Catalog

British born composer Clara Kathleen Rogers spent most of her compositional life in Boston where she contributed to the role the Second New England School played in the development of American classical music. She trained as an opera singer and studied piano with Ignaz Moscheles and Hans von Bülow. This recording provides a survey of 24 art songs showcasing Rogers' range of musical styles and influences. Admired by Opera News as "a superb singing actor with a clear, ringing instrument and peerless diction," tenor Bryon Grohman has received international recognition for performances of opera, oratorio, and ensemble repertoire. He studied at Indiana University as well as the New England Conservatory of Music and is currently on the faculty at Wake Forest University. Pianist Peter Kairoff has performed throughout the US, Europe, South America, and Asia and has seven recordings in his discography. He is also on the faculty at Wake Forest University.

In 1941, the Nazis began deporting Jews to a concentration camp in Theresienstadt (former Czechoslovakia). An unusually high number of artists and musicians were deported there, and the camp was intended to demonstrate to the world, after a visit by the International Red Cross, how well the Jews were being treated by Hitler's regime. The musicians living in Theresienstadt composed hundreds of vocal and instrumental works, as music was their means of coping with the uncertainty and constant fear that marked life in the camp. This recording offers songs written by inmates of Theresienstadt: Adolf Strauss, Viktor Ullman, Carlo Taube, Ilse Weber, Gideon Klein, and James Simon, all of whom perished in the camps. Composer Norbert Glanzberg, a Polish Jew who survived World War II by hiding in unoccupied France until 1944, composed hits for Edith Piaf, Yves Montand, and Maurice Chevalier, before launching a successful film music career after the war. In his later life, inspired by a collection entitled, "Death is a Master of Germany," writings of both Jewish victims and non-Jewish resistance fighters in the camps. Glanzberg went on to compose his "Holocaust Lieder" in memory of those who perished.

This collection of American art song honors two intensely personal yet universal aspects of the human experience: love and loss. The composers featured here each treat a different facet of life -- from earthly joy, to contemplation of the divine, to heady courtship, to the agony of bereavement -- but each provides testament that poetry and music, the fruits of the creative impulse, are death's very antithesis. The centerpiece of this recording, Scott Wheeler's Songs to Fill the Void, is the result of a collaboration between poet-vocalist Robert Barefield and the composer. Barefield's intimate poetry commemorates his beloved partner, Stephen Mazujian, who died in 2014, while they were vacationing in Cambodia. Baritone Robert Barefield has performed as soloist with organizations throughout the U.S. and in Europe. He has appeared with numerous opera companies and with orchestras as an oratorio soloist. An accomplished recitalist, his wide-ranging repertoire includes premiere performances of works by contemporary composers. He is on the faculty at The Hartt School. Pianist Carolyn Hague has been an active member of the musical community in Vienna, Austria for more than 30 years. She currently heads the Master's program in Lied und Oratorio at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien.

Tenor Jos Milton relocated to Oxford, Mississippi to teach at the University of Mississippi in 2011. Since moving to his new home, he has become curious and fascinated by the sheer volume of culture that flows from the South. The creation of Southern poetry and literature thrives today and these vibrant writings prove ideal sources for transference to contemporary classical song. The songs on this recording all contain some pertinent connection or thread to this Southern theme. James Sclater's songs are set to texts by Ovid Vickers, a well-known Mississippi writer, teacher, and folklorist. Price Walden's song cycle reflects the experiences of his young life -- growing up in Mississippi and attending the Free Will Baptist Church. Dan Locklair's texts are words of three Southern African-American women transcribed by Emily Herring Wilson, while John Musto's Shadow of the Blues draws on the inspiring words of Langston Hughes, who serves as a voice of hope in African-American culture. A graduate of Trinity University, University of Massachusetts and Peabody, Jos Milton enjoys an active career as a recitalist, chamber musician, and opera singer, in addition to his work as an educator. His collaborator, Melinda Coffee Armstead has performed as recitalist and chamber musician in the U.S., Canada, England, France, and Israel.

