Catalog

Cellist Eric Kutz says that this recording had its roots in the pandemic. Facing cancellation of numerous performances, he turned to the Bach Suites, bringing to his performances of them the life experience of an adult. Eric Kutz has captivated audiences across North America, Asia, and Europe. His diverse collaborations cut across musical styles and have ranged from cellist Yo-Yo Ma to jazz great Ornette Coleman. He is active as a teacher, a chamber musician, an orchestral musician, and a concerto soloist. A graduate of The Juilliard School and Rice University, he is currently on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Music. He performs on a cello by Raffaele Fiorini (Bologna, 1877) and a bow by Jacob Eury (Paris, 1810).

Pianist and composer James Adler made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 16, the start of a varied career in the United States and Europe. He has appeared throughout the world at leading concert venues, including New York City's Alice Tully and Carnegie Halls. He made his London debut at the famed Wigmore Hall. Known as a pianist who "can create whatever type of music he wants at the keyboard" (Chicago Sun-Times), he has had particular success with his account of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, the final work on this disc. His succinct description of the whole program perfectly sums it up: "I wanted to prepare a CD program that is fun. Has rhythm. That is danceable. That is a little jazzy with depth and lyricism, and celebrates American traditions in music. Though not necessarily in chronological order."

This recording of new works for shakuhachi and classical guitar has brought composer and shakuhachi master Jeffrey Lependorf to new places both in terms of incorporating improvisation into composed scores and in terms of composing for himself to perform with other instruments. Challenged to incorporate guitarist Scott Field's deep roots in avant-jazz performance with his formal classical training in traditional Buddhist meditation music, Lependorf was presented with an opportunity to create composed works that invite varying levels of improvisation. A graduate in music composition of Columbia and Oberlin, Jeffrey Lependorf also is a certified master of the shakuhachi. His colleague, guitarist Scott Fields, studied at the University of Wisconsin. As a leader of his own groups and a sideman in other groups, Fields has toured throughout North America, Europe and Asia and appears on more than 30 recordings.

Pianist Jeffrey Middleton graduated from the Juilliard School and received his Doctor of Musical Arts from The Yale School of Music. His career has included chamber music, vocal coaching and accompanying, solo performances, and teaching. Since meeting Joseph Fennimore in the mid 1980's, Mr. Middleton has been studying and performing his music. In addition to Cathay and Twenty Four Romances for Solo Piano, he has directed a production of Fennimore's Eventide, a three-character opera adapted from a text by James Purdy, at the Harlem School of the Arts. He also performed Molinos de Viento, a piano trio based on Hispanic themes, and many other works. Mr. Middleton is currently on the faculty of the School of American Ballet, Lincoln Center, where he teaches music for dancers. He received the Mae Wien Award for distinguished faculty service in 2010. He also worked for more than 20 years as vocal coach/accompanist for Betty Allen's Master Voice Class at the Harlem School of the Arts. For this, his fourth recording for Albany Records, he performs two works by Joseph Fennimore and Debussy's Douze Études.

Pianist Jeffrey Middleton, a champion of Joseph Fennimore's music, received his DMA from Yale. His career has included chamber music, vocal coaching and accompanying, solo performances and teaching. Of the music, Phillip Kennicott notes: "Fennimore's insistence on his right to work within a tradition, even if out of fashion, was pioneering. But his compositional style has undergone continual metamorphosis, and today the percussive aspects of the piano are more integral to his music."

Grammy Award winning artist Jennifer Montone is the principal horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra and an internationally acclaimed soloist and chamber musician. She has performed as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis, Dallas, National, and the Polish National Radio Symphonies as well as the Warsaw National Philharmonic. Montone is on the faculty at Juilliard as well as the Curtis Institute. She was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2006 and in 1996 was the winner of the Paxman Young Horn Player of the Year Award in London. Montone contends that horn players are privileged to perform some of the most beautiful music ever written and in this recording, imagined as a recital, she and her colleague, pianist Anna Polonsky explore the connection between Romantic and contemporary horn writing by following a chronological progression that spans 120 years. The works were written during a period of great musical and artistic innovation that saw the horn developed fully as a featured orchestral and solo instrument.

