Catalog

"Inspired", says the San Francisco Chronicle of flutist Barbara Leibundguth. Former Co-Principal Flutist of the Minnesota Orchestra, Ms. Leibundguth also wins praise from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Bright, gleaming tone...evocative...both stylish and adroit." One of the finest flutists of her generation, Ms. Leibundguth was invited by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, as well as by the major orchestras of Atlanta and Houston, to appear as guest solo flutist. She has also held principal positions with the San Francisco Symphony, the Chicago Opera Theater, and the Omaha Symphony. As a soloist and chamber musician, Ms. Leibundguth has performed at the Marlboro, Grand Teton, and Blossom Music Festivals, and in her hometown of Chicago on the Dame Myra Hess Recital Series. Ms. Leibundguth and award-winning composer/pianist Carl Witt have worked together since 1994, and their musical chemistry creates electric, intelligent performances. In 2002, they received a $25,000 McKnight Performing Artist prize. Visionary Duos was recorded in the world-renowned acoustical space of Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis. This CD presents a collection of passionate and beautifully crafted works, featuring virtuoso counterpoint, radiant melodies, bracing intensity, jazz riffs, and gypsy flair. Here we have an intriguing and expansive view of flute music in the 20th century.

This compact disc presents keyboard masterpieces by five of our century's most acclaimed Jewish composers. The sampling of the rich and varied traditions of Jewish music seems especially appropriate as this is the 50th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. A somewhat mischievous note of caution creeps in, however, when one attempts to define precisely what "Jewish music" is. Apart from that which can be heard as either liturgical or folk, one faces an enormous gray area of diverse styles (often in the same work), national influences and musical personalities. All of which is to say that "Jewish music" is much more similar to than distinct from other music. This is especially true in America today as younger composers have shed much of their teacher's and their teacher's heritage. Jewish composers exhibit all the strengths and all the weaknesses found among all musicians as of all humanity. When describing great works of art of all styles or origins, massive or minuscule in scope, one is speaking in part of the "vision" of its creator. This is not a mystical term; rather it describes an overreaching personal statement which envelopes the work and, when combined with formal coherence, creates a sense of artistic truth. While this "vision" is common to all great art, the creator can cast his gaze in many different directions: upward towards the heavens; inward towards the mysteries of the self; outward towards the sights and sounds of the world; backward to the past or forward to the future. This sense of "Jewish music" is perhaps to be found here; while all art contains a vision, the Jewish vision is distinct in just what the artist, in this case the composer, sees and feels.

This recording seeks to celebrate the eclectic American music of the recent past. In 1994 John Sampen and Marilyn Shrude initiated a commissioning project designed to represent this diversity. Seven major American composers were invited to contribute "postcard pieces" highlighting their unique musical styles. The resulting collection, which comprises an interchangeable suite for saxophone and piano, demonstrates serialism, aleatory, improvisation, and a variety of other musical languages, styles and genres. In addition to the postcard pieces, this compact disc includes five works complimenting the musical and cultural melange of late 20th century America. Internationally-recognized saxophonist John Sampen has premiered more than 60 works, including commissions by Rands, Subotnick, Cage, Adler and Babbitt. A clinician for the Selmer Company, Sampen has presented master classes at important universities and conservatories in Asia, Europe and North America. Dr. Sampen is presently Distinguished Artist Professor at Bowling Green State University and president of the North American Saxophone Alliance.

There is a new generation of performing artists and composers who in recent years have been redefining the temporal and aesthetic dimensions of music, thus paving the way for a veritable cultural renaissance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the work of James J. Pellerite, one of the world's great virtuosi of the modern orchestral flute and no less a master of the Native American flute, which he now plays almost exclusively. Former solo flute of the Philadelphia Orchestra and a distinguished soloist and teacher for many years, Pellerite in 1995 launched a second career as a Native American flute virtuoso. His company, Zalo/JP-Publications, produces an important catalog featuring a wide selection of orchestral, chamber and solo works by living composers who share his vision of bringing the Northern Plains instrument firmly into the 21st century and to elevate it to the status of a significant new voice on the contemporary concert stage. The present recording is the most recent of his many collaborations with living composers. Should anyone still require proof that the Northern Plains flute is more than a quaintly happy find for tourists browsing gift shops for souvenirs conjuring the color and spirit of the American West, he/she has only to experience the invigorating musical diversity and consummate artistry represented by this remarkable disc.

