Catalog

Rossini cherished a lifelong fondness for Venice, the scene of his first operatic triumphs. During long years of "retirement" (he composed his last opera, Guillaume Tell in 1829 at the age of 37), he led a restless existence, leaving Paris in 1836 for Milan, Bologna, and Florence, until finally embracing Paris for good in 1855. Only there, it seems, could his muse express herself through the intimate genres of the solo song and the small piano piece. Except for a certain feline aria - which is exceptional in every way - all the works on this program come from two Parisian collections: the 1835 Soirees musicales with its eight solo songs and four duets, and the Peches de vieillesse ("Sins of old age"), with its thirteen volumes of songs, vocal ensembles and piano pieces composed after 1856. So here we have the superb American soprano Julianne Baird and some of her friends, accompanied by the fortepianist Andrew Willis, performing a delightful program of Venetian barcarolles, love duets, ensembles and gondolier songs, all by Rossini.

Daron Hagen is an award-winning composer, librettist, stage director, conductor, collaborative pianist, and essayist. He is the recipient of the 2015 American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Academy Award for “the artist who has achieved his singular voice.” His music is performed worldwide by the most prestigious orchestras, ensembles, and soloists. This recording features three of his song cycles performed by mezzo-soprano Stephanie Weiss and pianist Christina Wright-Ivanova. Ms. Weiss, a regular guest at Deutsche Opera Berlin has performed roles ranging from Komponist (Ariadne auf Naxos) to Suzuki (Madama Butterfly). Currently on the faculty at Arizona State University, Ms. Weiss studied at the New England Conservatory, Tufts University, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Mannes College of Music, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Ms. Wright-Ivanova is on the faculty at Keene State College and has performed throughout the US, Australia, the UK, Europe, Canada, China, and South America. She is a vocal coach at UMass Amherst and serves on the faculty at New England Conservatory's Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice.

This recording features largely unknown sacred art songs from the late 19th to the late 20th century, including works by American composers Leo Sowerby and Daniel Pinkham as well as their stylistic predecessors Gabriel Fauré, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Max Reger, Louis Vierne, and Gaston Litaize. These composers' common musical vocabulary of chromatic harmony, realized through the expansive timbral palettes of the organ and voice, creates vivid musical settings of sacred poetry. Baritone Stephen Lancaster was winner of the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition and of The American Prize for men in art song and oratorio. He has been featured in venues around the world as a recitalist, and soloist. He holds degrees from the University of Note Dame and the University of Michigan and is currently on the faculty at Notre Dame. Organist Kevin Vaughn is director of music and organist at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in South Bend, Indiana and on the faculty at Goshen College. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Saloons, Salons, and Salutations is a musical journey through the American West and the salons of Europe, weaving together the diversity of female voices across different eras and styles. These eclectic — sometimes irreverent — compositions, brought to life by soprano Serena Hill LaRoche and pianist Catherine Garner, pay homage to the creativity and innovation of women in the world of classical music. Serena Hill LaRoche has earned praise for her "power, virtuosity and elegance" with "a thrilling instrument at the top of its range." An active concert artist she has performed as a recitalist, opera singer, and soloist with orchestras. She was a 2003 finalist in the Southeast Regional Metropolitan Opera Auditions and the 2006 Artist of the Year with FBN Productions, Inc. LaRoche studied at the University of South Carolina and the University of North Alabama. She is on the faulty of the University of South Carolina. Her collaborator, pianist Catherine Garner is on the faculty at Appalachian State University. She is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Florida State University, and Louisiana State University.

As African Americans commemorate 400 years of Afrcans in America, the presence of the Negro Spritual remains a strong symbol and a significant tool through which Africans made their voices heard throughout these years of struggle. This CD is a compilation of many of these Spirituals, releases previously on Albany Records, which still stand strong even in today's world where in many instances it seems as if time has stood stil and the need for these precious gems still toll the bells of freedom. Bass-baritone Oral Moses performs regularly throughout the United States and Europe singing oratorio and recitals with special emphasis on a wide variety of Negro Spirituals and art song repertoire by African-American composers.

In this contemporary reimagining of Wilhelm Müller’s poetry cycle Winterreise — most famously set by Schubert — an everyman at the end of his rope confronts his inner demons in an emotionally charged vocal tour de force. Composer Douglas J. Cuomo is known for his concert, operatic, theatrical, television, and film compositions. His music is influenced by jazz, world music, classical and popular sources, as well as his spiritual practice as a Buddhist. Along with the operas Doubt, and Arjuna’s Dilemma, he has written for the London Philharmonic, Fort Worth Symphony, Romero Guitar Quartet, Joe Lovano, Denyce Graves, Christine Brewer, Nels Cline, Maya Beiser and others. He composed the theme for Sex & the City and scored over 20 feature films.

