Conductor Cynthia Turner Johnson and the Cornell University Wind Ensemble began a program in 2004 of commissioning DMA candidates in composition at Cornell to compose music that "pushes boundaries." Six of these works by these exceptional young composers are heard on this recording. These composers have produced significant contributions to the wind ensemble repertoire and no doubt, the musical world will be hearing more from them. Christopher Stark is a composer whose music is deeply rooted in the American West. He is a recipient of the coveted Underwood Commission from the American Composers Orchestra. Ryan Gallagher studied at Juilliard and Cornell and has received a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and five ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Zachary Wadsworth's Out of the South Cometh the Whirlwind was winner of the King James Bible Composition Awards and was performed by the choir of Westminster Abbey. Born in the Ukraine, Catherine Likhuta's music has been performed in many venues in Ukraine, the U.S. and Canada. Takuma Itoh spent his early childhood in Japan before moving to northern California. He studied at the University of Michigan and Rice University prior to attending Cornell. He has been a fellow at the Pacific and Aspen Music Festivals. Composer, conductor and mandolinist Jesse Jones is an artist of wide-ranging tastes and influences whose music has been performed across North America, Europe, and Asia. His awards include a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

This recording presents works for flute and harp that seamlessly arc between the natural world and the human spirit, serving as reminders of the fragility of the environment and the ability to perceive and affect it. As the Aletheia Duo, flutist Jonathan Keeble and harpist Ann Yeung share a passion for bringing the creative possibilities of the music of this time to their audiences and have inspired critics to describe their evocative performances as having "lyricism, and above all, magic." This passion balances their commitment to reinterpreting contemporary and historic compositions for flute and harp with verve, sensitivity, and enthusiasm. Individually recognized as leading performers and exceptional pedagogues, they have been performing together since 2002. They are both on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Slowly, over the past few years, Albany's progressive releases of the piano music of Allen Shawn have made it clear that this is one of the most substantial and memorable bodies of work for the instrument of any living American composer. The series showcases a composer whose range of expression, technique and tone are enviable. A multi-faceted artist, Allen Shawn (b.1948) was raised in a literary millieu and has carved out an additional significant career as a writer, but he is a composer first, and one of the major American composer-pianists. His output includes many orchestral works, three chamber operas, songs, choral music, chamber music and works for piano. He is on the music faculty at Bennington College. This is the third volume on the Albany Records series devoted to his music for piano.

While composer Mark N. Grant studied at the Eastman School and took courses at Juilliard, Mannes, and Manhattan, he first embarked on a career as a journalist before turning to composition. His music has been performed in the United States, Europe and New Zealand and is the recipient of grants and commissions from the American Music Center, Meet the Composer and the New Renaissance Chamber players, among others. He received the Friedheim Award in 1996 for his music and won ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards for two of his books on music. If music were food--which to the soul it is--Grant's gives you a choice of a dependably traditional menu as well as an à la carte rich in surprises. The first recording devoted to his music includes a monodrama for soprano and chamber ensemble (Auto da fé); a song cycle for two sopranos and piano (The Book of Illuminations); as well as a work for guitar (Alba: The Lover's Departure at Dawn) and for theremin (Bird of Pardise).

To honor the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth, pianist Robert Cassidy offers a brilliant reading of his Préludes, Livre I. In addition, this beautifully recorded program includes a world premiere recording of David Noon's Elegy Variations, a work written in memory of one of his colleagues and Mozart's longest fantasy for piano. Robert Cassidy has performed in solo and collaborative recitals, and with orchestra, throughout the United States and Canada. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University and Ball State University, Dr. Cassidy has appeared in venues such as Merkin and Weill Halls and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He is the pianist for the Almeda Trio and is on the faculty at Cleveland State University.

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 five varied compositions presented on this CD provide a concise portrait of Brian Fennelly's compositional practice. They are arranged to begin with string orchestra, move through combinations with soloists, and end with wind orchestra. Brian Fennelly (b.1937) studied at Yale where he was the first student to earn a degree in the newly created Ph.D. program in music theory. From then until 1997 he was Professor of Music at New York University. His numerous awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, commissions from the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations and composer residencies at the Rockefeller Foundation Center and a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His catalog includes works for orchestra, chamber ensembles and solo instruments as well as choral, solo song and electronic titles.

With works spanning both chamber and orchestral genres, Sebastian Currier's music has been performed at major venues worldwide by acclaimed artists and orchestras. His music has been heralded as "music with a distinctive voice" by the New York Times and "lyrical, colorful, firmly rooted in tradition, but absolutely new" by the Washington Post. Currier has received many prestigious awards including the Grawemeyer Award, Berlin Prize and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This recording features his music for violin and piano performed by internationally known violinist Yehonatan Berwick, who plays on a violin by Joseph Guarneri from 1735 and pianist Laura Melton, who is on the faculty at Bowling Green State University and a noted chamber musician and soloist.