Viva Concertante! showcases works for chamber orchestra involving soloistic display, and features the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Conservatory Studio for New Music, as well as the University of Iowa's Center for New Music Ensemble. The compositions were either written or revised in the last dozen years. And just as old- and new-world connections are forged by means of the performing groups, a like situation extends to the ethnicity of the composers, with Italian, German, and English contributors as well as Chinese-, German-, Macedonian- and Welsh-Americans.

Robert Starer was born in Vienna in 1924. He entered the State Academy at age 13. Soon after Hitler's annexation of Austria in 1938, he went to Jerusalem and continued his studies at the Palestine Conservatory. During World War II, he served with the British Royal Air Force. In 1947, he came to New York City for post-graduate study at Juilliard. He also studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood in 1948. In 1957, he became an American citizen. He taught at Juilliard from 1949 to 1974 and at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York from 1963-1991. In 1994, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His book, Continuo: A Life in Music was published by Random House in 1987. His complete works for solo piano have recently been published in one volume. In 1986, Itzhak Perlman recorded his Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa. This disc offers a selection of Mr. Starer's chamber works for voice and various instruments.

Two performers passionate about American art song -- soprano Mary Mackenzie and pianist Heidi Louise Williams perform a program of songs by John Harbison, James Primosch, Daniel Crozier and Ned Rorem. Mary Mackenzie, who has captured the attention of audiences throughout the United States, has been described by the New York Times as "a soprano of extraordinary agility and concentration," and the Boston Globe as "sensational." She has appeared as a recitalist, a soloist with orchestras and as a chamber musician with the best known ensembles in the U.S. Her discography includes recording on the Albany and Bridge record labels. Pianist Heidi Louise Williams has appeared in solo and collaborative recitals across North America, in Europe and Asia. She has been praised by New York critic Harris Goldsmith for her "impeccable soloistic authority" and Dazzling performances." On the faculty at Florida State University College of Music, her recording for Albany Records received rave reviews from critics.

Cellist Jonathan Golove offers a program of contemporary Mexican works for cello, five of which are world premiere recordings. All of these composers are major figures in Mexican music and this recording showcases the exciting and vibrant work that is being done in Mexico. Golove is a dedicated performer of both new and traditional works as well as of improvised music. A native of Los Angeles, he now serves as associate professor in the University of Buffalo's Department of Music.

Herbert Bielawa earned his degrees in piano and composition at the University of Illinois and the University of Southern California. He has been a member of the faculties of Bethany College and San Francisco State University where he founded the Pro Music Nova and created the electronic music studio and courses for the Computer Music Major. He has written music for instrumental ensembles, piano, harpsichord, pipe organ, choir, electronics, chamber opera, band and orchestra. His much-performed Spectrum for Band and Tape was composed during his Contemporary Music Project residency in Houston from 1964 to 1966. Other residencies were with the San Francisco Summer Music workshop in 1976 and with the San Francisco Choral Artists in 2000. Since 1991, he has been a member of the Ilona Clavier Duo and founding director of Sounds New, a Bay Area new music ensemble.

Like a book, this CD is divided thematically into four parts: Music of the Great Poets, Our Sacred Heritage, Holocaust Suite and Music of the People. The composers represented range from the young American, Eric Whitacre to the old - Norwegian Alfred Jansen. Situated in Coral Gables, the University of Miami is the most comprehensive private research university in the southeastern United States. Its School of Music ranks among the most innovative in the nation. While building on the classical tradition, the School incorporates a contemporary approach to learning and creatively responds to the changing needs of the world of music. The Chorale is one of nine choral ensembles in the School of Music and it was founded in 1993. It has quickly established itself as one of Florida's leading collegiate choral ensembles. The voices of the chorale are chosen from across the campus, drawing both music majors and majors outside the School of Music. Note that Peter McGrath helped with the engineering of this recording.

