Catalog

The works on this CD present a collection of songs that reflect the richness and sophistication of the American song tradition from the 19th century up through the end of the 20th century. The first half of this recording includes Battle Pieces, a song cycle written by Warren Michel Swenson; the second half contains 11 19th century songs by European and African American composers. All the works on this CD interact with two central themes: the Civil War era and the interconnections between the Black and White culture in America. In his song cycle, Swenson, a contemporary American composer, sets Herman Melville's Civil War poems, Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War. Also included on the disc are 19th century songs that come out of the minstrel and parlor song tradition. With easily available published sheet music, the dissemination of popular music in the 19th century reached a large audience that both reflected and helped shape values of that time. Considered all together, this collection presents two views, a century apart, of how music can articulate the culture and themes surrounding the Civil War era.

In recent years the music of Roberto Sierra has received much attention and has met with particular acclaim both in North America and Europe. He was born in Puerto Rico where he pursued early studies at the Conservatory of Music and the University of Puerto Rico. After graduation, he went to Europe to further his musical knowledge, studying first at the Royal College of Music and the University of London, and later at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht. Between 1979 and 1982, he did advanced work in Hamburg with Gyorgy Ligeti. In 1982, Sierra returned to Puerto Rico to occupy administrative posts in arts administration and higher education, first as Director of the Cultural Activities Department at the University of Puerto Rico, and later as Chancellor of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. In 1989 Roberto Sierra became Composer-in-Residence of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. In addition to advising the MSO on American repertoire, he contributed to the musical life of Milwaukee with a number of new works, including pieces for local chamber and choral ensembles, and for individual musicians. He is currently teaching composition at Cornell University. During the 2000-2001 season Sierra was Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Junctures written in 1979 and Spirits of the Night in 1976, are alike in the sense that the musical materials used in both works are similar with the startling exception of the soprano in Junctures. But the listener will probably experience each of the works as vastly different from one another. Junctures uses the same orchestral forces as Spirits of the Night but sparingly, less overtly. The energy one senses is more subdued, with more "air" surrounding unfolding events. Sunday Silence is a 15-minute work for solo piano completed in November 1989 and premiered by Alan Mandel on October 1, 1990 at Weill Recital Hall in New York. Characteristic of Bazelon's late style, and reflecting the composer's passion for horse racing, it is named for the winner of the 1989 Kentucky Derby and racing horse of the year - Sunday Silence. Concatenations was commissioned by Frank Epstein for the New England Conservatory of Music Percussion Ensemble. The first performance was on May 1, 1977 with Frank Epstein conducting and Burton Fine, violist at Jordan Hall in Boston.

Born in Chicago in1922, composer Irwin Bazelon graduated from DePaul University and later studied composition with Darius Milhaud. Bazelon's works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo instrument, and voice have been performed throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has conducted his music with such orchestras as the National Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Kansas City Philharmonic, and the Orchestre National de Lille. Grants and commissions were awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Kansas City Philharmonic and the New Orleans Philharmonic, among others. The composer served as guest composer and lecturer at many prestigious American colleges and universities, including Rutgers University, Williams College, the University of South Carolina and Eastman. Bazelon, a noted authority on film music and composer of many documentary film scores, has written Knowing the Score - Notes on Film Music, a book widely used on college campuses.

Irwin Bazelon's percussion writing is known and performed by percussionists the world over and is truly unique. With this recording, Albany Records continues its commitment to present Bazelon's works (the sixth since his death) and the first to be devoted solely to chamber works with percussion being the binding element.

This performance was recorded live on January 22, 1995, at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul, Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts. How does a performance like this happen? Genuinely dedicated people research the literature. They find music they feel worthwhile. They convince others of its worth and then rehearse and prepare it to the best of their resources. This is the only composition they work on. They perform it, make a tape and send it to Albany Records. We are impressed by the dedicated effort that has gone into the project, the musical integrity of the forces involved, and of the commitment of the musicians to the music. All this comes through in the performance. We then make the decision to bring it to you. The Beach Mass has only one other performance in the catalog and this Stow performance presents a very different approach to the music. The Grand Mass comes from Amy Beach's most productive period, the same period that produced the Gaelic Symphony and the wonderful Piano Concerto. Its premiere was in Boston on February 7, 1892. It was given by the Handel and Haydn Society and was the first time it had ever performed anything by a woman. In 1896, the Boston Symphony gave the premiere of her symphony. The Grand Mass is a large, romantic work, sure to appeal to a large audience. The forces on this disc do a great job of conveying the stature and magnitude of the music.

