Catalog

This recording of brass and organ music by the noted American composer Larry Bell features Chris Gekker, trumpet, the Cambridge Symphonic Brass Ensemble and Richard Bunbury, organ. Recognized by The Chicago Tribune as "a major talent," Bell has been awarded the Rome Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations and the Charles Ives award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among many others. His music has been commissioned and performed by a distinguished array of performers and has been the subject of documentaries on National Public Radio and Radio Amsterdam.

Born in Poland, composer Jakub Polaczyk graduated from the Penderecki Music Academy, Jagiellonian University, and Carnegie Mellon. He lives in New York City and is on the faculty at the New York Conservatory of Music. His music has won numerous awards, including the American Prize in Composition, and the Iron Composer First Prize. His music has been performed around the world in concert hall and music festivals. This recording features his chamber music, most of which was composed in New York City. Union Square, the title of the recording as well as one of the compositions, is a special place to Polaczyk. He goes there for inspiration, to play chess, and enjoy the intermingling of many cultures. He often describes his compositional approach as playing a game of chess.

This recording commemorates the assassination of President John F. Kennedy through three works. The Julius Quartet, based in Dallas, still sees the remnants of the assassination and its effects throughout the city. Two of the works (One Red Rose and The Sixth Floor) were commissioned in commemoration and the third, Samuel Barber's famous Adagio, was performed on a nationally broadcast radio concert on the day after the assassination. Commended for leaving audiences "mesmerized by its resonant sounds" The Julius Quartet has cultivated a distinguished voice since its formation in 2012. They have performed all over North America and shared in numerous collaborations with celebrated artists. Winners of numerous awards, The Julius Quartet served as ensemble-in-residence at Southern Methodist University and continues an active performance schedule.

Bill Crofut who died in 1999 wrote notes for this recording that was done in 1991: "Some years back a dear friend commented that there was a danger in middle age of relying on past accomplishments, and thus becoming a parody of a younger self. Sing the same song too often and for too long and it turns on itself and becomes a mockery. It's a hard truth. I had passed that age of 50 when we all take stock. I yearned to take something on that I'd never done before. I first took on Bach. That meant making banjo transcriptions, inventing a finger picking technique to suit the style and finding an appropriate sound by using mutes. It took five years, the results of which can be heard in the three selections included here...This recording is the result of years of listening, loving and being moved by music, words and those who turn them into wonder. It is the Unsquare Dance of three friends with totally different musical backgrounds who came together to see what might come out, and we had a wonderful time."

Eric Moe, composer of what the New York Times calls "music of winning exuberance," has received numerous ,grants and awards for his work. As a pianist and keyboard player, he has performed works by hundreds of composers, from Anthony Davis to Stefan Wolpe. He was educated at the University of California at Berkeley and at Princeton University. He is currently Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh, where he directs the graduate program in composition and the department's eclectroacoustic music studio. He is equally skilled at writing and performing new art music. At the core of his "maximal-minimalist" compositional technique is the ability to look at musical material as one would a complex crystal. Although trained and rooted in classical music, Moe's rhythmic and melodic conception draws as much from West Africa and Bud Powell as it does from Stravinsky and Chopin.

It is good news whenever a major work by Michael Colgrass comes into the catalog and Urban Requiem is a major work, lasting almost a half hour. In 1978, Colgrass won the Pulitzer Prize. His musical style contains strains of jazz, poetic quiet and rich Orchestral colors. This new work, Urban Requiem was commissioned by Gary Green and this Miami Organization. They gave it its world premiere. As they say today, Michael Daugherty is a "hot" composer with his own disc on Argo with Zinman and Baltimore. Motown Metal was premiered by the Detroit Chamber Winds in February 1994. It was inspired by the rhythms of industrial Detroit: city of automobile clamor, the 60s Motown sound and the 90s techno beat. It features instruments made only of metal. The late Swedish-born, German composer Ingolf Dahl (who eventually settled in the United States and taught at USC until his death), originally composed his Hymn and Toccata for piano solo. John Boyd from Indiana State University prepared the current band Orchestration. Clarke McAlister has written a variety of music for solo instruments, Chamber ensembles and concert band. Currently, he is editor-in-chief of Edwin E. Kalmus and Company and Masters Music Publications. He is quite prominent in Florida music circles. The University of Miami Wind Ensemble consists of the finest wind and percussion students at the University of Miami. Its director, Gary Green, is associate professor of music and director of bands at the University.

