Catalog

It is the supreme love of memorable seminal melodic ideas placed in contrapuntal settings and immersed in warm harmonies inspired from popular, blues, and jazz genres that characterize the piano pieces of Alec Wilder. His short piano works, of which this recording consists, are most often conceived in ternary, binary or rondo forms, and sets of these smaller pieces are combined in suites to create a larger musical form. Pianist John Noel Roberts has collected many of Wilder's short works for piano in this second volume of his works for solo piano. Roberts studied at Eastman and Yale and has an impressive career as an orchestral soloist and recitalist, having appeared at major venues around the world. Currently on the faculty at Our Lady of the Lake University, Roberts has served on music faculties at Furman, UNC-Charlotte, Mercer, Concordia College, Stephen F. Austin State University, and the Western Australian Conservatorium of Music.

Internationally acclaimed and award-winning flutist, composer, and producer Burak Beşir was born in Cyprus. He graduated with distinction from the Ankara State Conservatory, then attended The Royal Scottlish Academy where he received his master's degree. He was the recipient of a 2003 United Kingdom Young Concert Artist Award, which gave him the opportunity to perform at concerts and festivals, including a concert at Wigmore Hall. He has performed as principal flutist of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. Beşir came to the U.S. in 2008 to study at the Berklee College of Music, where he received the Arif Mardin Achievement and Best Concerto Performer Awards. He is a frequent performer at the National Flute Association Conventions, where he has performed his own compositions and arrangements. Beşir wished for his debut album to reflect his playing, his music and his passions in life. The recording showcases rich and diverse masterpieces from the flute repertoire, as well as Beşir's virtuosic playing.

Marthanne Verbit comments: "We are now such a long way from the optimism, excitement, intellectual ferment and urge to experiment prevalent at the outset of the nineteenth century that it is difficult to believe all this really existed. The various movements that flourished during this era - impressionism, expressionism, futurism, cubism and neo-classicism, to name just a few - brought about a flood tide of music for the piano, this as diverse as the "movements" that inspired it. Perhaps at this point, we can listen with fresh ears to two of these earliest trend-setters, Cyril Scott and Leo Ornstein."

Following up on his critically acclaimed 2009 recording of Ives, Copland, Cowell and Rudhyar for Albany Records, pianist Richard Zimdars offers works by three American composers-- Vincent Persichetti and two of his composition students at the Juilliard School of Music-- Marga Richter and Jacob Druckman. The pieces from 1952-1955 in large forms of sonata and variation offer a focused look at the early work of three important American composers and include four world premiere recordings. Richard Zimdars has performed and broadcast throughout the U.S. and Europe. He is professor of piano at the University of Georgia and has given master classes at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart and was artistic director of the 2011 American Liszt Society Festival.

As pianist Jose Luis Hernandez says, "This album can bring pure musical enjoyment and also spiritual nourishment to people. The tunes and lyrical texts in these pieces have stood the test of time. Some appear as early as the 8th century, others are more modern. The selections call attention to the many seasons of life — joy, wonder, hope, and grief " A graduate of Texas Christian University, Jose Luis Hernandez pursued post-graduate studies at the Conservatori del Liceu in Barcelona. He has appeared on chamber music festivals around the United States and Puerto Rico and appeared as a concerto soloist with the Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra. He has conducted orchestras in Venezuela and Mexico and is the founder of the music education and orchestral programs Sistema Tulsa and Juventud Sinfónica Tamaulipeca.

Ernest Schelling - child prodigy, virtuoso pianist, composer, conductor, patron and founder of the Children's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic - was one of the most brilliant and enterprising personalities on the American scene in his day. As a pianist, he appeared frequently with every major Orchestra, often as soloist in his own piano and Orchestral works. His Violin Concerto was premiered by Fritz Kreisler and the Boston Symphony under Karl Muck and his "Victory Ball" was a crowd pleaser in its day. Schelling was trained entirely by his father, Dr. Felix Schelling, a physician and musician from St. Gallen in Switzerland. He made his piano debut at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia on March 8, 1880 at the age of four-and-a-half. At the age of seven, he entered the Paris Conservatory, the youngest pupil ever accepted. Here he studied under Georg Mathias, a pupil of Chopin. In 1896, his career changed when he became the only pupil of Ignance Jan Paderewski who enabled him to make the difficult transition from child prodigy to mature artist. The two pianists became life-long friends. He made his London debut on November 25, 1900 and his American debut as an adult on January 24, 1905. The last 17 years of his life attracted the attention of the music world when he created the Children's Concerts of the New York Philharmonic during the 1923-24 season. He was called "the musical godfather of America's younger generation." He conducted 187 of these concerts in New York alone, as well as in other cities from Boston to San Francisco. From 1930 on, they were broadcast live by CBS from coast to coast. In 1939, he was scheduled to inaugurate these concerts in London, but tragically, he died before he ever got there. The music contained on this disc is charming and appealing. Mary Louise Boehm is an authority on Schelling and has studied his music extensively.