In his notes for this release in an essay entitled Music, Medicine and Elaine Bearer, Steven Ledbetter writes: "Elaine Bearer is a remarkable contemporary example of a composer who has also actively followed the very different career of a medical researcher. Already, at a very early age, she was called upon to choose between two passions, and although one or the other seemed to win out temporarily, both have been continuing realms of activity in a busy life. Music first seemed to have the upper hand. She began composing at the age of six. Music continued to enthrall her during her secondary school years and she attended Carnegie Mellon University as a music major, studying composition with Carlos Surinach and Virgil Thomson. In 1967 she went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger and upon returning, completed her bachelor's degree at the Manhattan School of Music, where her teachers included Mario Davidovsky. During these years, she also freelanced on the French horn, playing in the American Symphony Orchestra under Stokowski, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Orchestre de Paris, under Charles Munch. She received her master's degree in musicology from New York University and began work on her doctorate there. Music would seem to have won out. In 1973, she moved to San Francisco and began teaching music and composing. The composing never stopped, but before long she discovered that teaching solfeggio and dictation to freshman was detrimental to her inner ear and turned to biology, the other subject that had always interested her. Following two years at Stanford to get the medical school prerequisites she had bypassed earlier, she proceeded to the University of California, San Francisco, where she earned an M.D. and a Ph.D., completing both degrees in record time. Then followed a year in Geneva, Switzerland where she joined Lelio Orci's Laboratory at the University of Geneva. Upon returning to San Francisco she did a residency in the Department of Pathology while at the same time, was Composer-in-Residence to the university's symphony Orchestra. In 1991, she moved to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she holds two appointments, as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music as Assistant Professor of Medical Science, continuing her active life combining music and medicine." These facts alone should make you want to experience this disc. The music is accessible and appealing.

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

Lori Laitman is an award-winning composer whose art songs are performed widely in the United States and abroad. The Journal of Singing calls Laitman “one of the finest art song composers on the scene today… who deservedly stands shoulder to shoulder with Ned Rorem for her uncommon sensitivity to text, her loving attention to the human voice and its capabilities, and her extraordinary palette of musical colors and gestures.” A graduate magna cum laude from Yale, she studied under Jonathan Kramer and Frank Lewin, and concentrated initially on flute performance and theatre and film scores. Her music has been performed all over the United States, particularly at Merkin Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, and at the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress in Washington. Albany has previously issued two highly-acclaimed CDs of her songs, Mystery (TROY393) and Dreaming (TROY570). Of this new release, she says, “The songs on my third CD are compositions in partnership with contemporary poets from the U.S., Ireland, Great Britain and Sri Lanka. It has been a joy for me to set such wonderful and diverse texts. I am grateful not only to “my” poets, but also to the incredible artists who have brought my songs to life so beautifully.”

Composer William Hill writes in the notes that his "Symphony No. 2 is subtitled Beethoven 7.1 due to its numerous references to Beethoven's great 7th symphony, and is designed as a companion piece for that symphony." The brainchild of conductor Lawrence Golan, the "Point-One Series" is an ongoing project consisting of the commissioning and recording of contemporary compositions that are musically linked to great masterpieces of the orchestral repertoire. The objective is to help create a body of high quality contemporary works whose chances for a viable future are increased by the natural place within orchestral concert programming that they have. The first release in this series included Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 and Peter Boyer's Tchaikovsky 6.1 (TROY1027).

Acclaimed as an artist of unusual sensitivity and virtuosity, pianist Steven Masi has concertized extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia. As a recitalist and chamber musician he has appeared at the Aspen Music Festival, Casals Festival, Chattauqua Festival and Music Festival of the Hamptons, and as a guest soloist with orchestras such as the Atlanta Symphony and New Symphony Orchestra of London. Critic Colin Clarke has written about his Beethoven performances: "It is not exaggerating to suggest that Masi belongs with the elite in the late sonatas, providing as satisfying an experience as the likes of Solomon, Kempff, and Pollini, for example." Producer Joseph Patrych comments that "When Mr. Masi approached me with the idea of tackling this set, I was compelled by the maturity and thoughtfulness of his playing in the ones I heard. What you have before you represents the fruit of five years of labor, consideration, discussion and a shared passion for this seminal body of work in the piano literature."

