Catalog

Roque Cordero is universally acknowledged as Panama's finest composer. He was, in addition, an impassioned educator, writer, and conductor whose accomplishments were honored with numerous awards and commissions. His frequent and enthusiastic participation in international music festivals and organizations gave him a prominent place in the community of Latin American composers during the second half of the 20th century. Cordero's output comprises more than 80 compositions, the majority for chamber ensemble or orchestra. Vietnamese-American pianist Tuyen Tonnu offers Cordero's complete output for solo piano on this 2-CD set. She is known for her sensitive command of timbral color, singing lyricism, and striking style. She has graced the world's stages with solo and chamber music concerts in the U.S. as well as Asia and Europe. Dr. Tonnu is on the faculty at Illinois State University.

Thea Musgrave (b. 1928) grew up in Scotland, but has lived in the U.S. since the early 1970s. She is renowned for her ability to create dramatic, expressive music for any musical medium, from solo works and a huge output of varied chamber music, to the large scale concertos and operas with which she made her mark. This recording explores her music for oboe that was composed over a 60 year span. Oboist Elizabeth Sullivan is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is active as a recitalist, orchestral musician and pedagogue. Sullivan is a graduate of Stetson University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her collaborators include flutist Rebecca Johnson, assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University, pianist Cara Chowning, and clarinetist Jessica Lindsey, also on the faculty at UNC Charlotte.

Joseph Marx (1882-1964) was a bit of a musical late-bloomer. He earned a doctorate in 1909, having studied philosophy, art history, and German studies, and only later adding musicology. Castigated for his seeming cooperation with the Nazis, he also spoke out against the avant-garde, which he believed had ushered in the decay of Austrian musical culture. Among his works, there is a trove of more than 150 songs. In their time, his songs were loved and championed by famous Austrian singers but he and his music came to be largely ignored. Soprano Kendra Colton is a versatile singer who performs repertoire from Baroque opera and oratorio to contemporary music and enjoys an active performing career. Pianist Laura Ward is co-artistic director of Lyric Fest and is a distinguished collaborative pianist.

David Claman is on the faculty of Lehman College-CUNY. A graduate of Wesleyan, the University of Colorado, and Princeton, he has received grants, commissions, and fellowships from numerous organizations, including the Fromm Foundation and the American Institute of Indian Studies. This recording offers an overview of his passions and interests — including the poetry and sentiments of Tamil sayings from the first century A.D., the compositions of South Indian composer Syama Sastri; Moby Dick; and The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. His composition armory includes consumer electronics, conventional instruments, and live improvisation.

We Are, recorded by the Miami University Men's Glee Club is a continuation of their initiative to advance the male choral art through repertoire written in the 21st century. The music included on this recording, written by nearly all living composers, expresses a variety of musical offerings with a diverse palate of colors, techniques, and styles that focus on the resiliency of the human spirit. The Miami University Men's Glee Club has maintained a longstanding tradition of musical excellence and, through its artistry, passion, and relevancy, this recording is no exception. Founded in 1907, the chorus has toured 19 states and 11 countries and has appeared in concert at numerous conferences of professional choral organizations. Under the leadership of conductor Jeremy D. Jones, the group has won awards and critical acclaim, including First Place and Overall Grand Champion awards at the Concours Européen de Chant Choral in Luxembourg. This is their second recording on Albany Records.

This is a recording of reimagined masterworks arranged for brass quintet by Chris Van Hof. The idea of dance is a significant influence throughout, highlighting Baroque forms such as rigaudon and minuet, popular Central and South American dance genres, and selections from ballet scenes. The Emerald Brass (Brett Long and Max Matzen, trumpets; Leslie Hart, horn; Chris Van Hof, trombone; T.J. Ricer, tuba) was established at the Eastman School of Music where all the members were graduate student colleagues. The Emerald Brass Quintet has gained recognition as a dynamic and virtuosic collection of performers and educators and has performed and presented masterclasses throughout the U.S. Members of the quintet serve on the faculties of Utah State University, Ball State University, East Tennessee State University, University of Hawaii, and Santa Clara University.