Just as we did a few years back with the music of Andrei Eshpai, we now undertake a series of recordings devoted to the music of Boris Tchaikovsky in honor of what would have been his 80th year. The series will contain forgotten masterful performances by famous musicians, some of them now deceased, including recordings from the private archives of the performers as well as brand new world premiere recordings organized by the Boris Tchaikovsky Society in Russia. The perception of contemporary Russian music in the West is currently under revision. The post-Shostakovich era was once thought of as no more than a haven for the avant garde, with names such as Edison Denisov, Alfred Schnittke, and more recently, Sophia Gubaidulina, Galina Ustvolskaya, and others, claiming the limelight. But times are changing. A handful of lesser-known composers whose work stands at a stylistic crossroads between Shostakovich and their more celebrated counterparts are gradually coming into focus. These composers - they include such figures as Mieczeslav Weinberg, Andrei Eshpai, Boris Tishchenko, Georgi Sviridov, Gavriil Popov, Nikolai Peiko, and Revol Bunin - demonstrate that Russian music in the latter half of the 20th century is far richer and more varied than was previously imagined. Included in this distinguished company is Boris Tchaikovsky, hailed by such eminent figures as Shostakovich and Rostropovich as one of the most original voices of his generation (he bears no family relation to his famous 19th century namesake). His work offers an ever-fresh source of lyrical inventiveness and new formal possibilities, written in a contemporary style that embraces beauty, depth of expression, and accessibility. He was trained at the Moscow Conservatory at the worst of times: during Stalin's notorious postwar assault on the arts. To his credit, he refused to take part in the officially authorized tirades against the terrorized Shostakovich, who was banned from the Conservatory at the time, and whose former students, Tchaikovsky being one of them, were branded as "contaminated." He graduated in 1949, not totally unscathed himself, yet having studied under three of the most prominent masters of instrumental music of the time - Shostakovich, Miaskovsky and Shebalin. The cultural thaw of the early 1960s opened many doors for Soviet composers. Tchaikovsky's own artistic development was also in flux. The lyricism that lay at the base of his musical thinking was undergoing profound metamorphosis. That lyricism was progressively becoming couched within a fresh, mosaic style whereby the music's surface is carved into a succession of bold, accentuated utterances. The curious rhythmic rigidity of these utterances - a Tchaikovsky hallmark - is offset by considerable flexibility in the music's other variables, such as increased levels of dissonance and colorful instrumental contrasts. He had now found his own mature voice, which allowed him to create a powerful new language that was distinctly Russian in sound, thoroughly up-to-date, and capable of a wide range of expression. It is the language for all his future compositions and can be heard in this wonderful new CD.

Marthanne Verbit was born in Atlanta and raised in the small town of Fitzgerald, Georgia. She spent her childhood either at a piano or in toe shoes, with frequent appearances on television, at music festivals and in theatrical productions in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. She left the deep South to attend Hollins College and Boston University School for the Arts, receiving music degrees from each. Further studies at the Eastman and Juilliard Schools and Columbia University kept her in the North. Widely acclaimed for her flair, poetic fantasy, insightful musicianship and unforgettable stage presence, Verbit's piano recitals through the United States and Europe have established her as a favorite among piano connoisseurs. This piano recital includes works by George Gershwin (1898-1937); George Antheil (1900-1959); John Diercks (b. 1927); Joseph Fennimore (b. 1940); Leo Ornstein (1892); and Cyril Scott (1879-1970).

The conception of this recording, Veiled Light, was inspired by the desire to advance the male choral art through superb repertoire written in the 21st century. This innovative and ambitious recording features 13 works by living composers, capturing a wide range of artistry and musical emotions with great spirit, sensitivity, and sincerity. Five works were specifically written for the Miami University Men's Glee Club in its mission to promote and foster the creation and development of new choral works for male choir. Founded in 1907, the Miami University Men's Glee Club has maintained a tradition of musical excellence throughout its storied history. For more than a century, the Glee Club has presented concerts to countless audiences on their campus, around the state, nation, and world. They have toured internationally, performing in Belgium, England, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, and Wales. Conductor Jeremy D. Jones has led the Glee Club in performances at the American Choral Directors Association Central Division Conference as well as several Intercollegiate Men's Choruses National Seminars. The Glee Club was awarded first place and overall grand champion awards at the Concours Européen de Chant Choral in Luxembourg in 2014.