Considered "one of the heroes of American music," John Duffy has composed more than 300 works for symphony orchestra, opera, theatre, television and film. His best-known work in television is his score for the PBS series Heritage: Civilization and the Jews. He also composed music for the New York City productions of Macbird, The Ginger Man and the Yeats musical Horseman Pass By. Duffy grew up in the Bronx, one of fourteen children of Irish immigrant parents. He studied composition with, among others, Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell and Luigi Dallapiccola. As founder and president of Meet the Composer, an organization dedicated to the creation, performance and recording of music by American composers, Duffy initiated countless landmark programs to advance American music and to aid American composers. As he writes of this CD, "As the 2005 composer-in-residence (of the Virginia Arts Festival), I had the good fortune to work with JoAnn Falletta (and the soloists and ensembles on this recording). This CD covers 50 years of my composing life...A born and bred New Yorker, part time Virginian, and traveling Mainer, my music and this recording reflect my love of these seacoast lands, of our beautiful country and this vast earth, with its miraculous variety of peoples."

Violinist James Stern is a multi-faceted musician whose performances have been heard worldwide. Noted by the Washington Post for his "virtuosity and penetrating intelligence," he is known for his innovative programming that includes performing in multiple capacities (as violist, pianist, conductor, reciter, and arranger), and providing program annotations that are integral to the performance. His numerous recordings can be heard on the Albany Records, Bridge, Centaur, CRI, Dorian/Sono Luminus, Enharmonic, New Focus, and New World labels. This recording of the six sonatas and partitas of Bach reinforces his advocacy of this music as a single, unified work bolstered by multiple experiences of performing the entire cycle in a single live concert. The sonatas and partitas are presented in the order that Bach did and this facilitates simulation of the concert experience for the listener. The title of this recording comes from Bach's title on the manuscript, Sei Solo. Interpreted by some to mean Six Solos, which assumes that Bach was grammatically incorrect with the Italian (solo instead of soli), it is suggested that the title is actually a pun on the word sei, which can mean either six or you are -- hence the choice of You Are Alone.

Born in Mill Valley, California, John Anthony Lennon earned a liberal arts degree at the University of San Francisco, as well as a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Michigan where he studied with Leslie Bassett and William Bolcom. He shares with those two composers a strong sense of unusual instrumental color as well as a strong grounding in traditional American forms. Lennon studied guitar early in life so it is not surprising that he has devoted a substantial portion of his career to this instrument, including his popular Zingari Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra (The Play of the Sixes is an independent part of that work). The works contained on this CD constitute one of the most significant contributions to the guitar literature in recent times. They are beautifully and idiomatically written for the instrument and have been played by such renowned guitarists as David Starobin and David Tanenbaum as well as Daniel Stanislawek who began his studies while growing up in Chicago, and has performed to critical and audience acclaim throughout the United States and abroad. He is a specialist in contemporary music.

The featured work on this recording, Ansel Adams: America, was originally an orchestral piece co-composed by Dave Brubeck and his son Chris. The piano version was derived both from Dave Brubeck's original piano score as well as the finished orchestral score. Pianist John Salmon, a long-time champion of Dave Brubeck's music as well as his friend, offers the world premiere recording of this work. In Chris Brubeck's words, his father had a friend in John Salmon "with the breadth of knowledge and skill in both classical literature and jazz to take on my father's piano music. John's exquisite and spirited playing brought my father so much pleasure over the length of a long and rich relationship that lasted decades." On the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Salmon has distinguished himself on four continents as a performer, lecturer and educator.