This recording is the first to draw attention to the compositional creativity of violist, teacher and choral director Harold Brown (1909-1979). He is remembered as one of the pioneers of the early music movement in North America, performing and recording Renaissance choral music in the mid 20th century. A graduate of Columbia, Brown taught at New York's High School of Music and Art and at Mansfield State College, and enriched the lives of a whole generation of New York singers with his promotion of the early choral music repertoire. The founder of the Renaissance Chorus of New York, the organization continues to be active today under the name of the Renaissance Chorus Association. Brown's chamber works for strings were composed mostly in the early to mid-1930s, and represent Brown's youthful, passionate style.

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.

Called "one of the major American composers of his generation" (Texas Monthly), Robert Xavier Rodriguez's music has been described as "richly lyrical" by Musical America. He first gained international recognition in 1971 when he was awarded the Prix de Composition Musicale Prince Pierre de Monaco. Other honors include the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served as composer-in-residence with both the San Antonio and Dallas symphonies and is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas. This recording offers his complete music for cello and piano, written between 1979 and 2006. Cellist Jesús Castro-Balbi, who is on the faculty at Texas Christian University School of Music, and Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Lin, also on the faculty at TCU, offer ravishing performances of this music.

Born in 1934, composer Bernard Hoffer attended the Eastman School of Music. After serving as arranger for the U.S. Army Field Band, he came to New York as a freelance musician/pianist, composer, conductor and arranger. He has written extensively for films, television and commercials for which he has won several Emmy nominations, including the music for the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour. One of the major works on this recording (MacNeil/Lehrer Variations) is based on the theme he wrote for the News Hour in 1975. The two elegies on the recording are Hoffer's musical reaction to friends and loved ones' deaths. The Symphony was influenced and inspired by an exhibit of the New York abstract expressionist Richard Pousette-Dart's work.

The brilliant composer/organist Carson Cooman has selected compositions for this recording that are unified by their debt to early music (most especially its modality) as well as an economy of means in their construction. All are built from simple musical materials, elaborated and developed by their composers to create compositions that inhabit musical spaces of an often spiritual character. Five American composers (Patricia Van Ness, Jim Dalton, Tim Rozema, Al Benner and Harold Stover) are featured along with Swedish composer Thomas Aberg and Slovakian native Peter Machajdík. Cooman specializes in the performance of contemporary music and more than 130 new compositions have been written for him by composers from around the world. He performs on the Organ of Our Lady in Adergas in Velesovo, Slovenia, an organ built in the Thuringian Baroque style.

Andrew Earle Simpson's A Crown of Stars is a wedding oratorio celebrating the universality of human love and was commissioned by the Cantate Chamber Singers while Simpson was the ensemble's Composer-in-Residence. This is the world premiere recording. Mr. Simpson's music follows four principal threads of interest: humanistic music; music for silent films; theatrical music; and folk music. He has created a prodigious array of works for the concert and operatic stage, which have been performed throughout the U.S., Europe and South America. Russian composer Alfred Schnittke's (1934-1998) Requiem evokes vivid images, perhaps because it began as a stage work. It is based on music from a piano quintet that Schnittke dedicated to his mother just after her death.

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.

The much anticipated world premiere recording of David Maslanka's Symphony No. 9 is a large collection of instrumental songs. There are many influences and underlying elements at work including time (memory, passing of time); water (cleansing and life-giving power); nature (river, ocean); and grace (compassion, forgiveness, rest). Each movement embodies one or more chorale melodies or other songs, such as Shall We Gather at the River and O Sacred Head Now Wounded. Born in Massachusetts in 1943, David Maslanka attended Oberlin, the Mozarteum in Salzburg and Michigan State University. His works for wind ensemble have become especially well known and popular with both performers and audiences. Symphony No. 9, indeed a masterpiece, will be universally welcomed.

As a result of a workshop on finding the voice in Beethoven and Schubert, violinist Francesca Anderegg was inspired to find her own voice in the music of the 20th century as well as finding her own personal interpretation of classical repertoire. She has designed the program on this recording to show the ways in which the music of modernist composers Schoenberg, Perle and Carter shares the lyricism and expressivity of Mozart and Schubert. Ms. Anderegg graduated from Harvard and holds a D.M.A. from The Juilliard School. She was awarded the Lenore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing Arts in 2010 and is on the violin faculty of Interlochen Arts Camp and St. Olaf College. Her festival appearances include Yellow Barn, The Lucerne Festival Academy, The Perlman Music Program and Tanglewood Music Center. She made her New York debut in February 2007 in a performance of the Ligeti Violin Concerto, which the New York Times lauded for its "dark, mournful tone" and "virtuosic panache."

Albany Records completes its series of recording of the music of Edward Joseph Collins (1886-1951) by offering an anthology of the 10 discs in a slipcase. Collins left an oeuvre comprised of ten major orchestral works (including a symphony, two overtures and three suites), three piano concerti, Hymn to the Earth (for orchestra, choir, and four solo voices), several chamber works, 15 songs for voice and piano (four arranged by Verne Reynolds for chamber/string orchestra), and more than a dozen piano solo and duo scores and an opera, all of which are included in the anthology. Called “…an exemplar of romantic, tonal tradition, keenly lyrical in manner…” the influence and importance of this Illinois native’s music can now be assessed.