In 1619, twenty-two persons from different countries and tribes on the continent of Africa, landed in Jamestown, Virginia and were quickly bought and sold into the non-human existence of slavery. From this arduous and painful slave life sprang a poignant and powerful music genre that has become one of the most significant segments of American music. As you listen to this unique recording of unaccompanied Negro Spirituals, bass-baritone Oral Moses transports you into this deep dark world of bondage. Moses' deep resonant voice is well suited to command the strength, power and aesthetic beauty needed to maintain and support the strong tradition and characteristic elements that are so essential and inherent in the Negro Spiritual. The Negro Spiritual, sometimes referred to as plantation songs, sorrow songs or slave-songs, originated from the innermost being of enslaved Africans who were captured from the West Coast of Africa and transported to the Americas. While in bondage, they were forbidden to talk or make the musical instruments they had used in Africa, but they could sing whatever they felt. The gift of singing became an invaluable tool of expression and a relief from the cruel and brutal existence of the slave-life. It is in these simple African melodies, which, "sprang into existence," where the enslaved Africans expressed their pain, anger, grief, faith and joy. Just as Africans communicated among themselves using drum language in their own countries and tribes, so did the enslaved Africans continue to do so in America by using "cries," "hollers," "calls," "shouts," which eventually evolved into spirituals and work songs. This recording was made at Zion Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia. Founded in 1856 by slaves, this historic church proved a fitting location for the recording.

Stephen Foster was a figure of contradictions: the composer was much loved by the public, but was at the same time a thoughtless husband and father. While his songs reflect a real intimacy with the antebellum South, Foster was not from the South and only once traveled into the region. Was he merely an "artless genius" who knew little about music or a well-studied craftsman? Foster was America's earliest popular and successful songwriter. Yet he died alone and penniless - not in the South, not even at his family home in Pittsburgh - but at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. While Stephen Foster's personal and business habits may have been chaotic, research has shown the man to have been a dedicated musician. Despite early biographers' description of an unschooled lightweight, the fact is that Foster carefully studied the American minstrel tradition and knew German Lieder and Irish-Scottish song literature. Foster's songs are often set for multiple voices, diverse instruments and even a cappella chorus. It is the intention of this recording to present the wealth of Foster's music - but not with a lone vocalist and accompanist from a single musical vantage point. Instead, both "classical" and "folk" musicians have gathered to sing and play on dulcimers, fiddles, accordions, pennywhistles and old pianos. Despite occasional wheezing, crunching and crackling, we hope these antique instruments - and our wonderful contemporary vocalists - will charm the listener and capture something of Stephen Foster's diverse genius that one might have experienced on a little 19th century concert stage, a street corner or on a back porch.

Stephen Paulus is one of our better American composers and he is one of the finest composers anywhere writing for the voice. His large vocal output includes works for solo voice, chorus (in combination with chamber ensemble and large orchestra) and four operas. The three works on this CD cover a time span of almost three years, from “All My Pretty Ones,” which was commissioned with an NEA grant in 1978, to “Artsongs” (1983), to the most recent cycle, “Bittersuite” from 1987. They represent a rich and diverse spectrum of poetical works, ranging from the words of Michael Dennis Browne for “All My Pretty Ones,” written in memory of his friend and colleague, Anne Sexton, to the seven American poets represented in “Artsongs.” Ogden Nash is the poet for “Bittersuite” and his words show a much darker side of that poet as he ruminates upon death and aging. Let me call your attention to two artists of special merit who participate in this recording. The great Swedish lyric baritone, Hakan Hagegard, is one of the most accomplished and applauded performers in the world today; that he would lend his talent to the wonderful songs of Stephen Paulus, shows the high esteem in which he holds the composer. Paul Schoenfield, the pianist, is also Paul Schoenfield the composer.

Will Marion Cook was one of the earliest African-American composers to achieve significant commercial success in musical theater. However, even though his talents were admired at the turn of the twentieth century, he and his work have since been largely forgotten. With the interest in African-American culture sparked by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and revived interest in all American music during the Bicentennial celebrations of the 1970s, Cook has been rediscovered by such music historians as Thomas L. Riis and Marva Griffin Carter, as well as by such performers as the Black Music Repertory Ensemble of the Center for Black Music Research and, of course, tenor William Brown, who had previously recorded some of Cook's songs on the album Fi-yer! (TROY329). Having studied with Joseph Joachim in Berlin and Antonin Dvorak in New York City, Cook was respected for his pioneering achievements in popular songwriting, Black musical comedies and syncopated orchestral music. His career as a songwriter spanned some 40 years from 1893 to 1934. Cook's memoirs reveal that he believed his ultimate challenge was to right social injustice while at the same time creating beautiful music. Renowned tenor William Brown's repertoire encompassed practically all musical genres. He was a particularly avid performer of American music from all ages and had appeared with major orchestras and ensembles all over the world. Sadly, Mr. Brown died shortly after this recording was made. This CD is a tribute to the memories of both Cook and Brown.