In Vento Appassionato, Molly Barth presents her interpretations of ten of the most influential 20th century compositions for solo flute in the repertoire, chronologically spanning from 1913 to 1966. Each piece on this recording leads Ms. Barth on an impactful emotional journey, which she delights in sharing with her listeners. Grammy-Award winning flutist Molly Barth is in demand as a soloist, clinician, and chamber musician. Lauded by reviewers, she has performed in Australia, Korea, Mexico, and across the United States. A founding member of the famed new music ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, Ms. Barth won first prize at the 1998 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. She is on the faculty at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University and is a graduate of Oberlin, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and Northwestern University School of Music.

Highlighting this recording of vocal works by Harold Blumenfeld is his half-hour Baudelaire cycle for orchestra with baritone and mezzo coloratura, Vers Satanique, in a world premiere recording. The work was long in evolving, beginning life scored for three voices and instrumental ensemble. It was not until numerous reworkings that Blumenfeld was fully satisfied with the version you hear so magnificently performed. Harold Blumenfeld is a composer given to language, opera and the human voice as this recording so dramatically demonstrates.

Pianist Kyra Zhao says that “Vibrant, just like the title sounds, is a colorful excursion taking the listener’s ear on a journey from the dreamy seashore to the roaring thunder and from intimate friendship encounters to triumphant marches.” The works by Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, and Schumann are essential repertoire of the Romantic to the early 20th century era. Hailed by New York Concert Review as “A born performer” pianist Kyra Xuerong Zhao has achieved an international reputation in many countries as a concert pianist. She won top prizes at the Seattle International Piano Competition, Rome Chopin International Piano Competition, and the Quebec International Music Awards, among many others. She has performed recitals, concertos, and chamber concerts in the most prestigious halls in the world. A graduate of Boston University, Yale, and the Mannes School of Music, she is currently on the faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music Pre-College.

Russian-born pianist Rose Shlyam Grace has collaborated with flutist Katherine Fink, euphonium player Ed Morse, and pianist Kristie Born to record six works by contemporary American composers — all of which have been written since 2000. The works include two solo piano pieces by Gregory Fritze and M. Shawn Hundley; two works for euphonium and piano by Gregory Fritze; a sonata for flute and piano by Philip Wharton; and a piece for two pianos by Zack Browning. Ms. Grace has concertized throughout the U.S. as a soloist and chamber music recitalist. She is a graduate of Oberlin, the University of Chicago and Eastman and is on the faculty at Bethune-Cookman University as well as teaching at Daytona State College.

Wayne Peterson's music is that of a composer who embraces and takes delight in the hands-on process of making music, especially as it relates to the combinations and interactions of various instruments and their sonic possibilities. In a very real sense the musical ideas appear to evolve naturally from these capabilities without in any way being limited by them. As he writes in the program notes for Duodecaphony for viola and cello, "I welcomed the opportunity to address anew the problems of melody, counterpoint, harmony and timbre as they applied to this somewhat restricted choice of strings." A winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his orchestral work The Face of the Night, the Heart of the Dark, Peterson's music is marked by a wonderful rhythmic fluidity, which derives from his experience as an accomplished jazz pianist. Perhaps most importantly, Wayne Peterson's musical language is at once sophisticated and direct in its approach to the listener; it never compromises its basic integrity. In his hands the instruments are agents of luminous beauty, beckoning us to even deeper aesthetic pleasures. Peterson's music can also be heard on TROY601, 689 and 766.

Rarely, if ever, has a successful Broadway show received such unanimously rave reviews, yet disappeared so quickly as Victor Herbert's 1906 Dream City & The Magic Knight. The show traces its genesis to attempts by the celebrated vaudeville team of Lew Fields and Joe Weber to interest Victor Herbert in writing music for one of their shows. Herbert had no interest in writing for vaudeville, but when Weber went out on his own as a producer, he contracted with Herbert for a comic opera. Billed as a "Dramatic Pipe in Two Puffs," the show's zany first act was in the musical comedy style; in the middle of the second act as an operatic burlesque, spoofing the conventions of grand opera, particularly Wagner's Lohengrin. The Ohio Light Opera offers a new performance edition, with complete music and dialogue recorded live at the 2014 Summer Festival.

By the time composer Victor Herbert began work in 1905 on his comic opera Mlle. Modiste, he already had 14 Broadway shows to his credit and a reputation as America's most prominent composer of stage music. With Metropolitan Opera star Fritzi Scheff in the title role of Fifi, the hatgirl with dreams of a stage career, Mlle. Modiste opened on Christmas Day of 1905 and ran for 202 performances. Herbert's musical score remains one of the supreme gems in the American operetta canon and it is fitting that the Ohio Light Opera celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth with this delightful operetta.