Beethoven's ten Sonatas for Piano and Violin are performed on historic instruments by Jerilyn Jorgensen and Cullan Bryant. Instruments include an unsigned Viennese style piano from c. 1795, a Joseph Brodmann; and a Bösendorfer c. 1828-1832, among others. The violin is an Andrea Carolus Leeb from 1797 and a variety of bows from the period including one by Francois Xavier Tourte are used. Pianist Cullan Bryant is among the most active chamber and collaborative pianists in New York City, performing more than 50 concerts a year. His prizes and awards include the Leschetizky International Competition, Miami Arts Competition, and the Memphis Beethoven Competition, among many others. Violinist Jerilyn Jorgensen is a member of the faculty at Colorado College. She was first violinist of the Da Vinci Quartet, which performed throughout the United States to critical acclaim. She is a graduate of Eastman and Juilliard. Both Bryant and Jorgensen have recordings on the Naxos label.

These are first recordings of two dramatic works by American composer Thomas Pasatieri. Written for Beverly Sills, Before Breakfast dates from 1978 and has an unusual history (including having the original score accidentally thrown in the trash by the maid). After an unsuccessful performance the score was put away and it wasn't until 2002 that it was revived and revised for Lauren Flanagan. Flanagan was the inspiration for Lady Macbeth and premiered the work in 2008 with the forces on this recording.

Jorge Martín's dramatic two-act opera, based on the writings of Cuban dissident and poet Reinaldo Arenas is giving its world premiere recording. In creating an opera from the memoir of Reinaldo Arenas, composer Jorge Martín with the help of Dolores Koch, took every step to insure accuracy, calling upon Cuban émigrés for advice, particularly for the prison and interrogation scenes. Before Night Falls transcends a specific time and place, however, capturing universal themes and Martín has woven these themes into a vibrant music drama.

Composer Larry Bell has been awarded the Rome Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, and the Charles Ives Award. His music has been widely performed in the United Sates and abroad by internationally known orchestras and ensembles. Bell received his DMA from The Juilliard School, working in composition with Vincent Persichetti and Roger Sessions. He is chair of music theory at the New England Conservatory of Music Division of Preparatory and Continuing Education. This disc of Bell's song cycles begins with The Immortal Beloved based on the three letters Beethoven wrote to Antonie Brentano in July 1812. According to the composer, "The music was conceived from the point of view of the recipient of the letters.... Four Sacred Songs were designed as studies for a larger commissioned orchestral work entitled Sacred Symphonies. Each song is a setting of a familiar hymn tune text." Songs of Time and Eternity are based on a grouping of poems by Emily Dickinson on this theme. William Blake's late 18th-century Songs of Innocence and Experience "...is a famous example of an adult's perspective of the child. The child in these poems is rebellious, joyful, persistently playful, Christ-like, and always natural..." The work is written for children's chorus and orchestra.

A is for Azimuth and Arnica, for found objects and found texts, is a collection of six activities, written for San Francisco-based percussionist Chris Froh, with additional versions by Yarn/Wire members Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg, and for Geneva Prize winner Aiyun Huang. The title of the second work, Mediations, Tenors, a duo for marimba with metal and vibraphone with wood, refers to the psalm-tone recitation formula of medieval chant. The work of Ben Carson, Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has been recognized at numerous and international festivals of new chamber music, experimental music, and improvisation.

Benjamin Lees spent his early years in San Francisco, moving to Los Angeles with his family in 1939. He attended the University of Southern California after military service in World War II and later began four years of intensive private study with George Antheil. Following a Fromm Foundation Award in 1953 and his first Guggenheim Fellowship in 1954, the composer and his wife left for Europe where they remained for seven years. Lees returned to the U.S. in 1962, joining the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory as the W. Alton Jones Professor of Composition. He also taught composition at Queens College, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School. His Symphony No. 2 was given its world premiere on December 3, 1958 by the Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney conducting. Sixten Ehrling conducted the world premiere of the Third Symphony on January 16, 1969. Both these symphonies appeared in the original Louisville Orchestra subscription series of recordings. They receive here their first modern digital recordings. The premiere of the Symphony No. 5 took place on March 29, 1998 with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stephen Gunzenhauser. The Etudes for Piano and Orchestra were first performed by the Houston Symphony Orchestra with Lawrence Foster conducting. They are dedicated to the pianist who performs them here, James Dick.