Mezzo-soprano Aidan Soder and baritone Paul Busselberg collaborate with pianist Calogero Di Liberto in presenting a recital of songs based on the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, one of India's most beloved literary figures. Composers from all over the world have been compelled to set his poetry to music, as this recording amply demonstrates. John Alden Carpenter, British composer Frank Bridge, Italian Franco Alfano and German composer Karol Szymanowski all wrote songs dating from the first two decades of the 20th century that used his poetry. The recording also includes recent settings (2004) of Tagore's love songs by the young American composer Karim Al-Zand.

Composer James Adler calls this recording a celebration — a celebration of his love for composing musical theater and art songs. Performed by a stellar group of singers from both the musical theater and classical art song world, the songs underscore Adler's affinity for putting the spoken word to music. Known as a renowned pianist as well as a composer, Adler has performed across the U.S. as well as internationally. Sung by cabaret singer Shana Farr, Broadway stars Michael Buchanan, Kennedy Kanagawa, and Perry Sook, Metropolitan Opera star Victoria Livengood, and classically trained Elizaveta Ulakhovich, this stellar group brings these songs to life.

This recording of songs by Asian and Asian-American composers who include Ke-Chia Chen, who is on the faculty at the Curtis Institute; Taiwanese-American Chihchun Chi-sun Lee, the receipient of numerous honors and awards; Asako Hirabayashi, winner of the Alienor International Harpischord Composition Contest; Yangzhi Ma, faculty member at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing; and Chen Yi, Distinguished Professor at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. Tenor Brian Arreola is on the faculty at UNC Charlotte and has been a featured performer with opera companies around the United States. Baritone Kelvin Chan divides his time between the U.S. and the Netherlands, where he has an active career as a performer, director, theatre-maker, and singer-actor. Pianist Wei-En Hsu, a graduate of Juilliard, is now on the faculty of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

The Right Honourable Sir Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners in the peerage of England, and a baronet, was born on September 18, 1883 at Apley Park, near Bridgnorth, Shropshire. Educated at Eton, and later in Dresden, Vienna, France and Italy, mainly in pursuit of knowledge of languages to equip him for the diplomatic service, he succeeded his uncle in 1918, assuming the additional name of Wilson by Royal Charter a year later. He served as honorary attaché in Constantinople and later in Rome, but on his elevation relinquished theses posts, returning to England and his inheritance, several country estates, and lived the rest of his life, ostensibly, as a country gentleman. This, however, was only on the surface. He was a man whose music drew the highest praise from Stravinsky, and whose no inconsiderable literary and painting skills were to make him "the versatile peer" in the national press, but it was as a composer that he wished to be remembered. Berners' musical output was small by most standards and the case if often made that if he had had to earn a living from the arts he would have produced more. This is debatable. Less in doubt is that his art was well appreciated among his fellow artists - and aristocrats. Osbert Sitwell summed it up by writing that "...in the years between the wars he did more to civilize the wealthy than anyone in England. Through London's darkest drawing-rooms, as well as lightest, he moved ... a sort of missionary of arts."

Tom Cipullo comments that the works on this recording -- all world premieres -- span a decade-and-a-half of his compositional life. The earliest (The Husbands) dates from 1993 and the most recent (Of a Certain Age and Insomnia) were written in 2009. Cipullo's "dream team" of interpreters includes soprano Laura Strickling, pianist Liza Stepanova, mezzo-sopranos Jennifer Beattie and Naomi Louisa O'Connell, baritones Steven Eddy and Michael Anthony McGee, tenor Ian McEuen and pianist Brent Funderburk. Known mostly for his vocal music, Cipullo has also composed orchestral, chamber, and solo instrumental works. His opera, Glory Denied, has been performed to critical acclaim in New York, Washington, and Texas.