Victor Herbert and Fred de Gresac’s wonderful 1922 score, Orange Blossoms, is the story of an hilarious culture clash between Americans and Parisians in the Roaring Twenties in the French capital and on the Riviera. Orange Blossoms, written late in Herbert’s career, reflected the public’s new interest in the jazz age and musical comedy. Director Michael Phillips liberally adapted the original three-act musical into a streamlined two-act version accentuating the most unique and innovative aspects of the script and lyrics. The Light Opera of New York was founded in 2006 as a professional company devoted to the performance of staged operettas and operetta concerts.

Victor Herbert's three-act 1914 score (Henry Blossom's song lyrics) -- the clash between a young female composer and an egotistical Broadway librettist based on a play by Frank Mandel, is offered in a new performance edition by Michael Phillips. His revision resulted in a reworking of the lengthy Mandel-Blossom dialog, entailed some minor repositioning of several musical numbers, but left Herbert's score and Blossom's actual song lyrics intact. All music is presented on this recording with a truncated version of Phillips' snappy book. The score is charming with the solo cello prominent and the lead soprano getting the best song, explained by Victor Herbert's own distinguished career as a cellist and his wife's position with the Met Opera.

Victoria Bond is the only woman composer/conductor to receive commissions from major organizations and also hold music director positions with leading ensembles. Her extensive catalog includes works written for the Houston, Shanghai, and Richmond Symphony Orchestras, the Saint Paul and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestras, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. This recording highlights some of her enchanting music, including Bridges, a work for two clarinets and two Chinese instruments, the Erhu and the Pipa.

This intriguing and ingenious album by Gernot Wolfgang bridges sophisticated Viennese elements with edgier and rawer textures found in more contemporary American works. Wolfgang is taking us on an autobiographical safari with this "groove-oriented" classical album that will be a pleasure for the listener to explore. The compositions are for eclectic chamber groups, beginning with a bassoon-piano opener and concluding with a piano quartet. These many forms reveal the multiplicity of Wolfgang. Described as a "master composer with important things to communicate to his listeners," Gernot Wolfgang was born in Austria in 1957. Currently he lives in Los Angeles where (among many other musical activities) he works as an orchestrator in the film and TV music industry. He has been a lecturer at the University of Music in Graz and offered master classes at numerous universities in the U.S. and Mexico. He has received more than 40 commissions from organizations such as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Jazz Festival of the European Broadcasting Union, and the Debussy Trio. This is his fourth recording for Albany Records.

Vignettes is a collection of works for solo trumpet, trumpet and piano, trumpet, trombone and piano, brass trio, brass quartet, brass quintet, and trumpet ensemble. Many of the pieces on this recording are world premieres and several were commissioned specifically for this cd. As trumpet player Eric Siereveld says, "The direct intention of this music is to draw the listener into short, but specific musical sketches that bring forth in the imagination, places or people previously lost to memory." A native of Cincinnati, Eric Siereveld attended Morehead State University Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has worked as a freelance musician in New York; directed the Afro-Cuban Jazz Ensemble at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is now on the faculty of the University of Louisiana Monroe. He performs with several brass ensembles and the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra.

Villa Diodati, composed by Mira J. Spektor with libretto by Colette Inez, features the poetry of notorious Romantic poets Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth. The plot revolves around the fateful events of Summer, 1816, when Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley penned Frankenstein while staying at the Villa Diodati in Geneva with her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. A contemporary American couple on a Swiss train find themselves thrown into the past and into the villa on the dreary summer day when Mrs. Shelley is creating her monster. Later that night, Mary will be haunted by her creation and also by the ghost of her Mother, the British feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. The famous couples fantasize of ghosts and monsters while privately facing their inner demons. Today the haunted Villa Diodati still stands as a landmark, overlooking Lake Geneva. The piece was filmed live at the York Theatre at Saint Peter's Church in New York City, produced by Bank Street Films, starring the beautiful young singers Rachel Arky, Angela Leson, Mike Longo, Jeremy Moore, Hillary Schranze and Rachel Zadkoff. The New York Times (Allan Kozinn) wrote that the vocal setting "recalled some of the more graceful music in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti" and characterized as particularly appealing a duet between Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, "There is no heaven but my love." Reviewing the opera during the New York Musical Theater Festival in 2008, Talkin' Broadway wrote, "Mira J. Spektor (music) and Colette Inez (lyrics) have imbued their show with all the classic elements of success — luxurious love, vibrant-voiced performers, lush poetry, and a visionary director...The unabashedly operatic music wraps you in the warm embrace of the writings timeless romanticism. You'll probably hear no better musical all this year than Villa Diodati."