Benjamin Sabey is a composer of chamber, live computer interactive and orchestral music, which has been performed by distinguished ensembles such as the Arditti Quartet, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the New York New Music Ensemble and Red Fish Blue Fish, among many others. He is the recipient of two Barlow Endowment Commissions and the Royaumont Prize of Domaine Forget. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, Sabey has taught composition, theory and electronic music at San Francisco State University, the University of San Diego and San Diego City College. Hearing Sabey's music, one senses that he is, to use Toru Takemitsu's lovely phrase, "confronting silence." Confrontations take many forms: encounter, challenge, transaction, even embrace. The mystery of Sabey's music is in not knowing which form the confrontation will take. This recording of his music, performed by some of America's best musicians, offers insight into Sabey's distinctive compositional voice.

Born in 1934, composer Bernard Hoffer attended the Eastman School of Music. After serving as arranger for the U.S. Army Field Band, he came to New York as a freelance musician/pianist, composer, conductor and arranger. He has written extensively for films, television and commercials for which he has won several Emmy nominations, including the music for the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour. One of the major works on this recording (MacNeil/Lehrer Variations) is based on the theme he wrote for the News Hour in 1975. The two elegies on the recording are Hoffer's musical reaction to friends and loved ones' deaths. The Symphony was influenced and inspired by an exhibit of the New York abstract expressionist Richard Pousette-Dart's work.

Bernard Stevens was born in London and studied at Cambridge and the Royal College of Music in London, where he gained the highest awards. After his army service he came briefly to national prominence in 1946 with a highly acclaimed performance in Albert Hall of his deeply considered and utterly un-jingoistic Symphony of Liberation, which won a competition sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper for a "Victory Symphony " to celebrate the end of World War II. Stevens spent much of the rest of his career lecturing at the RCM (also, latterly, at the University of London), and was a tireless champion of contemporary music, an indefatigable examiner, and that rare being, a born teacher - whose warmth, encouragement and intellectual stimulation is remembered with gratitude and respect by his many pupils. In the 1950s and 60s, as Britain strove to catch up with the Continental avant-garde, his robust independence of fashion hardly helped to gain his works prestige. Nor did his politics endear him to the establishment. Occasionally, wryly, he spoke of himself as one of an "almost lost generation" of British composers; yet as a craftsman and a musical mind he must be judged one of that generation's leading figures. Since his death in 1983, there has been a remarkable upsurge of interest in Stevens's output. His music impresses the hearer immediately by its warmth and imaginative logic, its firm architecture and commitment to the traditional crafts of counterpoint and variation. His works include an opera on J.M. Synge's The Shadow of the Glen (recorded on Albany TROY 418), two symphonies, three concertos, cantatas and other choral pieces, piano music, songs, and other compositions for instruments as diverse as natural trumpet and guitar. Stevens was especially drawn to the chamber medium, for its possibilities of vigorous dialectical argument and intimate expression; and in it he produced several of his most characteristic and important scores. His two string quartets and the Lyric Suite for string trio are available on Albany TROY455. This recording presents five more chamber works spanning almost his entire working life.

Bernard Stevens was born in London and studied at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music. After his service in the Army, he came to national prominence in 1946 with his Symphony of Liberation , which won a competition sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper for a "Victory Symphony" to celebrate the end of World War II. Stevens spent much of the rest of his career lecturing at the Royal College of Music (also, later at the University of London), and became a tireless champion of contemporary music, and that rare being, a born teacher - whose warmth, encouragement and intellectual stimulation is remembered with affection and respect by his many students. He continued to compose, of course. His life's work includes an opera on J.M. Synge's The Shadow of the Glen, two symphonies, three concertos, much chamber music, cantatas and other choral pieces, piano music, songs, and other compositions for instruments as diverse as natural trumpet and guitar. His music impresses the hearer immediately by its downrightness and strength, its commitment to humane musical values, to firm architecture and the traditional crafts of counterpoint and variation. There is nothing flashy about his music; and in the 1950s and 1960s, as Britain strove to catch up with the Continental avant-garde, his robust independence of fashion hardly helped to gain his works prestige. Occasionally, wryly, he spoke of himself as one of an "almost lost generation" of British composer; yet as a craftsman and a musical mind he must be judged one of that generation's leading figures. Since his death in 1983 after several years of crippling illness, there has been a remarkable upsurge of interest in his output: this disc of chamber music for strings follows our issue of his opera and song cycle (TROY418).