Charles Wuorinen writes: "The Haroun Songbook is a collection of excerpts from my opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories (based on the novel by Salman Rushdie), rearranged for four singers and with a newly composed piano part. This latter is neither mere accompaniment nor a simple reduction of the original orchestral score, but rather a newly conceived virtuoso solo part. The selections are arranged so as to make the Songbook a complete independent piece, but for this recording we also include an outline of the plot of the underlying opera, which should help to place the individual pieces in the Songbook in their original context." The Haroun Songbook was commissioned by Works and Process at the Guggenheim and was premiered on October 13 and 14, 2002 at the Guggenheim Museum, performed by the same cast heard in this recording.

This recording of the art songs of Elaine Ross, set to poetry by women, seeks to broaden the interest in the compositions of living female composers. Elaine Ross is President and CEO of the newly founded Southern Atlantic Conservatory of Music, set to open in 2025. She has been on the faulty at Morgan State University, Towson University, Ohio University, and the Colburn Conservatory. Her music has been performed in France, Germany, and Israel, as well as the United States. Soprano Theresa Bickham, praised for her "fine piano nuances" and "expressive legato line" has performed around the world as an opera singer and as a recitalist. A graduate of the University of Maryland College Park, the University of Houston, and Towson University, she is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Composer-pianist Gary Smart composes, performs, and improvises music that reflects an abiding interest in Americana, world musics and jazz, as well as the western classical tradition. An artist with a wide range of constantly developing interests, Smart has lived and worked in the eastern, midwestern and western USA as well as in Germany, Japan and Indonesia. He has studied with composers Yehudi Wyner, Toru Takemitsu and John Corigliano; worked with jazz composer David Baker and film composer Henry Mancini; and studied piano with Jorge Bolet, Yale scholar-keyboardist Ralph Kirkpatrick and jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the Yale School of Music. Dr. Smart is currently Yessin Professor of Music at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. Smart talks about his relationship to songs. "As a child I learned hundreds of pop songs, the great tunes of Berlin, Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers, Ellington, etc. My sense of melody, harmony, and textural inflection is as much influenced by classic American popular songs as it is by the great European art song tradition, which I love, but which I discovered only after entering college. These genres of course have much in common: primarily, an equitable marriage of words and music....For me, a song doesn't work unless the two become one, inseparable." Set to poems by Elizabeth Barett Browning, Langston Hughes, Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, Sara Teasdale and Emily Dickinson, as well as a moving letter from a Civil War major to his wife, Smart's song cycles show his commitment to the song as a form of chamber music.

A magical new recital featuring the world-première recording of Britten’s only Russian-language cycle The Poet’s Echo in the English-language translation that Peter Pears crafted during the period of the cycle’s composition in Yerevan, Armenia (1965). Tenor Justin Vickers and pianist John Orfe essay important performances of Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo alongside Britten’s mysterious Goethe setting, “Um Mitternacht” (1960). This rich recital release introduces two additional world-première song cycles composed for Vickers. In the Six Chinese Songs (2019-2020) composed by Colin Matthews in memory of the tenor’s father John E. Vickers (1942–2017), we hear Matthews’s reflections on his own musical father, Britten, for whom Matthews served as the last musical assistant. In John David Earnest’s Songs of Hadrian (2014), we enter the world of second-century Roman Emperor Hadrian and his love and ultimate grief and madness over his eromenos Antinous. The disc concludes with a work Vickers uncovered in the Britten–Pears Library in its world-première recording: the “Epilogue” (1945) to The Holy Sonnets of John Donne, which Britten cut from the cycle. This is a recording that is a must-have for Britten devotees and finds American tenor Justin Vickers at the top of his craft, accompanied by one of America’s most accomplished pianists in John Orfe (of the acclaimed ensemble Alarm Will Sound).