The Argentine pianist Mirian Conti enjoys a growing reputation as a musician. Stylistically assured in a wide range of repertoire, Ms. Conti is considered a leading exponent of Spanish music; and her rare ability to communicate passion and excitement when playing contemporary scores has won the admiration of many leading American and Argentine composers, including those included on this disc. She began her musical education in Buenos Aires and completed it at Juilliard in New York. Morton Gould's Pieces of China could best be described as an American's impressions of China. They were first performed in Madison Square Garden for an international event. Volumes 1 and 2 of Persichetti's Poems for Piano were composed in 1947 and the third volume in 1981. The titles of each of the sixteen character pieces are drawn from single lines of various poems, each piece reflects the single line of poetry rather than the poem as a whole. These lines are printed in the booklet. It is most interesting to note that David Diamond was so impressed with Mirian Conti's playing when he heard her at Juilliard that he dedicated his Sonatina No. 2 to her. His earlier Sonatina No. 1 was dedicated to the poet Alfred Kreymborg. Poems of the Sea is one of Ernst Bloch's most often performed piano pieces. A very impressionistic piece, the three movements are: "Waves," "Chanty," and "At Sea."

Richard Thompson, one of today's most artistically aware composers, offers here "two song cycles and six piano preludes, in a contemporary classical vein as well as an arrangement of the Spiritual, Wade in the Water, for jazz quartet." Thompson's work here helps to highlight the natural tendency of today's urban American composers who, not content to write in one style of music, work to remove the presupposed barrier between traditional classical music and contemporary jazz, thereby underscoring their artistic and spiritual kinship. Mr. Thompson, originally from Aberdeen, Scotland, has written compositions that combine European and African-American styles, so that the formal structures of European classical music develop ideas that are essentially jazz in nature. Thompson completed graduate studies in jazz at Rutgers University in New Jersey. While there, he studied jazz piano with Kenny Barron and classical piano with Ted Lettvin. He also holds a jazz diploma from the Berklee College in Boston.

In the grand American tradition initiated by Ives, this collection of piano music by Ethan Wickman balances refreshing individuality with an acute awareness of tradition. Aptly titled, Portals and Passages offers myriad glimpses of correspondent time periods, distant relationships, complementary cultural values, and diverse locales -- earthbound and otherwise. Wickman's compositional style weaves a dynamic network of motivic, rhythmic, and textural contrasts into a unified voice that continually prospects fresh realms of tonal possibility and interest. In Nicholas Phillips, his music finds a measured, solicitous interpreter whose touch renders the most challenging technical passages effortless and those more delicate, sublime.

Nathaniel Bartlett was born in 1978 in Madison, Wisconsin, and studied at the Eastman School and the Royal Academy of Music in London as well as with renowned marimbist Leigh Howard Stevens. As an integral part of being dedicated to an instrument of our time, he is also dedicated to the music of our time - constantly seeking out composers with whom to collaborate in the creation of new repertoire for the instrument. In particular, Nathaniel Bartlett is interested in the integration of computers and other electronics into live performances, creating a high-definition, multi-dimensional sound environment. As he writes of this CD, "One of my main goals was to create a well-balanced album and not simply a collection of unrelated material. The content of this album, as well as its order, was carefully chosen to form a program with a prelude, interlude and postlude, with two featured works in between. With this in mind, it is my hope that this album can be listened to in its entirety, and that the artistic impact of the album as a whole will be much greater than the sum of the works."

During the past 50 years, the marimba has gradually found its place in the concert hall as a solo concert instrument. Through this process, the instrument has experienced a series of major innovations and as a result, there has been a great need for new marimba works that fully capture the musical and technical possibilities of the instrument. The music on this recording is the result of Juan Álamo's ongoing efforts to contribute to the growth and advancement of the marimba as a solo concert instrument. Throughout his career, he has commissioned works for the marimba as well as writing for the instrument himself, so this collection of his music as well as others vibrantly demonstrates the beauty and warmth of this ancient instrument. Juan Álamo, on the faculty at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is an internationally known performer, composer, and educator. A graduate of Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and the University of North Texas, he has presented solo recitals at universities and percussion and jazz festivals throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. He is the author of Four Mallet Music for the Modern Marimba Player and

Harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson offers works for harp by women composers from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In her introduction, Remy Johnson points out that the title, Quest, is drawn from the composition, Quest by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, whose inspiration for her piece perfectly fit the mission of this recording, which is to expand the harp repertoire by finding and arranging works by women. Principal harpist of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for more than 20 years, Ms. Remy Johnson is acclaimed by critics and audiences for her "complete mastery of the harp and its secrets." In addition to her orchestral works, Ms. Remy Johnson has an active career as a soloist and chamber musician, performing across North America and throughout the world. The recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including first place in the American Harp Society and American String Teachers Association competitions, she is a graduate of Harvard.