This recording contains some of William Mayer's finest music. "William Mayer's music sings out with real beauty, both in the vocal writing (he is especially known for his operas and songs) and the instrumental settings," wrote John Rockwell of the New York Times on the occasion of the composer's sixtieth birthday. And indeed this recording gives the listener a rich sampling of his vocal music; opera, songs and choral compositions. But, just as importantly, it contains two purely instrumental works - Abandoned Bells for piano and Inner and Outer Strings for string orchestra - which must count as two of the composer's most haunting scores. Mayer's career has contained such memorable events as Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt narrating his Hello World, a musical trip for orchestra and Leopold Stokowski premiering his Octagon for Piano and Orchestra.

This recording project began with a concert in October 2000 at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, New York, a community college with a vision. Larry Berk, then director of its library and information services, had recently created an Artist in Residence Program, with the support of the Ulster Foundation, to leaven the practical course offerings typical of most community colleges with a healthy dash of inspiration from working artists. Soprano Danielle Woerner was the resident artist for the fall of 2000, and designed a program for students of varying ages, backgrounds and experience. The residency required one major public presentation, and the concert of October 2000 featured some of her favorite Hudson Valley composers. Some of the music had an extra Hudson Valley flavor: words by Woodstock writers Pearl Bond and Gail Goodwin. Nearly all of the composers took part in the musical preparation and several participated as performers in both concert and on this CD. Since the project began, both Alan Shulman and Robert Starer have passed on, adding some additional poignancy to the presentation. Soprano Danielle Woerner is acclaimed for her performances of concert and operatic repertoire ranging from early Baroque to modern works. While maintaining active professional ties to New York City, she has lived in the mid-Hudson Valley. An alumna of Barnard and Bard Colleges, she counts among her most influential singing mentors Nora Bosler, Martha Gerhart and Bethany Beardslee Winham.

The cycle of birth, death, experience, and the renewal of life can be found in varying degrees as the inspiration for several of the works on this recording, and in some cases, their reinterpretations. This recording highlights the diversity and creativity that can be found in the music of these distinguished American composers. The music is brought to life through the exquisite performances of Jonathan Keeble and Ann Yeung. Their collaboration as a flute/harp duo since 2002 has led them to venues in Asia, Europe and throughout North America.

Elliott Schwartz was born in New York City and studied composition with Otto Luening and Jack Beeson at Columbia University. Since 1964, he has taught at Bowdoin College, where he is currently the Robert K. Beckwith Professor of music. There are five orchestral works on this disc which share a number of traits - in particular, a fondness for bright, splashy instrumental colors, multi-layered textures (akin to photographic "multiple exposure"), eclectic style juxtapositions, and references to pre-existent music of the past. Many of the principal motives are derived from patterns - number sequences, or musical spellings - which are related to extra-musical programmatic sources. Moreover, these pitch patterns often expand into twelve-tone rows (which in turn generate new patterns). The musical surfaces, however, are far removed from the world of strict serialism. Quite the opposite, in fact: tonal, triadic passages and angular, dissonant ones jostle each other, and controlled improvisation often flows through and around strictly notated narrative. Finally, a distinctly "theatrical" strain runs through these compositions. Performers may be asked to walk or speak; orchestra choirs - the wind section, or the brasses (appropriately at the rear of the stage), may play "competing music" - fragments of pre-existing material - at odds with the prevailing music that surrounds them. Unusual instruments - metronomes, police whistles, flashlights, or piano interiors - may be employed by the players. These are intended to create a multi-dimensional, and perhaps even dream-like, experience.

Composer and conductor, Anthony Iannaccone, is one of a handful of contemporary artists whose exploration of musical polarities in the 1960's and 70's consistently separated their output into populist and specialist works. In the world of music, the former tended to be tonal and accessible, while the latter leaned toward atonality and abstraction. In his own case, Iannaccone refers to these categories as "large-audience" and "small audience" music, respectively. The first three pieces on this disc demonstrate a remarkable blending and balancing of both "small" and "large-audience" music. The last two works clearly inhabit the realm of the "large-audience." Not unlike the overview afforded on earlier Albany releases of Iannaccone's music for strings (TROY 414) and music for winds (TROY 280), this CD includes works that span nearly two decades of music for the orchestral medium. From his earliest orchestral venture, Suite for Orchestra, to his most recent, From Time to Time, one can trace the development of a truly personal voice from an early mixture of influences, both traditional (Brahms, Debussy, Mahler) and modern (Stravinsky, Berg, Copland, Bartok).