This album of art songs seeks to center a repertoire that is often left on the margins and neglected on concert programs. The Reaction charts new territory in recording many previously unrecorded works by Black composers for the low male voice, and showcases a wide range of languages and styles that exist for this genre. Bass-baritone Carl DuPont is equally engaged in performing, teaching, and research. He has sung a wide range of roles with the Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Carolina, Opera Company of Brooklyn, and Cedar Rapids Opera, among many others. DuPont is a graduate of Eastman, Indiana University and the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. He is on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His collaborator, pianist Gregory Thompson, is on the faculty at Winston-Salem State University. He has performed as a solo and collaborative artist in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is head of staff pianists for the University of Miami at Salzburg Summer Program.

Although he was one of the most important British composers of the mid-20th century, during his lifetime Bernard Stevens attracted rather less attention than some of his contemporaries. He was a fine pianist; however composition became his preoccupation after study in the 1930s with E.J. Dent at Cambridge University and R.O. Morris at the Royal College of Music in London. Here Stevens gained the highest awards and later became a distinguished professor. Stevens was highly respected within the musical world. He composed steadily, and his works were performed; but it was more or less inevitable that his professed left-wing sympathies and intellectual and moral integrity sometimes brought him into conflict with the attitudes of the British musical establishment. Despite his solid academic record, Stevens was anything but academic in style, personality and convictions. The two works presented here are the final two vocal compositions that he composed. He adapted the libretto himself for The Shadow of the Glen, from the play by John Millington Synge.

Jean Berger was a renowned German-American conductor and composer. Beyond composing, he was active as a coach, accompanist and musicologist. His choral works have been widely performed throughout America and Europe. Despite having composed 109 songs for solo voice, in diverse languages, from 1937 to 1992, it is only in recent years that they have been discovered and sung -- a performing gap that is closed by this recording. With much to offer the novice and professional singer, the music is vocally accessible and the poetry offers a wealth of moods and expressions for both the discerning performer and listener.

An American original, John Jacob Niles was a composer, performer, and author. Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1892, he came from a musical family. While working with a surveying team in eastern Kentucky as a teenager, he kept a notebook in which he recorded lyrics and music of old folk songs known in the area. Niles served as a U.S. Army pilot in World War I and made numerous reconnaissance flights until he suffered serious injuries in a plane crash. After the war he studied music at the University of Lyon, the Schola Cantorium in Paris and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He renewed his search for folk songs in Appalachia as he accompanied noted photographer Doris Ulmann on her travels. He composed and arranged more than 1,000 songs, many of them made famous by Jo Stafford. These songs of our American heritage are beautifully sung by Hope Koehler.

All composers of vocal music struggle to find texts suitable for musical setting. The search for words that ignite invention, inspire harmony, dictate rhythm, and suggest texture - all the while submitting to purely musical exigencies of form - is a perpetual and integral part of the creative process. Though the songs on this CD focus specifically on manifestations of love - infatuation, passion, anxiety, fidelity, betrayal, delusion, loneliness and reminiscence - their texts come from a wide range of sources. The larger theme is nonetheless poignantly epitomized by a phrase from James Joyce, The Unquiet Heart, which tells of the unsettled, unnamable and unutterable sensations we all experience in our lifelong search for love. Karen Smith Emerson's extensive concert career has included performances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Boston Music Viva and the Marlboro Festival. Equally at home in music of the Baroque and early Classical music, she has performed leading roles in operas by Gluck, Handel and Mozart.

The Young Debussy comprises the songs composed by Claude Debussy before his 30th birthday that he felt were good enough to publish. The vocal writing varies, but in most of them there is the emphasis on the middle and low range characteristic of much French vocal music. Darren Chase sings all of the songs in the composer's original keys. Recordings of Debussy's songs now go back more than 100 years but the large majority feature sopranos or mezzos with the rest sung by lyric baritones. This is the first recording since 1975 where this repertoire is sung by a tenor and as such offers an enlightening experience of this music.

Things Fall Apart, a work for voice/narration and small ensemble, is based on the landmark novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It tells the story of Okonkwo, a village leader, who through a series of unfortunate events and the coming of Europeans, ultimately takes his own life. Things Fall Apart was written in 2011 and was commissioned by Odekhiren Amaize, who gave the world premiere performance with the musicians on this recording. Composer Roger Vogel has more than 140 compositions to his credit. He is on the faculty at the University of Georgia. He has received awards and prizes from the Roger Wagner Choral Composition Competition and the Delius Composition Competition, among others. Nigerian-American Odekhiren Amaize has studied voice at the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University and the St. Petersburg State Conservatory. His other professional teaching and research interests include promotion and marketing of the arts, arts management and creative advertising through literature. He is currently on the faculty at the Canadian University in Dubai. His recordings appear on the Musicians Showcase and MSR Classics labels.