David Patterson, Ph.D. Harvard University, names as his teachers Leon Kirchner, Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory. He served as chairman of the Music Department for fifteen years at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Poet TenBroeck Davison, great granddaughter of Richard W. Sears, founder of the first mail-order firm, Sears Company, lived and studied on both sides of the Texas border. Having lived in Corpus Christi, her poems evoke images of her adolescent years spent absorbing the flavor of two cultures converging in that southernmost point of the continental United States. Poet James Merrill (1926-1995), the son of Charles Merrill, who was a founder of the stock brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch, published fifteen books of poetry. Last Words was commissioned for "An Evening of Words and Music" at Washington University with James Merrill, who was then poet-in-residence.

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

It is common practice in scholarly circles to honor an individual or institution with a festschrift, a collection of essays or articles written by close associates, former students, colleagues, or those with interests relevant to the life’s work of the honoree. In that spirit, Videmus (the non-profit musical organization devoted to furthering the music of African American composers and artists) offers this CD as a musical celebration of Dr. Willis Patterson’s commanding achievements in performance, education, and administration. If a composer like William Grant Still is considered the “Dean of African-American composers,” then “Dean” Patterson, as he is affectionately known by many, could certainly be considered “Dean” of a long line of distinguished black performer/educators that stretch back at least to the 19th century. His commitment to the music of African-Americans exemplified by the 1977 Anthology of Art Songs by Black Composers fostered the scholarly research and performance of this literature by many artists including those on this recording and Jessye Norman.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Don Walker's fifth release on Albany Records features songs he has written using the poetry of Anne Bradstreet, Phyllis Wheatley, Helen Hunt Jackson, Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, Harrie Alley, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Walker taught at Sonoma State University, the University of South Florida, and Oregon State University. The music is performed by soprano Ann Moss, who is a graduate of the Longy School and the San Francisco Conservatory. An ardent advocate for contemporary music, she has been responsible for the commissioning and premieres of more than 80 art songs, vocal chamber music, and operatic roles. She is joined by pianist Karen Rosenak, a longtime member of the Empyrean Ensemble, and a founding member of the new music ensemble Earplay.

Just as she blends a masterful mix of musical genres in concert halls across the country, engaging oratorio soloist Dawn Holt Lauber will inspire the musical choices you make for your wedding day with this collection of the old and new, appropriately titled "Something Borrowed, Something Blue." Listen in and you will be lured by a handful of selections that are a bit off the beaten path - a beautiful marriage of classical and jazz that promises to be a perfect accompaniment to the beginning of your new life together. Dawn Holt Lauber has appeared extensively with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. She first performed Duke Ellington's sacred works at the Riverside Church in New York City with members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. She has been a soloist at the Riverside Church for five years.

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.

This recording is of a newly composed Chinese art song cycle by two renowned Chinese cultural figures -- composer Cong Liu and poet Yujuan Li. The cycle consists of 24 songs, each representing one of the 24 solar terms. The cycle depicts the traditional Chinese solar terms and their representative agricultural folk traditions, with the short Chinese poems describing the human activities and cultural changes to the landscape through the seasons. Composer Cong Liu is on the faculty at Shenyang Conservatory of Music and is the director of multiple music institutions and symphony orchestras. His compositional style combines Western techniques with Chinese folk song elements. Poet Yujuan Li has written more than 1,000 texts in various styles and she has won more than 100 national awards. Soprano Xingyu Huo is completing her DMA at the University of Iowa. She has performed with opera companies in Italy and concertized in China, Austria, Italy, and the United States.

The British composer, Peter Dickinson, was born at Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire. His musical personality ranges widely from the three substantial concertos for organ, piano and violin to the forthcoming witty Rags, Blues and Parodies collection. His layering technique in larger works - and notably in Surrealist Landscape here - enables different types of music to coexist in a way that sounds like no other composer. These song cycles show Dickinson responding to major 20th century writers and his sometimes colloquial manner may derive from some of the poets represented. For this recording, some of the finest British singers of their generation have worked with the composer to create an unusual document in the history of the English song cycle.