Have you noticed how some of the most interesting new guitar music is coming from Europe? Here's what Volkmar Zimmermann has to say: "Our first contact with Jonas Tamulionis harks back to 1997. As always, I was on the lookout for new and exciting works for guitar quartet. As it came to pass, I received a letter from the Lithuanian Music Information Centre telling us about a composer hitherto unknown to us, a composer who we eventually came to discover possesses a loving heart for the guitar... It was truly a delight for us in 1998 when Jonas wrote his guitar quartet, Per Suonare a Quattro, which serves as the ticket for our journey, a serpentine path leading to (this) CD...we sincerely hope you will enjoy the music created by this eminent Lithuanian composer as much as we do." Needless to say, guitarists will want to snap this one up, and listeners who enjoy the music of East Europe will be intrigued as well! More information on the composer and performers is available at the following websites:

These five works for cello by noted Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín were written between 1997 and 2010 -- most of them having some association with his vocal music. Martín studied at Yale and Columbia University and has received awards and grants from a number of prestigious institutions including the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Cintas Foundation, among others. Cellist Yehuda Hanani has performed with such orchestras as the Chicago Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra and is a guest at many international festivals. His pioneering recording of the monumental Alkan Cello Sonata received a Grand Prix du Disque nomination. A soloist, chamber musician, recitalist and teacher, Mr. Hanani also has a weekly broadcast called Classical Music According to Yehuda.

The people who remember Joseph Fennimore's piano playing in the late 1960s and early 1970s still talk about it with admiring astonishment. "A pianist of talent and temperament," declared the New York Times after Fennimore's 1967 New York City debut. "He was wonderful," echoed the Washington Post a few years later, "a rarity in an age of fine pianists." Still another reviewer summed up his review thus: "Joseph Fennimore is the name. If the concert managers, booking agents and the public have any sense at all you will be hearing more of it." To anyone familiar with Fennimore's musical personality and the subsequent development of his career, reading such statements gives a twinge. In 1974, with what looked like a career of enormous promise ahead, he gave a farewell recital in New York; apart from a couple of appearances as an accompanist, he hasn't played in public since. Born in New York City on April 16, 1940,.Fennimore grew up in the upstate towns of Ballston Spa and Scotia. He began piano study at six and at 13 made his first appearance with an orchestra. He continued his studies at the Eastman School of Music, where he was a piano student of Cecile Genhart. At the Juilliard School, where he subsequently received a master's degree, his teacher was Rosina Lhevinne. What has struck many who have heard Fennimore's playing - quite aside from the obvious brilliance and expressiveness - has been its remarkable spontaneity. It is music-making utterly uninhibited by academicism, though that statement implies no lack of intellectual content. Rare, in fact, is a musician so widely read, so intellectually probing, so articulate as Fennimore.

It's been a while, but here is a third recital by Joseph Fennimore, who lives only a short distance from us in Albany. Born in 1940 in New York City, Fennimore graduated with honors from both the Eastman and Juilliard Schools. While teaching piano at Princeton and working in the theatre (he was substitute assistant conductor for the Broadway revival of No, No, Nanette), he co-founded with Gordon Hibberd the Hear America First concert series in New York City devoted to American music, programs eventually broadcast on NPR. Moving to Albany in 1980 to care for his parents, Fennimore taught at the College of St. Rose and still teaches privately. Composing since childhood, his catalog includes orchestral works, operas, songs, and solo works. Earlier, he had a short-lived and critically-acclaimed career as a pianist and still has a strong following for his attractively eclectic programming (when was the last time you heard solo piano pieces by Gibbons?) Previous releases in this series are on TROY102 (Volume 1: music of Liadov, Schumann, Scriabin, Gluck/Sgambati, Griffes) and TROY161 (Volume 2: music of Granados, Fennimore, Brahms, Bach and Chopin). In addition, you can sample more of his own music on TROY065 (Chamber works) and TROY113 (Selected piano music, including the delightful Concerto Piccolo for piano and chamber orchestra).