Variations of Greek Themes was commissioned by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and received its first performance on November 20, 1977, with Maureen Forrester as soloist. "Variations of Greek Themes," Edward Arlington Robinson's collection of twelve poems based on texts by ancient authors, was published in 1915. Eight of the poems are set in this cycle. Innocence and Experience is a cycle of songs from the poems of William Blake. It was commissioned by the friends of Music at Yale (where Mr.Lewin taught music from 1971 to 1992) and received its first performance in 1961, with Helen Boatwright as soloist. Seven poems by Blake are arranged into a cycle of two contrasting days; they are set to music for soprano solo, and an ensemble of flute, oboe, horn, harp, two violins, viola, and two cellos. The text forms a cosmos of recurring images and ideas, several of which are reflected by corresponding musical devices. A Musical Nashery is a cycle of songs from the poems of Ogden Nash and was commissioned by Naomi Lewin, who gave its first performance on March 5, 1980, at the Yale School of Music, as part of her recital for a Master of Music degree. Complete texts are included in the program booklet for all the songs.

Supremely lyrical, the vocal compositions of Michael Rickelton flow organically in careful counterpoint with the texts upon which they are based. The three cycles featured on this disc generate the emotion, tone, and discourse that make each work unique, calling to mind the tradition of Lieder and art song. An experienced composer of solo, chamber, and orchestral works, Michael Rickelton has a particularaly strong and critically acclaimed affinity for the voice as this recording so beautifully demonstrates. Rickelton studied at Lipscomb University, the École Normale de Musique, and Peabody Conservatory. He is on the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory, the Johns Hopkins University, and Towson University.

In their program notes to this album Terry Rhodes and Ellen Williams write: "As a duo team, we have performed throughout the United States and Europe since 1988. In exploring the traditional duet literature, we came to realize the scarcity of twentieth century vocal duet music, and decided to do our own small part to rectify the situation. We commissioned two new works, one form Stephen Jaffe in 1990 for our Carnegie Recital Hall premiere, and one from Timothy Hoekman in 1994. Additionally we wanted to introduce our audiences to other new works by composers who also deserve to be heard. We consider it a vital part of our responsibility as performers to champion the works of living American composers and to create a venue for duet music, an art form that encourages a camaraderie of spirit and the sharing of musical ideas. This new Albany compact disc contains five pieces, none of which has been previously recorded. They range in accompaniment from piano to orchestra, with interesting combinations in-between. We hope that in this eclectic mix, there is something for each of our listeners." An especial highlight of this album are two duets from two different operas by the Pulitzer Prize winning composer Robert Ward. "Lady Kate" was composed in the years immediately following his winning the Pulitzer in 1962.

Composer Tom Cipullo's works have been heard at major concert halls on four continents, from San Francisco to Tel Aviv, from Stockholm to La Paz. He has received numerous commissions and awards including fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and the Copland House, among many others. He was honored for his contributions to the American art song repertoire with a retrospective concert given by Joy in Singing in 2000. The works on this disc span almost two decades with the first, The Land of Nod, being written in 1993.

First and foremost a composer of songs, Christopher Berg has been called "an American Hugo Wolf" by the American Record Guide. Though self-taught as a composer, several composer mentors have encouraged him, most significantly the late Robert Helps with whom he studied piano. The Mirror Visions Ensemble was formed in New Haven, Connecticut in 1992 to explore and perform song repertoire, in particular multiple settings of texts. The ensemble's first concert was sponsored by the Yale University Art Gallery, and since then exhibitions and poetry have provided the inspiration and focus of much of their work. In 2000, the ensemble created a program which accompanied the exhibition Edward Lear and the Art of Travel at the Yale Center for British Art. Also in 200, the ensemble inaugurated the Leo Smit Concert Series at the Jones Library in Amherst with a performance of compositions based on the poetry and letters of Emily Dickinson in celebration of the poet's 170th birthday.

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.

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.