Karen Beres and Christopher Hahn, members of the CanAm Piano Duo, have been presenting innovative programs of duet and two-piano repertoire since 2002. They received the silver medal at the 2008 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in Boston and a distinguished ranking at the 2009 IBLA Grand Prize competition in Ragusa, Italy. As avid proponents of contemporary music, Beres and Hahn perform a varied repertoire of new works and masterpieces of the 20th century. Karen Beres is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and Christopher Hahn serves on the faculty at the University of Montana. The program chosen for this recording includes a world premiere of David Maslanka's This Is The World; Libby Larsen's Gavel Patter based on American auctioneering patter and concludes with Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations in an arrangement for two pianos with added percussion parts.

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.

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.

The opera, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is based entirely on the very ironic, humorous short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The libretto was written by Estela Eaton, the composer's daughter. Composer John Eaton was called " the most interesting opera composer writing in America today" by Andrew Porter. He has also received international recognition as a composer of electronic and microtonal music. Of his more than 20 operas, perhaps the best known is The Cry of Clytaemnestra. A recipient of the "genius" award from the MacArthur Foundation, he has also received an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. This DVD was filmed at live performances sponsored by the Center for Contemporary Opera and presented as the opening event of the ACA's Festival of American Music in 2010.

The Sound of Time, a study in the electronic manipulation of language, consists of the artistic genre often referred to as installation art. All but one of them came into being as scores for a series of interactive sound and sculpture installations designed by fiber artists and a stage designer. The one exception is the three-movement Concerto Piccolo for trumpet and electronics that appears throughout the disc to provide a recurring reference to the outside world of acoustic musical sound. Composer Charles Bestor is the recipient of numerous awards and commissions. He is a Fellow at the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Ragsdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. This is the first compact disc devoted entirely to his electronic music.

Horn soloist Eric Ruske has established himself as an artist of international acclaim. Named Associate Principal Horn of The Cleveland Orchestra at the age of 20, he also toured and recorded extensively during his six-year tenure as hornist of the Empire Brass Quintet. His impressive solo career began when he won the 1986 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, First Prize in the 1987 American Horn Competition, and in 1988, the highest prize in the Concours International d'Interprétation Musicale in Reims, France. Mr. Ruske is in great demand as a teacher and clinician, and in addition to having given master classes at more than 100 universities and conservatories in the United States, he has taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Banff Centre in Canada, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and the Tokyo College of Music, among many others. Professor of Horn and member of the faculty of Boston University since 1990, Mr. Ruske also directs the Horn Seminar at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. His complete discography, including his critically acclaimed recording of the complete Mozart Concerti with Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber, is included in this box set.

The Musical Arts Woodwind Quintet is the resident faculty wind quintet at Ball State University. They were awarded an American Masterpieces grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2010. The grant supported performances, educational activities, touring and this recording. Founded in 1957, the quintet has made eight cross-country tours, which have brought them an enviable reputation and high critical acclaim. This cd of works by American composers includes the world premiere recording of David Maslanka's Quintet No. 4.

This recording continues the series on Albany Records of the music of the distinguished composer George Walker, who celebrated his 90th birthday June 27. Walker is an acknowledged American Master whose orchestral works have been played by every major American orchestra. He is the recipient of seven honorary doctorate degrees and has been inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. Included on the CD are his Piano Sonata No. 3 written in 1976, his Music for 3 composed in 1971, his Piano Sonata No. 5 composed in 2003 and numerous songs. Walker's music is given superb performances by a sterling group of artists.

The Phoenix Ensemble is a New York City based, mixed-instrument chamber music group, consisting of a full complement of winds, brass, strings, and percussion. The ensemble is dedicated to the performance and recording of classical music, and to the mission of making the musical arts a more essential and valuable experience in the lives of the general public. Since 1992, through performances, recordings, and residencies in schools and communities, the Phoenix Ensemble has presented hundreds of events designed to inspire a new and diverse audience for classical music. The group has a special interest in encouraging and giving a voice to composers of contemporary music, and creating events where these compos¬ers can present their music to a new audience. The group's 2009 recording of the clarinet quintets of Morton Feldman and Milton Babbitt has won wide critical acclaim. For this recording, the ensemble has selected two works for wind quintet. Arnold Schoenberg's wind quintet, his first strict 12-tone ensemble work, was composed in 1924 and Stockhausen's Zeitmasze was written early in his composing career (1957).

Composer Joel Hoffman writes that this collection of his chamber music is named Three Paths because each of the three works follows a distinctly unique pathway. He has explored a fairly broad variety of musical dialects over the course of his composing career and these works reflect that exploration. Hoffman's music draws from such diverse sources as Eastern European folk musics and bebop and is pervaded by a sense of lyricism and rhythmic vitality. He has received awards from the American Academy-Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. He is on the faculty at the College-Conservatory of Music of Cincinnati, a guest faculty member at the China Conservatory in Beijing and the artistic director of MusicX.