This recording celebrates and commemorates 60 years of the deepest friendship between pianists Joseph Fennimore and Gordon Hibberd, with 16 four-hand waltzes performed by both as well as sonatas performed by composer/pianist Joseph Fennimore. The waltz recordings were made during the 1990s on three different occasions at three different locations and the Sonatas and Sonatinas during the 1960s. Both Fennimore and Hibberd received degrees from Eastman. They lived in New York City pursuing their careers until the 1980s when they relocated to New York's Capital District. This will be the 10th recording released by Albany Records of the music of Joseph Fennimore whose music has been called " a disarming mix of spare lyricism, poignancy and gently nose thumbing irreverence "

At Albany Records we believe in the talent of Joseph Fennimore, both as composer and a superb pianist. The piano recital on this disc is wonderful, but as an added bonus, this album has program notes, composed by Mr. Fennimore: "Food, Lies and Audiotape," which are very funny indeed. Here is a taste of his writing. "Most pianists' bios are depressingly similar. Pre-natal study, debut at two, the Shangri-La of conservatories, a list of competition triumphs, galactic appearances, carefully selected blurbs all calculated to imply the subject will become a household name any moment now. Just waiting for that lucky break. An American myth. Things don't work that way anymore, if they ever did. Who wants to be a household name anyway? Not me. I want to be a special thing for a special few - a few more that is." Fennimore then goes on to tell how he was unable to get along with people in the business of music. However, he was able to get along with the people at Albany Records. For us his music is special: to be enjoyed. Other Fennimore titles include TROY102 (Fennimore in Concert I), TROY023 (Selected Vocal Works), TROY065 (Chamber Music) and TROY113 (Selected Piano Music.)

The 11 Capricci by Joseph Marie dall'Abaco (1710-1805) are quickly becoming a staple in the canon of solo cello repertoire. Born in Brussels, the composer and cellist was present and active in many of the major musical centers of 18th century Europe. This recording represents the first American contribution with a modern instrument. Cellist Erin Ellis leads a versatile career as a performer and teacher. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician across the United States as well as in Canada, Chile, Italy, and Holland. A cello professor at West Virginia University, Ellis has conducted masterclasses and workshops at many nationally recognized institutions and regularly presents at state, regional, and national conferences. She is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music.

Commissioned by acclaimed cellist Jonathan Miller, this digital only recording of Judith Weir's Three Chorales for cello and piano is a world premiere. Weir is a London-based composer of Scottish ancestry who occupies a central position in the UK's most august musical circles. Of the Three Chorales, Weir sasy that these three pieces for cello and piano are meditations—personal, secular and musical—on images from religious poetry. Jonathan Miller is a member of hte Boston Symphony Orchestra and has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras including the Boston Pops and Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He is the founder and artistic director of the Boston Artists Ensemble. He is joined on this recording by pianist Randall Hodgkinson, who has an international career as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician.

This recording of transcriptions for tuba and euphonium, arranged and performed by Chris Dickey also includes a work for tuba and piano by American composer James Grant. Covering a variety of style periods and musical language, these works should be welcome additions to the tuba and euphonium literature. Chris Dickey is on the faculty of Washington State University, the University of Idaho and the Red Lodge Music Festival. Active in the tuba-euphonium community, he serves on the board of directors for the International Tuba-Euphonium Association. He has been a featured artist at brass festivals in Argentina and Uruguay and maintains an active performance schedule with orchestras, brass bands, and universities throughout the U.S. He is joined for this recording by pianist Karen Savage, associate professor of piano at Washington State University.

Albany is proud to present another, truly unique recording by horn player Eric Ruske. His previous albums for horn with piano or orchestral accompaniment (TROY456, 615, 782) have been among best sellers among horn aficionados and players alike. This release presents Ruske strictly solo, with a wonderful blend of familiar and unusual works, particularly the colorful Persichetti and Ketting compositions. At the age of 20, Ruske was named Associate Principal Horn of the Cleveland Orchestra. He also toured and recorded extensively during his six-year tenure as hornist of the Empire Brass Quintet. His impressive solo career began when he won the 1986 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, First Prize in the 1987 American Horn Competition, and in 1988, the highest prize in the Concours International d'Interpretation Musicale in Reims, France. An active chamber musician, he has appeared with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Moab Music Festival, the Newport Music Festival and the Spoleto Festival, just to name a few. An Associate Professor and member of the faculty of Boston University since 1990, Mr. Ruske also directs the Horn Seminar at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