There are few pre-1900 examples of violin and piano sonatas by American composers. The most celebrated are ones by Amy Beach and Arthur Foote. Less familiar is one by Rubin Goldmark from the same period and an even more rare work is a sonata by Alexander Reinagle dating from the 1790s. Violinist Ting-Lan Chen and pianist Nathan Buckner perform these two rarely heard sonatas on this recording. Chen, a Taiwan native, has performed around the world as a soloist and recitalist, including appearances at the White House and United Nations. A graduate of Taipei National University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, she is on the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. Nathan Buckner, also on the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, studied at Juilliard, Indiana University, and the University of Maryland. He has performed in major venues throughout the United States, as well as in Belarus, China, England, and Mexico, among many others.

Composer Daniel Thomas Davis says that Family Secrets: Kith and Kin emerged as a series of loosely related portraits, using poetry and prose by seven of the finest writers currently working in and around the Southern voices of American literature. This musical drama is a hybrid form -- an opera on top of chamber music, or a song cycle inside a monodrama -- perhaps best described as a chamber opera. Davis' music has been performed by the Detroit Symphony, Momenta Quartet, London Sinfonietta, Charlotte Symphony, and Anonymous 4, among many others. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Royal Academy of Music, Peabody Conservatory, and Johns Hopkins University and is on the faculty at SUNY Binghamton. Soprano Andrea Moore is a prizewinner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and has received the Yale School of Music Alumni Award. Her commitment to voices from her native North Carolina has led her to produce, premiere, and develop Family Secrets: Kith and Kin with the North Carolina Opera.

JoDee Davis wanted to expand the repertoire for the trombone with this recording and commissioned four composers for new works (Victoria Bond, Jennifer Higdon, Paul Rudy, and Kevin Cerovich). Then she rounded out the recording with trios for three trombones. Davis is on the faculty at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory and performs with the Trilogy Brass Trio and the Kansas City Symphony. She was principal trombone of the Spokane Symphony and second trombone of the Santa Fe Opera. She has presented recitals and master classes through the United States and at the Musik Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen. She is a graduate of Indiana University and the University of Northern Iowa. This is her second recording for Albany Records. Her collaborators on this recording include pianist Dan Velicer and trombonists Davin Bennett and Daniel Marion.

M.C. Maguire is a composer/producer who has created a very quirky post-modern hybrid that combines classical, pop, jazz, electro-acoustic, and world music traditions. He works primarily in his studio's multi-track environment combining live recording, sampling, synths, exotic plugins, and digital editing possibilities. The finished product usually consists of a rigid, hierarchical, multi-layered construct, which is mathematically proportioned to reflect the philosophical/psychological thrust of each individual work's raison d'etre. A Teenage Dream for piano & CPU is based on four songs by Katy Perry; while Sade auf Kashmir for cello and CPU is based on the concept of the sonic intertwining of Sade's No Ordinary Love with Led Zeppelin's Kashmir.

Vanessa Sielert and Catherine Anderson formed Duality to commission and perform new works for saxophone and piano as well as to challenge the listener and the performer. This recording contains some of those commissions as well as arrangements of popular compositions that are treated in a new and interesting manner. Saxophonist Vanessa Sielert is on the faculty at the Lionel Hampton School of Music at the University of Idaho. She studied at the University of Idaho, Baylor University, and the University of Illinois. She has performed with a wide range of performing groups — jazz ensembles, orchestras, and chamber ensembles. Pianist Catherine Anderson, a former faculty member at the Lionel Hampton School of Music, is in demand as an independent collaborative artist throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Italian composer Alberto Patron is a composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music (aporetic music) and non-standard use of musical instruments, Patron is the leading composer of aporetic music as well as aporetic philosophy. This recording, performed by Lucius Weathersby, includes Patron's Ten Aporetic Tropes and two works from his Les Moments Musicaux. Weathersby (1986-2006) was an organist, composer, educator, and church musician who served on the faculty at Dillard University and Amherst College.