The fact that a composer of Persichetti's stature and prominence wrote so many works for wind band was not a result of a unique devotion, but simply because he was inherently attracted to the medium. The works on this recording, which constitute Persichetti's major works for wind ensemble, represent a wide variety of lengths, forms and difficulty levels and yet certain compositional consistencies can be found throughout. The differences are in technical demands and harmonic density rather than the basic musical language. The Illinois State University Wind Symphony and their conductor Stephen K. Steele offer exceptional performances of this music.

America began forging its own cultural identity in the 19th Century with music reflecting a vast array of cultures coming together. By the time the first music conservatory opened in 1865, European classical music had begun to be mingled with music influenced by Native American themes, African-American styles of ragtime and spirituals, Latin American and rural American folk music, and the traditional military band. With Vintage America, Calico Winds showcases these American musical roots. Known for exploring the full palette of tone colors available to the wind quintet, Calico Winds plays "in perfect balance with each other, each [member] contributing lovely tone quality and flawless intonation..." (The Times Herald, Olean, NY) It is with these attributes that Calico Winds brings to life America's rich musical legacy.

William Kraft (b.1923) has had a long and active career as composer, conductor, timpanist/percussionist and teacher. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara and was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 26 years, where he also served as composer-in-residence. His music has been performed by major orchestras throughout the United States and he has been commissioned by many distinguished ensembles. This is the sixth disc devoted to his music on Albany Records.

Inspired by a work for viola and clarinet by Rebecca Clarke, clarinetist Elizabeth Crawford and violist Katrin Meidell formed Violet and began working on expanding the literature for this sorely underrepresented genre of classical chamber music. All the works on this recording were written for their duo. Since its inception in 2015, Violet's efforts have produced more than 100 new compositions. Elizabeth Crawford is on the faculty at Ball State University. Prior to this appointment, she was a member of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. She has performed and taught at festivals around the world and has transcribed a number of works for E-flat clarinet. Her recording of music for this instrument appears on the Albany Records label. Violist Katrin Meidell enjoys a prolific career as a performer, pedagogue, and lecturer, traveling around the world to perform and present. She is on the faculty of Columbus State University.

Lee Actor's career as a software engineer and a musician began in Albany, New York: for several years he was a violinist in the Albany Symphony Orchestra while completing an advanced engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in nearby Troy. After moving to California in the late 1970s, he studied with Brent Heisinger, Charles Jones and the late Andrew Imbrie. Actor's music is filled with rhythmic drive and shows a superb ear for orchestral color. Often he builds up a work by emphasizing one or another of the instrumental families Ð woodwinds, brass and strings Ð then mixes them in a rich impasto of orchestral color. In the process he creates music that catches the ear and draws the listener into a world of emotion and drama. All of these recent works are a perfect showcase of his distinct range and style.

Ray Bono writes in his program notes: "Fiercely independent. Self Reliant. Self-disciplined. Such descriptions invariably surface in accounts of Paul Creston's life. More emphatic is the assertion that, excluding keyboard lessons, he was "entirely self-taught" in music. And, in fact, the short, affable Italian-American was in many ways a supremely self-made man, even down to his name. Born on October 10, 1906 in Manhattan to an impoverished couple from Sicily, he was christened Giuseppe Guttovergi (the family name would later be recast as Guttoveggio). In childhood he was also called Joseph but by 15 had been dubbed Cress by his friends, after Crespino, the role he played in a high-school staging of Goldoni's comedy, The Fan. Before long, he reworked this Cress into a fuller, solidly American-sounding name - and exit Giuseppe-Joseph-Guttovergi-Guttoveggio; enter Paul Creston. He started composing at the age of eight, soon after his parents, recognizing his musical ability, managed to get him a piano and a teacher. Within a few years, he was capable enough to substitute for the teacher when the man was ill - and canny enough to deem the man musically incompetent. He moved on to better piano teachers, took organ lessons too and plunged into a ferocious self-directed study of the works of Bach, Rameau, Scarlatti, Rimsky-Korsakov, Chopin, Debussy and Ravel. These masters of form, harmony and color, he would always maintain, were his true teachers; from them alone did he learn composing and orchestration. From the onset of the Great Depression, when he wasn't trying to sell insurance or real estate, Creston was accompanying singers as a Musicians Emergency Fund member - and pondering a career as a writer. Or a concert pianist. Or a composer. After a favorable response to a set of dances he wrote for solo piano in 1932, and to his incidental music for a theater piece - and encouraged by composer and concert organizer Henry Cowell, he sat down, took stock of his talents and decided to concentrate seriously on composition. His early modest pieces were successful enough to earn him a positive mention in Aaron Copland's 1936 article about "America's young men of merit" (although Copland grouped him with rising composers whose work tended to be "somewhat" abstract"). Larger works followed, and more attention. He received two successive Guggenheim fellowships. And his Symphony No. 1, debuting in 1941, won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award and later took first prize in an international competition in Paris. The three orchestral works on this disc - a symphony, a concerto and what amounts to a musical diptych - are from Creston's finest period. Never before recorded for commercial release, they exemplify his talent for uniting lyricism with propulsiveness to make a considerable emotional impact."