French composer and pianist Cécil Chaminade (1857-1944) wrote approximately 400 compositions, including 125 songs. Dismissed by her male colleagues, she did make a mark through her French romantic style at the turn of the century. Though she is primarily known today for her solo piano compositions and her recordings for the gramophone, this recording illuminates a facet of her much overlooked mélodie oeuvre. The songs on this disc display not only Chaminade's adroit word pianting but also her ability to spin orchestral effects through her piano writing. Soprano Sooah Park has been praised by critics for her role as Oscan in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, saying, "Sooah Park shines as Oscar, and her singing is utterly delightful." (Houston Arts Week) She has performed as a recitalist and in opera around the world including performances in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Finland, South Korea, and the United States. On the faculty at the University of Texas at Tyler, she studied at Eastman and the University of Texas at Austin. Her collaborator, pianist Sang Woo Kang is an active performer who has presented masterclasses and recitals inmore than 25 countries. He pursues his career as a solo, orchestral, and chamber music performer while teaching at Providence College and Brown University.

The works of women composers have been consistently overlooked by music historians. New emphasis is now being placed on "women in music" in music departments and women's studies programs across the country. The works of many women are beginning to emerge from the neglect of the past, and are becoming recognized as compositions worthy of study and performance. This is especially true in the art song genre which because of the small forces involved, allowed for the possibility of performance, even if only in the home. The songs of these three composers represent three different styles. Although all were born in the nineteenth century, their styles of composition are as distinct as the poetry that each chose to set. Clara Schumann composed in the tradition of the early Lieder composers, setting texts of German Romantic poets. Irene Wieniawska's (known as Poldowski) music, which includes a large number of settings of Paul Verlaine, is predominantly in the French impressionistic idiom. Amy Beach was an American who set various English-speaking poets from Shakespeare and Robert Burns to her own husband and herself.

At the turn of the century, it was difficult enough for American composers like Daniel Gregory Mason, Edgar Stillman Kelley, or George Whitefield Chadwick to obtain a hearing for their music. They were poor relations of their more distinguished European counterparts. As tough as it was for these men, think of how tough it must have been for Dorothy Gaynor Blake, Mary Turner Salter, or Ella May Smith. Herein lies the importance of this release. You have probably never heard these composers' names before. They were all women composing music in the first 20 years of this century. All the music on this disc has been recorded here for the first time and all of it has been composed by women. How to describe the music? Interesting; more interesting than one might think. Remember, at this time in the development of music in America, there was no tradition; there was no composer who stood out from the rest; a woman had as good a shot at success as a man and these songs are well worth your attention. They can stand proudly next to a great deal of the material that was being composed at the same time by their male colleagues. This disc fills a very important gap in the discography of the American art song.

The life of composer, poet, artist and publisher Carrie Jacobs-Bond reads like a classic American rags-to-riches success story. Hailed during her lifetime as the "James Whitcomb Riley of Song," many of Bond's 400-some "home" songs have become standards in the popular repertory and have been near and dear to the hearts of generations of listeners. She was born in a small town in southern Wisconsin and enjoyed some celebrity as a child because of her ability to play the piano. She received minimal formal music training. After a first failed marriage, during which she had her beloved son Fred, she married her childhood sweetheart Dr. Frank Lewis Bond and moved with her young son to Iron River, Michigan. It was here she began to compose her songs, but sadly, after only seven years, her husband died, leaving her almost penniless. To support herself and her son, she "peddled" her songs. She founded her own publishing house "The Bond Shop" and it was run by her and her son until he committed suicide in 1929. Here is how she was described: "In a voice drenched with tears, almost basslike in quality, she would sit at her old grand piano and intone these quaint melodies for us. These were certainly not distinguished compositions, by any means, but there was a quality about them, a wistfulness that was part of her nature, that made each new song seem a revelation." A composer of American melodies in the tradition of Stephen Foster, Carrie Jacobs-Bond's songs epitomize the Victorian and post-Victorian parlor song: unapologetically sentimental, yet displaying a genuine lyric gift. In the words of one biographer, her songs "represent a final flowering of the 19th century genteelly sentimental song in American popular music."

Many people think Alec Wilder was our finest composer of American songs. This CD will give you the opportunity to judge for yourself. Alec Wilder was born in Rochester, N.Y. Largely self-taught, he came of age as a composer with the birth of the Eastman School of Music. His relationship to the school was a rocky one, though he was a regular during his student years, he never graduated. He was a composer who was at home with American music in the largest sense - from Broadway to Hollywood, popular or classical - and the idiosyncratic mixture of styles in his music makes it just as much an "American original" as that of his avant-garde contemporaries. The "President of the Derriere-Garde" as he was often called, he simply composed - and often composed simply - music of charm and beauty for the musicians who were his artistic partisans, giving little thought to the categories into which other people might place it.

Paul Sperry says: "I first became attracted to turn-of-the-century American songs in 1975 when I started preparing recitals for the Bicentennial celebration. I discovered an enormous repertory of delightful music of which this recording contains only a small sample. Most of these songs were written primarily to be sung in the parlor around the piano, but many were quickly picked up and performed in concert by the leading singers of the day. As tastes changed over the last 70 years, they virtually disappeared from the concert hall, and as record listening replaced live music-making at home, they were abandoned there as well. Thus for a long time, these pieces have been virtually ignored. Happily, tastes are changing again and both singers and audiences are taking great pleasure in this charming music."