This is the third release in Albany Records' continuing series of recordings devoted to the music of the American composer George Walker. This release presents a further selection of Mr. Walker's chamber music. For this recording, Walker is joined by other members of his family who are also performers. His son Gregory, a violinist, is the concertmaster of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also a Professor of Music and Director of Ensembles at the University of Colorado in Denver. He joins his father in a performance of the Violin Sonata No. 1. Ian Walker has pursued a career as an actor, director and producer of numerous theatrical performances. He is the speaker in the Poem for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble.

Don Walker's second recording for Albany Records features some of his chamber works for mixed ensembles -- ranging from a work for flute, violin, and piano to a piano quartet to larger ensembles such as the last work on the program for flute, bassoon, trumpet, horn, violin, and cello. These compositions also display a range of style with Soul Music containing 12-tone elements combined with a traditional Blues melodic style; to the Piano Quartet where Walker's sense of humor led him to imagine Arnold Schoenberg compositing a twelve-tone piece in honor of John Cage's 100th birthday; to the Divertimento which features a second movement that borrows material from Schubert. Now retired, Don Walker had a distinguished career as a composer, teacher, organist, and archivist.

A major historical recording featuring George Walker as composer, with the 1977 recording of his Mass by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sergiu Comissiona and George Walker as pianist in a live concert from 1956 with the Eastman Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson. In addition there are two works for choir performed by the Morgan State College Choir conducted by Dr. Nathan Carter.

The Pulitzer Prize winning composer, George Walker, composed his Serenata for Chamber Orchestra for the Michigan Chamber Orchestra. It received its premiere in Detroit in October 1983. It received another performance by the New York Philharmonic in July 1984 on a Horizon's 94 concert. The Lyric for Strings was composed in 1946 and premiered that year by the student Orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music conducted by Seymour Lipkin in a radio concert. It received another performance the following year by Richard Bales and the National Gallery Orchestra. The Poeme for Violin and Orchestra was premiered by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with Cho-Liang Lin as violin soloist in 1991. It is a revised version of an earlier Violin Concerto. Orpheus for Chamber Orchestra was commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra and was completed in 1994. It received its premiere in March 1995. Besides the Chamber Orchestra, it includes a part for narrator and singer. The Folk Songs for Orchestra were completed in the fall of 1990 and was premiered in May 1992 by the Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman. The composer describes his intention as "to set these melodies in an interesting way, in a respectful Orchestral manner. They are wonderful melodies. Four spirituals are quoted intact."

Not to be confused with the Scottish composer William Wallace (1860-1940), this William Wallace is a man of our time. His works, widely performed and broadcast. He studied with Leroy Robertson at the University of Utah and Egon Wellesz and Edmund Rubbra at the University of Oxford. He has taught at both Rutgers University and Canada's McMaster University. He holds both U.S. and Canadian citizenship and lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

War & Peace is a video production released in Blu-Ray format and conceived as a total entertainment concept. The production combines artistic resources from other cultures with advancing techinologies in order to create music that impacts our senses in a manner seldom achieved before. Art, dancing, music, western and eastern cultures all combine to push the boundaries of musical entertainment by using new combinations of musical instruments, new multicultural art direction and new dance styles. War & Peace provides an entirely different visual and auditory impact to the audience. Entertaining sounds and rhythms, beautiful and meaningful visual imagery, and culturally diverse creative expressions are the hallmarks of War & Peace.

Pulitzer Prize winning composer Robert Ward was born in Cleveland, Ohio on September 13, 1917. He received his early musical training in Cleveland's public schools and graduated from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. His graduate work was undertaken at the Juilliard School studying composition with Frederick Jacobi and conducting with Albert Stoessel and Edgar Schenkman. During that time he was also a student of Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center. Before and after World War II, Ward served on the faculties of Queens College, Columbia University and the Juilliard School, later becoming music director of the Third Street Music School. In 1956 Ward became the Executive Vice President and Managing Editor of Galaxy Music Corporation and Highgate Press. In1967 he was named President of the North Carolina School of the Arts and in 1979 became Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music at Duke University.