Lettie Beckon Alston was born in Detroit, Michigan. She now resides in Michigan and is Associate Professor of Music at Oakland University. At the age of 15 she began piano lessons. She went to Wayne State University where she studied piano and composition. She graduated with her bachelor and masters degrees. She was the first African-American composer to obtain a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied composition with Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom and Eugene Kurzt. She also continued to study the piano and took courses in electronic music. Dr. Alston went on to teach at Wayne State University in 1983, the Detroit Public School in 1986, Oakland University as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 1987 and Eastern Michigan University in 1988. She returned to Oakland in 1991. This recording is entitled "Keyboard Maniac" because of the excitement electronics bring to Art Music, and Lettie Alston says, "as a composer, pianist and organist writing for the piano and electronic medium has been a spiritual awakening for me."

This disc is another volume in the series of complete keyboard works performed by the acclaimed fortepianist Lola Odiaga. See information for TROY045, TROY062 and TROY094.

Composer John McDonald joins two of his former students, Ryan Vigil and David Claman, in a recording of their keyboard compositions. A professor at Tufts and chair of the music department there, McDonald is a composer/pianist whose output features vocal, chamber and solo instrumental works. Ryan Vigil studied with McDonald at Tufts University before completing his doctorate at Yale, and is now on the faculty at the University of New Hampshire. David Claman, a graduate of the University of Colorado and Princeton studied with McDonald at the Longy School in Cambridge. He is on the faculty at Lehman College-City University of New York. Three voices, four hands, and myriad expressive twists capture the intention of Keypunch.

Influenced by Bach's magisterial Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, composer Larry Bell's 24 Preludes and Fugues actually began as another work and it wasn't until he wrote a Prelude and Fugue in F Major for piano that he decided to complete the remaining preludes and fugues. Bell wrote the fugues first with their preludes being fashioned out of motives derived from the fugue's subject. Each is self-contained and designed to culminate in one large narrative that the listener may experience without knowing any of the specialized techniques of its composition. Larry Bell is an award-winning composer with the Rome Prize and the Charles Ives Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters to his credit, among many orders. His music has been commissioned and performed by a distinguished array of performers, chamber ensembles, and orchestras. The 24 Preludes and Fugues are performed by four outstanding pianists — Carmen Rodríguez-Peralta, Maja Tremiszewska, Jennifer Elowsky-Fox, and John McDonald — all of whom enjoy noted careers as recitalists and chamber musicians.

Lecolion Washington, Jr., a faculty member at the University of Memphis, has put together an intriguing mix of works for bassoon by African-American composers. Ranging from William Grant Still, who was born in 1895 to Daniel Bernard Roumain, born in 1970, the collection offers a concise history of African-Americans composers who have concentrated on classical music. Altogether a beautifully performed concert program of music for bassoon.

Violinist Tami Lee Hughes offers a survey of violin music by African-American composers that begins with a work written in 1820 by Francis Johnson and continues with music written in 1947, 1979, 2000 and ends with a work by Chad Hughes written in 2009. Ms. Hughes has appeared with symphony orchestras across the United States and is active as a recitalist and chamber musician as well. She is on the faculty of the University of Kansas. Collaborating with Ms. Hughes is fellow faculty member Ellen Bottorff, who has toured extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. This recording is the second of the series devoted to music of the African Diaspora, a collaboration between Albany Records and the Center for Black Music Research.

Albany is proud to present this generous selection of piano music by one of America's most important composers. Leon Kirchner is one of the last of that stalwart breed who first came to prominence in the late 1940's and early 1950s. A pupil of Bloch, Schoenberg and Sessions at the University of California, Berkeley, Kirchner's music definitely shows affinities with Schoenberg in outlook and temperament. No less than Schoenberg, Kirchner is both an ardent modernist and a volatile Romantic, a composer whose sophisticated awareness of the past informs a restless search for authenticity. A classic example would be his Piano Concerto No. 1, first recorded over 50 years ago by the composer himself with Dmitri Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic. Like much of the music on this disc, there is edginess and a tough demeanor, but there is real music present, in the "traditional" sense. This significant new release reissues classic performances by Leon Fleisher and Peter Serkin as well as presenting important recent pieces such as the Sonata No. 2 and The Forbidden.