Steve Margoshes is the composer of the international hit musical Fame. The inspirational musical about New York City's High School of Performing Arts (written with lyricist Jacques Levy) has been performed on every continent in the world in a dozen languages. This CD continues Steve's collaboration with Fame creator, David De Silva aka Father Fame, to produce a new body of work for symphony orchestra. He has composed and orchestrated these "symphonic pop" pieces under the banner Symphonic Fame. Steve's work as an orchestrator in the theater includes the Who's Tommy, Smokey Joe's CafT (the songs of Leiber and Stoller) and the Elton John/Tim Rice musical, Aida. Barnabas Kelemen was born in Budapest in 1978. He has studied at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest since 1990 and in 2002 was named the gold medalist at the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis. This is the first release in a new series from Albany Records called "American Light" which is classical music presented with a lighter touch. The British have been doing this sort of thing for years: presenting "light" music by serious composers and we feel that it is time we catch up. This series will present well-crafted music by serious composers whose music should appeal to a larger audience without pandering to it.

Bodil Rorbech was born in Denmark in 1967. She debuted as a soloist in 1990 at Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen where she played Alban Berg's Violin Concerto. The following year, she also had her official debut from the soloist class at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. She has also studied in Germany and in the USA with Joseph Silverstein. She performs regularly as a soloist in Denmark and abroad, often premiering new works. For the last five years, she has also been a member of Ensemble Ars Nova, based in Malmo, Sweden. In the summer of 1995, she received a scholarship for an intensive course in new performance technologies at the Center of New Music and Audio technologies in Berkeley, California. Inspired by the possibilities, she then began giving recitals featuring interactive performance with electronics. She has received the Jacob Gade Prize, the Music Critic's Award, the Bolero Prize from the Danish Broadcasting Company and the Composers Union's Musician Prize of Honor.

Violinist Scott Conklin and pianist Alan Huckleberry have assembled an impressive group of new American compositions for violin and piano, which, with the exception of the Bolcom and Sheng, are world premiere recordings. Scott Conklin is Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Iowa School of Music. He appears regularly as a recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and teaching clinician throughout the United States and abroad. He was named the 2008 Iowa String Teachers Studio Teacher of the year and was a featured artist at the 2004 Music Teachers National Association Conference. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Conklin earned his D.M.A. from the University of Michigan School of Music.

Just intonation: A tuning system having intervals that are acoustically pure; all intervals are represented by ratios of whole numbers. Lydia Ayers composes with unlimited just intonation in Csound and with 75-tone Indian/Partch scale on the "Woodstock Gamelan," a tubular percussion instrument built to her specifications by Woodstock Percussion. She has modeled the Woodstock Gamelan and other gamelan instruments using Csound, and authored Cooking with Csound: Woodwind and Brass Recipes, a CD-ROM package which gives wavetable synthesis design for wind instruments. The music on this CD is inspired by the works of Harry Partch and Lou Harrison, the antics of the family cats, and experiences in Indonesia, such as awareness of the proximity of Merapi, Java's most active volcano, and listening to gamelan and kecak performances in Bali. Lydia Ayers has visited Java and Bali several times, where she met with such artists as I Wayan Dibia and Made Wiratini and made sample recordings of the STSI gamelan with their assistance. She has played gamelan at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at Hong Kong University, and extensively researched microtonal tuning systems. She has worked with extended vocal and woodwind techniques, including quarter tones, multiphonics and other unusual flute timbres. She has used algorithims to solve tuning and compositional problems, and is creating Indonesian, Native American, Australian and Chinese computer instrument designs.