Constellations, with music by Efraín Amaya and libretto by Susana Amundarain, is a chamber opera inspired by the life and work of Spanish artist Joan Miró. American composer and conductor Efraín Amaya was born in Venezuela, where he began his musical studies. A graduate of Indiana University and Rice University, Amaya has served on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon where he conducted the Carnegie Mellon Contemporary Ensemble. His compositions have been performed around the world at international festivals. He is currently on the faculty at Minot State University and conducts the Minot Symphony Orchestra. Recordings of his music appear on the Albany Records and Oberlin Music Record labels.

Noted performers Peter Winograd and David Westfall perform the three violin sonatas by Brahms. Winograd, a member of the American String Quartet, made his debut at age 11. As a young violinist, he was a top prize winner in the 1988 Naumburg International Violin Competition. Since then he has performed as a guest soloists with orchestras around the United States and as a recitalist. He has been a member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music School. His violin is by Giovanni Maria del Bussetto (Cremona, 1675). Pianist David Westfall maintains an active career as concert pianist, collaborative artist, and teacher. He has concertized and given master classes throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Europe, and the Far East. A graduate of Indiana University, Texas Christian University, Juilliard, and The Hartt School where he received his Doctorate in Musical Arts, Westfall taught for more than 30 years at The Hartt School of Music and founded the South Church Chamber Music Society in Connecticut.

This recording is a revised version of Cooperstown, originally released in 2015 and was named record of the month by Stereophile. The libretto is based on an essay by A. Bartlett Giamatti titled The Green Fields of the Mind. Composer Sasha Matson says that "Baseball has its own specific historical musical attributes. One of them is the sound of the stadium organ. That sound led me quickly to scoring the music for a Miles jazz quintet. Matson added a vocal cast of five for this one act, nine scene jazz opera. A graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory and UCLA, Matson has scored music for feature films and other multi-media in addition to his own compositional work.

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.

Elizabeth Chang comments that "This selection of composers derives its rationale from my own artistic heritage and the profound artistic and pedagogical influence Leon Kirchner had on me when I was an undergraduate Kirchner, in turn was a student of two of the most influential composers of the twentieth century, Roger Sessions and Arnold Schoenberg." Ms. Chang enjoys a multi-faceted career as performer, teacher, and arts administrator. Her performing career has taken her to more than 20 countries. She is on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Pre-College Division of the Juilliard School. She is artistic director and co-founder of the Lighthouse Chamber Players, co-founder of the Five College New Music Festival, the UMass Amherst Bach Festival and Symposium and Musique de Chambre en Val Lamartinien (Burgundy, France). A graduate of Harvard, Ms. Chang was recipient of the Presidential Scholar in the Arts award. She is joined by noted pianist Steven Beck, who shares Ms. Chang's passion for music of our time.

An annual tradition of the New York Latvian Choir is to perform an Advent concert. Since the repertoire was limited, the choir launched a project to commission a new composition every year from a different Latvian composer. To date this ongoing project has contributed 40 Christmas cantatas to the Latvian music repertoire. The works of the four composers on this recording have created an overview of Latvian Christmas traditions over multiple centuries. The work of Andrejs Sejans is closely tied to early religious traditions; with Martins Brauns weaves the texts of Latvian poets with his music; Andrejs Jansons has created a work reflecting a classical Latvian Christmas cantata; and Laura Jekabsone's work is a contemporary Christmas composition.

Don Walker's fifth recording for Albany Records includes music for brass as well as four compositions for orchestra. Walker, born in 1941, is a graduate of Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at Sonoma State, the University of South Florida, and Oregon State University. He was project archivist for the Dave Brubeck Papers at the University of the Pacific. His compositions including 10 symphonies, five operas, string quartets, songs, and many works for chamber ensembles.

Amelia Kaplan is a composer whose music reflects the riotous mix of sounds and cultures cohabiting in our increasingly fragmented world. In recent years her music has mostly responded to the ecological and political crises besetting our plant. A winner of a Copland House residency, Ms. Kaplan has received numerous commissions and performances at festivals around the world, including the Mise-En Festival, the Thailand International New Music Festival, and Darmstadt, among many others. Kaplan has degrees from the University of Chicago and Princeton, with additional studies at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. She is on the faculty at Ball State University. This recording features her music for strings with a string quartet, work for guitar, piano trio, work for clarinet and viola; and a composition for violin and viola.