Lines, the title of this imaginative program, beguilingly performed, links pupils to teachers in three principal strands: Bloch-Sessions-Harbison; Lutoslawski-Stucky-Waggoner and Weesner; and Boulanger-Carter. While it is difficult to overestimate the influence of a powerful mentor, not all mentor relationships develop in formal arrangements. Carter was deeply influenced by Sessions, and was close with him, without having enrolled as his student. Both Waggoner and Weesner forged close relationships with Harbison, and in different works reveal Harbison's influence as much as Stucky's. While in his early works Harbison often exhibited Sessions' influence, his baroque sensibilities have more in common with the neoclassical predispositions of Bloch, his "grand-teacher." The criss-crossing of the lines hints at the wealth and variety of music influence and tradition. Acclaimed cellist Caroline Stinson offers magnificent performances of this repertoire, two of which are world premiere recordings (Andrew Waggoner's Le Nom and Anna Weesner's Possible Stories). Noted for her vibrant lyricism and fresh interpretations, Ms. Stinson is on the faculty of The Juilliard School.

Clarinetists Jessica Lindsey and Christy Banks formed the Spatial Forces Duo in 2008 and since that time have toured the U.S., Canada, China, Italy, New Zealand, and Belgium. Their goal is to stretch the sonic possibilities of the traditional clarinet duo and have commissioned composers of diverse backgrounds to write works for them. Christy Banks is on the faculty at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, and has studied at the University of Nebraska and Florida State University. She is bass clarinetist for the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra. Jessica Lindsey, on the faculty at UNC Charlotte, and has studied at the University of Nebraska and the University of Colorado. She performs with the Nebraska Chamber Orchestra.

For his third recording on Albany Records, flutist Leonard Garrison has chosen a diverse program of music for flutes by American composers. Music for flute and piano, solo flute and solo alto flute represent some of the best repertoire written for this family of instruments. Garrison, a faculty member at the University of Idaho and flutist for the Northwest Wind Quintet is principal flute of the Walla Walla Symphony and artistic director of the Red Lodge Music Festival. A former member of the flute section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Garrison has served as chairman of the National Flute Association.

In the early 1900s, Nationalism in Argentina, which coincided with the various strong artistic national currents throughout Europe and the United States, was competing with the other "isms": post-romanticism, neoclassicism, expressionism, futurism, etc. It was the era of constant searching for an individual voice, original style, and the desperate need to "belong" to an "ism." Nationalism in Argentina was at its peak during the late 1800s through the early decades of the 20th century. This recording encompasses works written in different styles and idioms, each with a unique compositional personality, but at the same time having one distinctive quality in common: expressing the Argentine soul in sound. Whether it is using traditional, folkloric or popular motives within the frame of Romanticism, Neoclassicism or Modernism all these composers have a common thread uniting them: a respect and understanding of piano writing, and a skillful and resourceful way of bringing out the best of the instrument's colors. Argentine Pianist Mirian Conti (who can also be heard on TROY299, Poems for Piano) enjoys a growing reputation as a musician whose performances combine technical brilliance with striking originality and artistic insight. A Juilliard graduate, her vast repertoire encompasses composers from both North and South America.

Lucas Richman has always considered the piano an integral part of his life. He considers his music for solo piano a creative extension of himself as an individual. The works here are piano adaptations of orchestral or chamber works but they all share the common genesis point of having evolved from sketches made originally at the piano. In addition to composing, Richman is a noted conductor and currently serves as music director of the Bangor Symphony and was formerly music director of the Knoxville Symphony. His music has been performed by more than 200 orchestras across the U.S. and he has received numerous commissions from orchestras and chamber ensembles. Pianist Vijay Venkatesh has been recognized on three continents as a pianist with profound musicianship and has been a top prizewinner in numerous competitions He is a graduate of the Colburn School, USC Thornton, and Indiana University.