This recording features the St. Stephens Chamber Orchestra performing works by North Carolina composers. Central to the recording is Hunter Johnson's Letter to the World. Hunter Johnson (b. 1906, Benson, North Carolina) composed extensively for piano, various chamber ensembles and orchestra. He is perhaps best known for his much-performed piano sonata and two ballets commissioned by Martha Graham, each of which has had hundreds of performances worldwide by the Graham Dance Company. Of the many artistic homages that have been paid to the spirit and poetry of Emily Dickinson, one of the finest tributes is Martha Graham and Hunter Johnson's collaboration, Letter to the World. Premiered in1940, this synthesis of dance, music and poetry soon became an established modern dance classic. The music (and dance) describe the legend of Emily Dickinson and the world of her imagination rather than the actual facts of her real life. Other works on the recording include Robert Ward's Concertino for Strings; Walter Ross's Mosaics; and Richard Rendleman's Concertino for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra.

This program grew out of Stephen Swanson's frustration with the coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom and with his son's decision to enlist. He and his wife began researching song dealing with war and formulated a program of songs about the individuals involved in America's historic military conflicts, their friends and their families. The primary consideration was the texts rather than the settings. The fervent nationalistic patriotism of World War I; the intimate personal glimpses in to World War II; the satirical songs from the Cold War; the Vietnam-era protest songs; the setting of Abraham Lincoln's letter to a mother who lost five sons Ñ all demonstrate the conflict between the need to fight and the horrific losses war imposes.

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.

The guitar has always been a pillar of musical expression in Latin America. Its personal character reflects the strain of individuality in Latin cultures. Twentieth Century luminaries including Heitor Villa-Lobos, Carlos Chavez and Alberto Ginastera, have paid homage to the guitar through their compositions. Contemporary Latin American composers continue the tradition of these musical giants. Composers on this recording, all different in their musical approach, share a special feel for the guitar. Roque Cordero (Panama-USA), Tania Léon (Cuba-USA) and Rafael Aponte-Ledée (Puerto Rico) employ techniques of atonal composition while fusing regional elements. Edmundo Vçsquez, the Paris-based Chilean composer, utilizes traditional folkloric structures elaborated by the techniques of current musical idioms. United States born Francis Schwartz, who has made Puerto Rico his home, uses the guitar and the guitarist as features of a music theater work which includes vocal sounds and gestures from the audience. The renowned Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla, added classical training to his vast popular musical experience as a bandoneon player. Piazzolla highlights in these guitar pieces the harmonic language he used to rejuvenate the traditional tango.

This recording has its impetus in a retrospective concert of Chou Wen-Chung's music that took place at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City on April 1, 1993, in honor of his 70th birthday. Chou was born in China in 1923. He developed an early fascination with music and was educated in the 1920s through the 1940s against a backdrop of upheaval in a country recovering from Western colonialism, Eastern feudalism, and World War II. Urged to help rebuild China, he studied civil engineering instead of music, earning his degree in 1945. He came to the United States in 1946 on a four-year architecture scholarship to Yale. He gave this up to pursue his career in music. He studied with Varese, Martinu, Slonimsky, and Luening, attending the New England Conservatory of Music and Columbia. In 1978, he founded the Center for U.S. China Arts Exchange. It has designed and implemented many far-reaching projects in the arts. Writing in "Contemporary Composers" in 1992, Brian Morton noted: "It is difficult to overestimate Chou Wen-Chung's importance His work is of considerable significance in the slow rapprochement of Western and Eastern musics in the second half of he 20th century." In the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Edward Murry wrote, "Chou's music is a remarkably successful fusion of Chinese tradition and sophisticated Western vocabulary and style. Almost all his major works take as points of departure Chinese poetry, painting, calligraphy or philosophical and aesthetic ideas, and he is conscious of his place in the long tradition of Chinese art."