Heidi Louise Williams performs piano sonatas by American composers with the oldest work written in 1919 and the most recent in 1991. Charles Tomlinson Griffes, George Walker, Carlisle Floyd, and Samuel Barber all used their art to explore imponderable realities that could be more fully accessed within the realm of music. These artists absorbed a variety of musical languages into their own, foreshadowing, in many cases, the postmodernist aesthetic of stylistic coexistence. From Walker's inclusion of folk tunes to Barber's gripping sincerity, from Floyd's devotion to human narratives to Griffes' persuasive fusion of styles, these works rely in some way or another on the power of human empathy, nobly representing the United States as an essentially diverse nation. Praised by critics, pianist Heidi Louise Williams has appeared in solo and collaborative performances across North America and internationally, having won numerous awards. A graduate of Peabody, she is on the faculty at Florida State University. This is her second solo album for Albany Records.

This recording is a short tour of some of the most important works in the development of the clarinet as a stand-alone instrument along with two new works by composer/clarinetist Sean Osborn that build on the works that came before. Sean Osborn has traveled the world as soloist and chamber musician, and during his 11 years with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He has also appeared as guest principal clarinet with the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra. The New York Times dubbed him "...an excellent clarinetist," the Boston Globe called him "...a miracle," and Gramophone "...a master." With more than 40 concertos in his repertoire, Sean has also recorded dozens of CDs for London, Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, CRI, and others, as well as premiering works by John Adams, John Corigliano, Chen Yi, and Phillip Glass to name a few. Sean has performed at many festivals including Marlboro, Seattle Chamber Music, Aspen, Zagreb Bienalle, Pacific Rims, and Colorado. He is also an award-winning composer whose works have been played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and members of the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, Marlboro Music Festival, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic among others. His other recordings for Albany Records include Cyrille Rose's 32 Etudes; the Mozart Clarinet Quintet and Quartet; and a disc of music by American composers.

Solo violin discs don't get more varied than this! Movses Pogossian is a prizewinner of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Competition, and the youngest-ever First Prize winner of the USSR National Violin Competition. His American debut was in 1990 performing the Tchaikovsky Concerto with the Boston Pops. He has since performed with major orchestras in Europe and the United States. A major proponent of new music, he has premiered over 30 works. He is currently a Visiting Artist Teacher at SUNY Buffalo, and a member of the Baird Piano Trio and Duo Forza. As you can imagine, the styles and technical approaches are as eclectic as the backgrounds of the composers themselves, which allows for some wonderful contrasts along the way. A definite must for adventurous chamber-music listeners.

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

Composer and conductor Victoria Bond is a major force in 21st century music. Known for her melodic gift and dramatic flair, her works have been performed by all the major chamber ensembles, the New York City Opera, Dallas and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras and many noted performers. She is the artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival and has been honored with the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Walter Hinrichsen Award. This recording, her fifth for Albany Records, includes two works for baritone and piano, bookended by two works for string quartet. The illustrious Cassatt String Quartet, Michael Kelly, baritone, and Bradley Moore, piano are the performers.

Elizabeth Brown grew up on an agricultural research station near Camden, Alabama. She studied piano, sang in the church choir, and played mallet percussion in the school band until she started playing flute at 16, and fell in love with it. She attended the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, then moved to New York and received a Master's degree in flute performance from the Juilliard School in 1977. In her late twenties she began writing chamber pieces for her colleagues, never having formally studied composition. Since then, there have been hundreds of performances of her music worldwide. Kyle Gann in Chamber Music Magazine writes: "Elizabeth Brown writes the only music I know of in which the flute might be playing "London Bridge is Falling Down" while the cello is sliding through a long glissando underneath, yet nothing feels incongruous. There's a kind of imaginary quality to her music. It's as if not only each piece but each passage is based on some strange conceit: a bird sings while a pianist plays Mozart and a cellist shakes like a bowl full of Jell-O. Each conceit morphs into the next in a stream of non-sequiturs, and yet every juncture is smoothly blended, no seam visible. It's elegant, quiet, thoughtful, well-crafted music, and as bizarre as hell. Imagine walking into a Magritte painting: fish protrude from the vase instead of flowers, the chairs are bolted to the ceiling, but the wallpaper is lovely and the furnishings tasteful. That's a little what listening to Elizabeth Brown is like." The composer writes: "I think and dream in music, and to listen to my chamber music is to eavesdrop on an intimate, lyrical, melancholy interior world. The sound landscape is resonant, smooth, and extremely elastic - ideas can wobble or completely dissolve and slide away. Fragments of familiar tunes sometimes drift through, disappearing so quickly you're not sure if you actually heard them. While it can sound improvisatory, the music is honed over a long period of time and carefully notated. Pieces often include exotic or non-western instruments, and the playing techniques and musical styles of these other instruments influence all my writing. I use subtle microtonal gestures and inflections within a predominantly tonal language, and explore the sound world of each instrument in an unorthodox yet idiomatic way."