Sheila Silver has written in a wide range of mediums, from solo instrumental to large orchestral works, from opera to feature film scores. She is the recipient of numerous awards and commissions, including an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Composer Award, the Rome Prize, and the Prix de Paris, among many others. She is Professor Emeritas of Music at Stony Brook University. This recording features song cycles including Beauty Intolerable, based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a cycle using fragments of texts from Sappho, along with a nocturne for solo piano. The stellar cast of performers includes Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Dawn Upshaw, Gilbert Kalish, Ryan McCullough, Stephanie Blythe, Kayo Iwama, Sidney Outlaw, Warren Jones, Deanne Meek, Christopher Cooley, Risa Renae Harman, and Timothy Long.

The music of Matthew Schreibeis, an American composer based in Hong Kong, spans orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, and includes a series of works for traditional Korean instruments. His personal musical vision is characterized by vivid color, imagination, and a clear sense of drama. His honors and awards include a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music has been performed by noted new music ensembles and he has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, Copland House and the Camargo Foundation, among others. He is a graduate of Eastman and the University of Pennsylvania. The largest work on this recording, Sandburg Songs, was written for the extraordinary soprano Tony Arnold, who gave the world premiere recording.

Composer Neil Rolnick pioneered the use of computers in musical performance, beginning in the late 1970s. His music has been performed worldwide and appears on 21 recordings. The recipient of numerous awards, residencies, and commissions, his music often explores combinations of digital sampling, interactive multimedia, and acoustic vocal, chamber, and orchestral ensembles. He developed the first integrated electronic arts graduate and undergraduate programs in the US at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's iEAR Studios, where he was a professor for 32 years. The three works on this recording include one for string quartet with computer; a work for piano and laptop computer; and a work for violin, piano, and laptop computer.

Susan Kander and Roberta Gumbel's dwb (driving while black) tackles what it means to be a parent of a black child who starts driving. In its swift 45 minutes, the listener spends 16 years with a black mother, feeling her growing fear as her black son moves towards driving age. Librettist and soprano Roberta Gumbel has been called "silver-voiced" by the New York Times. She has appeared with opera companies in Kansas City, Houston, Indianapolis, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Memphis, and toured the United States and Europe in companies of Porgy and Bess, including the renowned Houston Grand Opera production. Composer Susan Kander's music has been heard across the U.S. and in Europe, China, Russia, Australia, and South Africa and she has received commissions from a variety of ensembles including the Minnesota Opera Theater, Opera Theater of St. Louis, the Columbus Opera, and National Symphony Orchestra, among many others. Her music appears on the MSR, Navona, and Loose Can record labels. dwb (driving while black) enjoyed a video premiere on October 23, 2020 as a joint production of the Baruch Performing Arts Center and Opera Omaha.

Composer Joseph Fennimore credits hearing Peter and the Wolf as a young child for instilling his lifelong love for wind instruments. He comments that "As with singing, their expression comes from the flow of breath itself; the player is the instrument." This recording (the 12th on Albany Records devoted to his music and piano playing) is a collection of unedited concert performances, recorded between 1973 and 1989, which give an overview of his delightful music for wind instruments.

Doug Bielmeier creates commercial and experimental music tailored for boutique audiences and media. His music has been described as an extension of Xenakis's early tape pieces by the American Record Guide. His music has been performed internationally and broadcast on radio stations throughout the U.S. He is a champion for experimental creators and recording and has designed and managed the C.L.E.A.R. Lab at Purdue School of Engineering. A graduate of the Hartt School of Music and Bowling Green University, he is currently on the faculty at Northeastern University. This new recording is a travelogue of experiments in the world of electroacoustic, ambient, and experimental music. The selection of works was curated to create a cohesive and fresh statement revealing Bielmeier's process of Windowing, which refers to the manipulation of found sound files.