The title of this recording explains what it is: West Meets East—clarinet music by Western composers influenced by Chinese culture. Clarinetist Jun Qian, himself Chinese-American, has long been fascinated with cross-culturalinfluences, as this CD of world premiere recordings so aptly demonstrates. He established the East Meets West Project in 2010 to commission and record new compositions for clarinet that are inspired by Asian cultures and that combine Chinese musical elements with Western art music. This is Qian's third recording for Albany Records, the first two concentrating on Chinese composers influenced by Western culture. A member of the faculty at Baylor University, Jun Qian enjoys an international career as a soloist, recitalist and educator. He studied at Baylor University and the Eastman School of Music.

Joseph Summer's preoccupation with the works of Shakespeare began in 1991, when he set the soliloquy "To Be or Not To Be" for tenor and piano. This project kindled a spark that grew rapidly and forcefully, and has burned undiminished to the present day. The tally now stands at over fifty settings contained in six books, known collectively as the Oxford Songs. These range from short arias for solo voice to fully orchestrated cantatas for several singers lasting over half an hour. In June 2000, a twenty-minute setting of the famous balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet was commissioned and premiered at Merkin Hall in New York City. Beyond the Oxfordian realm, Joseph Summer has completed seven operas and numerous orchestral works. In 2003, in collaboration with music director John McGinn, Summer founded The Shakespeare Concerts. To date, this series has presented concerts of Bard settings (by Summer and others) to audiences across Massachusetts, as well as St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. In its second season, it featured singers from Opera Unlimited of London, England. This CD is drawn from the Oxford Songs and represents the debut album of the Shakespeare Concerts.

One of nine choral ensembles in the University of Miami Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music, the University Chorale was founded in 1993, by the current Director of Choral studies, Dr. Jo-Michael Scheibe. The Chorale has quickly established itself as one of Florida's leading collegiate choral ensembles. The voices are chosen from across campus, drawing both music majors and students from outside of the Frost School of Music. Jo-Michael Scheibe has degrees from California State University at Long Beach, and from the University of Southern California. He held positions in California and Arizona prior to his arrival at the University of Miami. He has served as artistic and music director of the Florida Philharmonic Chorus and is currently the artistic and musical director of the Master Chorale of South Florida. He also serves as Director of Music Ministries at the historic Coral Gables Congregational Church.

A native of Washington, DC, composer and pianist Jessica Krash was awarded a Wammie (Washington Area Music Association's Grammy) in 2010. Her work has been presented in both traditional and experimental settings in New York, Germany, Austria and all the major performance venues and museums in Washington, DC. She lectures on topics of music and the brain, music history and the insights we get from dangerous, banned and provocative music. She is on the faculty at George Washington University and has previously been a faculty member at George Mason University and the Levine School of Music. Se is a graduate of Harvard, Juilliard and the University of Maryland, where she earned her doctorate in composition. The major work on this recording, Be Seeing You, for string quartet and piano, was commissioned by the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts and is inspired by 14 depictions of women found in these two museums.

The Manhattan Wind Quintet was founded in 1985, while several of its members were earning degrees at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City and playing in the prestigious National Orchestral Association. From the beginning, the ensemble has been active in advancing the cause of new music for winds. It is not surprising then, that this, their first recording, is a collection of contemporary works composed by young Americans with whom they have collaborated over the years. Judith Zaimont composed When Angels Speak during November and December 1987, while she was flat on her back recovering from a broken leg. It is an 11 minute work, in one movement with four large sections. From the beginning it was conceived as an ensemble work, using the five players almost all the time, almost as a miniature band. Since 1992 she has been professor of composition at the University of Minnesota School of Music in Minneapolis. Peter Susser composed his Till Drumlin Waves in 1989. Today he is a member of the faculties of Columbia University and the School of Continuing Education at New York University. The composer Stephen Wisner wrote his Nocturne for Wind Quintet in August 1993 in honor of his mother who had recently died. "My objective was to commemorate my mother with an enjoyable and romantic piece, they type she would have enjoyed. The music of mine that she liked best involved uncomplicated key signatures and pretty melodies. I have incorporated one of her favorite melodies into this Nocturne: the "Children's Prayer" from Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel." Wisner studied at the University of Michigan with Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom. He is a professional bassoonist. David Maslanka's Quintet No. 2 for Winds was commissioned by the Manhattan Wind Quintet, which gave the work its first performance in 1987 at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall in New York City. It has three movements. David Maslanka currently lives and composes on a ranch in Missoula, Montana.