Always in pursuit of versatility, Theresa Treadway Lloyd's career has been an evolutionary one. By 12 she was an accomplished pianist with her own roster of students in southwest Oklahoma. She honed these skills after receiving a full scholarship to the Sherwood Music School in Chicago at 15. Her mentor at Oklahoma University, Jack Harrold, discovered her rare and expressive coloratura abilities. She eventually joined the Metropolitan Opera Studio in 1970. In a few years her Carnegie Hall debut would receive acclaim and lead to engagements with the opera companies of Boston, Miami, Tulsa, etc., with a repertoire that includes all the major mezzo-coloratura roles. With this re-release of Blue Moods, Theresa memorializes some of the music of her late brother-in-law, Timothy Lloyd, whose work inspired the recordings of these songs by her contemporaries, Ned Rorem, Jack Beeson and Thomas Pasatieri. Departing from her bel canto style of singing, she explores American music with a more popular vocal sensibility. The result is a "cross-over" album long before the term was popular. She can also be heard in song cycles by Seymour Barab, William Bolcom, Libby Larsen and Andre Previn on TROY408, Music from Luzerne.

Following the success of Orpheus in the Underworld, none other than Rossini dubbed Offenbach "the Mozart of the Champs-Elysees." After another international triumph, La Belle Helene, 1866 saw the premiere of Bluebeard. Despite being based on a grisly legend, Offenbach produced a ribald comedy tinged with the dark, gothic passions later found in The Tales of Hoffmann. Granted, the buffoonery is mixed with some real terror but all comes out well in the end! This recording marks the Ohio Light Opera's first performance of this work since 1987, in a very welcome revival featuring a witty English translation by Richard Traubner and all the high spirits and enthusiasm you expect from this marvelous company.

This recording of hybrid vocal selections highlights the works of seven prominent 21st century composers who blur the lines between opera, classical art song, and other musical genres. This is music that is as appropriate to major concert halls as it is to nontraditional spaces. Sequina DuBose is a stunning performer most noted for her engaging stage presence — whether performing operatic roles, or as soprano soloist in Wynton Marsalis' work, All Rise. She has toured internationally as a soloist with The American Spiritual Ensemble and with Damien Sneed and Chorale Le Chateau. Dr. DuBose is on the faculty at UNC Charlotte. She is joined by pianist Gregory Thompson, known for his work as a solo and collaborative artist in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

William Bolcom, one of America's most innovative and original composers had an interest in the violin from a young age. This complete collection spans his entire career. We hear his early experimental works through the chromaticism of the 1970's up to the neo-Classical leanings of the 1990s. This music is perhaps the most important contribution by an American composer to the violin and piano repertoire.

Here we have four premiere recordings by 19th and 20th century women composers. Here are some facts about these relatively unknown composers. Grandval studied music with Friedrich Flotow, composition with Saint-Saens and piano with Chopin. Not bad! She was a prolific composer and many of her works were published, performed and favorably reviewed during her lifetime. Johanna Senfter was from Oppenheim, Germany. She studied in Frankfurt and then in Leipzig with Max Reger. She composed more than 180 works including nine symphonies, concertos for piano, violin, and cello, five string quartets, a piano quintet, a clarinet quintet and numerous vocal works. Serra Miyeun Hwang was born and raised in Seoul, Korea. She moved to the United States at the age of 18, later receiving a BA in composition for the University of California. The German composer Barbara Heller is best known as the editor of a collection of the piano music of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel. Clarke and Bacewicz need no introduction.