Michael Pendowski joins with pianist Jeremy Samolesky in a recording of works for alto saxophone. The repertoire features music that is jazz or jazz-inspired, reflecting Pendowski's personal interests. A director of the jazz program at Auburn, Dr. Pendowski is also an assistant professor of saxophone. He has taught at Eastman, Northwestern University, and DePaul, among other schools. He is a graduate of Eastman and Northwestern. He is a prominent composer in the educational field, having published dozens of jazz and classical compositions, encompassing the full spectrum from professional ensembles and high schools and universities. He has been a clinician throughout the country and in South America and has conducted and taught at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Also on the faculty at Auburn, Jeremy Samolesky has appeared on concert stages across four continents. He performs and teaches regularly at universities and conservatories around the world.

The subtitle of this recording, Singing Style - cantabile expressions from the Baroque to present - gives the listener a good idea of what to expect. As pianist Bruce Leto, Jr. says, "Every piece of music has a story - whether tonally, modally, or motivically. Singing Style is an album derived as much from compositional cantabile sensibilities as from the art of song Singing Style takes the listener through compositional passages, vocal/piano arrangements, and humanitarian calls to action." Bruce Leto, Jr. has been a prize-winner in scholastic, collegiate, national, and international piano competitions, including the Young Artist Division of the Canadian International Music Competition, the Seattle International Piano Festival - Virtuoso Artists 20, and the Grand Metropolitan International Music Competition, among many others. A graduate of Haverford College and New York University, he is now working on an MBA at Villanova.

Harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson offers works for harp by women composers from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In her introduction, Remy Johnson points out that the title, Quest, is drawn from the composition, Quest by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, whose inspiration for her piece perfectly fit the mission of this recording, which is to expand the harp repertoire by finding and arranging works by women. Principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for more than 20 years, Ms. Remy Johnson is acclaimed by critics and audiences for her "complete mastery of the harp and its secrets." In addition to her orchestral works, Ms. Remy Johnson has an active career as a soloist and chamber musician, performing across North America and throughout the world. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including first place in the American Harp Society and American String Teachers Association competitions, she is a graduate of Harvard.

Composer Dave Walther enjoys an equally distinguished career as a violist, including working as a studio musician in more than 500 motion pictures and soundtracks, and being the violist for The Debussy Trio, which has performed hundreds of recitals in the U.S. and abroad. As a composer he has written works for The Debussy Trio, the Christiane Trio, the Capital Trio, Catherine and Jonathan Karoly, and pianist Duncan Cumming, among others. This, his second recording on Albany Records, includes a work for violin and piano; a string quartet; a work for solo piano; and a work for flute and cello.

This recording features treasured musical collaborators of composer Ingrid Arauco performing works from the past decade. While varied in inspiration, the works are connected, as they stem from purely musical impulses and investigations. Arauco's music is rich in the resonances of both the past and the present. Arauco's music has been performed by noted new music ensembles and featured at various music festivals, including the Havana Contemporary Music Festival. She is the recipient of numerous commissions, honors and fellowships, including residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Arauco is on the faculty at Haverford College. This is her third recording for Albany Records.

This recording features three imaginative and dynamic works by GRAMMY® Award-winning composer Michael Daugherty. The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra gives exciting performances under the baton of long-time music director Neal Gittleman, joined by classical guitarist Manuel Barrueco, electric guitarist D. J. Sparr, and narrator Michael Lippert. Bay of Pigs for Classical Guitar and Strings evokes the bittersweet and turbulent events of past and present Cuba. Gee’s Bend for Electric Guitar and Orchestra is a tapestry of syncopated grooves, slow blues and spirituals inspired by the quilts and African- American women quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. TROYJAM for Narrator and Orchestra, with a poetic libretto by Anne Carson, retells the story of the Trojan War from Homer’s Iliad, but with a twist: the Greeks, led by the “lyre-strumming” Achilles against the Trojans led by Hector, decide to play the instruments of the orchestra in a wild jam session to make music, not war.