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

The presence of the great Marilyn Horne and the late Henry Lewis on this CD is a special treat. Songs of Flowers, Bells and Death; Contextures IV was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment of Music Composition at Brigham Young University. The premiere took place on March 8, 1994 with Ron Brough conducting the Brigham Young Concert Choir and Percussion Ensemble. The meaning of the work is best expressed in its text which embraces approximately 2600 years of sadness and anger. Silent Boughs "To Jackie" was written in 1963. This song cycle for mezzo soprano and string orchestra on poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay was commissioned by Marilyn Horne and Henry Lewis. It received its first performance on November 15, 1963 in Stockholm, Sweden with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Contextures II is based on nearly 3000 years of anti-war poetry, from Homer to Fanta Bass (1930-1944). A line of oscillating major seconds hovering over a static harmony and funereal bell sounds conclude Contextures: Riots Decade '60, and overlap into the opening of Contextures II. The major seconds refer to the opening of the African-American spiritual We Shall Overcome, so closely associated with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.

Henry Cowell wrote songs for the half century spanning 1914-1964. They constitute a central part of his compositional profile and there are more than 180 of them out of his 966 known compositions. His songs are a vital, if sadly unknown, part of the rich history which is the American art song and in them, Cowell used some of his most forward looking and experimental ideas. His songs clearly delineate the several periods of his stylistic evolution - the naive, youthful works, the early avant-garde and "ultra modernist" works, the folk and modally-influenced music, and the late works which synthesize all these earlier styles. Most of Cowell's songs, however, have remained under-performed and virtually unknown, for they exist only as manuscripts in the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library. To date only sixteen of Cowell's songs for voice and piano have been published. During his lifetime, his songs were premiered by many of the finest singers of the day including Roland Hayes, Eva Gauthier, Radiana Pazmor, Charles Holland and Theodor Uppman. Most often, he composed single songs but there are a few exceptions including the sets by Catherine Riegger, Mother Goose, Padraic Colum and Langston Hughes recorded here. As editor for many years of the ground-breaking New Music Editions, Cowell selflessly advanced the songs of many other composers including Ives, Copland, Charles Seeger, Vivian Fine, Paul Bowles, Elie Siegmeister, Ernst Bacon, Leo Ornstein, Otto Luening and Ben Weber. In all this time, he only published two of his own songs.

Soprano Jean Danton has performed extensively throughout the United States in recitals, oratorio and opera. She has appeared as soloist with the Handel and Haydn Society under Christopher Hogwood, the Oregon Bach Festival under Helmuth Rilling, the Boston Pops and the Boston Baroque. She is a graduate of the opera program at the Hartt School of Music. Dominick Argento's Six Elizabethan Songs exists in two versions: the first written in Florence in 1957 for tenor and piano and the second, revised by the composer in 1962 for soprano and Baroque ensemble (the version presented here). Songs About Spring for soprano and piano is a setting of five poems by e.e. cummings on the theme of spring. The third song of the group, "in Just spring" was a favorite of cummings himself. The English composer Arnold Cooke was born in Yorkshire in 1906. He studied with Edward Dent and in Berlin with Paul Hindemith. He taught at the Royal College of Music and Trinity College. In Three Songs of Innocence, Cooke has set three poems from William Blake's "Songs of Innocence" (1789) for soprano, clarinet and piano. For Nocturnes the composer has selected texts by five British poets. Appropriately, they all describe night scenes. William Moylan holds the Doctor of Arts degree from Ball State University, Master of Music degree from the University of Toronto, and the Bachelor of Music degree form the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, all in music composition. He composed his For a Sleeping Child - Lullabies and Midnight Musings especially for Jean Danton. The four songs were composed in October of 1995 and revised in January 1996.

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.

Adolphus Hailstork's interest in the voice dates back to childhood, when he became a member of a boys' cathedral choir in Albany, New York. This recording of his songs is the first volume of a series and includes his first set of songs, Lollipops, written in 1959. Hailstork utilizes a variety of styles in his song writing, changing style to suit the texts. Soprano Louise Toppin has received acclaim for her performances throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, South America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean. Her discography includes 17 recordings of music by American composers. A professor of voice at the University of Michigan, Ms. Toppin is director of the George Shirley Vocal Competition and the non-profit organization, Videmus. Her collaborators include pianist John O'Brien, harpist Lydia Cleaver, double bassist Rick Robinson, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Julius P. Williams, conductor.

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.