This compact disc presents six world premiere recordings of works commissioned by Duo XXI. Each of these pieces introduces an innovative compositional approach to the relatively unexplored genre of the string duo. Both members of Duo XXI -- Anna Cromwell, violin and Mira Frisch, cello -- are passionate string professors who reach a diverse audience through concerts, conference presentations and outreach workshops. Ms. Cromwell is on the faculty at Eastern Illinois University while Ms. Frisch teaches cello at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

A cycle based on folk material for flute and guitar by Robert Beaser, a commissioned song cycle by David Liptak based on the poetry of Homero Aridjis for soprano, flute and guitar, plus the ever popular Histoire du Tango by Astor Piazzolla are given exquisite performances by flutist Bonita Boyd and guitarist Nicholas Goluses with Kathryn Lewek, soprano on this recording of Songs & Dances of the Americas. The Boyd/Goluses Duo has received much acclaim, the two members breathing new fire into a rich repertoire for flute and guitar, as well as an artistic vision that embraces support for new repertoire.

Beth Anderson is a composer of new romantic music, text-sound works, and musical theater. Born in Kentucky, she studied primarily in California with John Cage, Terry Riley, Robert Ashley, and Larry Austin at Mills College and the University of California at Davis. She lives in Brooklyn and produces Women's Work, a concert series that enjoyed its premiere season in February 2004. Kyle Gann writes: There's an aspect of late 20th-, early 21st-century music that I half-kiddingly refer to as 'the simulation of normalcy.' Let me explain. The guiding principle of modernist music had been Ezra Pound's 'make it new.' Mid-century composers tried to make music that sounded crazy, strange, like nothing you'd ever heard before. The one-upmanship involved in that quest eventually got out of hand - or, at least, it left audiences behind, who gave up looking for recognizable features or points of entry into increasingly abstract and complex sound-structures. And so the generation that came of age in the 1970s inherited a logical double-bind worthy of a Zen koan. On one hand they had the same need to express originality and personality as their forebears. On the other, they needed to write music attractive enough, communicative enough, to kickstart a new new-music audience again pretty much from scratch, the traditional classical audience having more or less abandoned interest in anything outside the standard repertoire. What the best of these composers came up with is often a music that wears its originality on the inside: a music whose tonalities and textural consistency are not all that foreign from popular or classical music you're already used to, but whose underlying quirks make it a more challenging experience than you first think. All this is especially true of the aspect of Beth Anderson's music found on this disc. We have an extended piano solo; some songs; some piece for violin and piano. Nothing strange about any of that (though I'll admit, the concluding Cleveland Swale may be the only piece ever written for piano and two double basses). The music is mostly tonal. It is generally pretty, even lyrical. It even uses humorous poems and nursery rhymes. The pieces conform to genre, more or less. Your first impression may be that it's pretty simple stuff, possibly even nanve. But on close listening, such impressions turn out to be misleading...This is not 'normal' music. But on a certain level it sure stimulates normalcy."

There is nothing quite like the British composer Peter Dickinson's witty musical parody, with its humor at various levels. Who else would make a rag and a set of blues out of hymn tunes? Or turn the main themes of his Piano Concerto (TROY160) into a rag, which is actually played during the course of that work on an upright piano at the back of the orchestra? Or make a blues setting of Byron's "So we'll go no more a-roving" using a chord progression from Ravel and turn the whole thing into an Organ Concerto (TROY160)? Or have an offstage pianist piecing together fragments of a piano rag during his String Quartet No. 2 ? Or make a blues version of Edward MacDowell's salon classic, To a Wild Rose, calling it Blue Rose and consequently climaxing on Scriabin's mystic chord? And following this with a Wild Rose Rag? This CD is a collection to be enjoyed: five piano rags, five blues, three reworkings of Satie, two blues songs and two sets of songs, all presented as a complete program in the immediately attractive manner of all Dickinson's recitals, broadcasts and other recordings.

This recording features clarinet works with an electronic or electroacoustic component. D. Edward Davis’ Raised Structures is the first work, inviting the listener into an experience where the pacing, sound world, and form may be challenging and hopefully pique the listener’s curiosity. Additional works are by Thea Musgrave, Alejandro Rutty, Doina Rotaru, and Aleks Sternfeld-Dunn. Anthony Taylor is Associate Professor of Clarinet at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is also principal clarinet of the Winston-Salem Symphony. A graduate of Washington State University, Florida State University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Taylor has recorded for Steinway Live Recordings, Potenza, and Centaur Records.

Raphael Hillyer's distinguished career as a co-founder of the Juilliard String Quartet, soloist, teacher, and guiding light of the formation of the Tokyo String Quartet has made him one of the most respected musicians in the United States. Born in Ithaca, N.Y. he studied in Berlin and Leningrad, where he also took theory lessons with a young Dmitri Shostakovich. He later attended Curtis and graduated from Dartmouth. He did his graduate work at Harvard where he studied with Walter Piston. He made his debut as a soloist in Budapest, Hungary. Mr. Hillyer appeared frequently in recital with such artists as Leonard Bernstein, Nadia Boulanger and Ruth Laredo and he played with the Boston Symphony under Koussevitzky and the NBC Symphony under Toscanini. He was also a member of the Stradivarius and NBC String Quartets. In 1946, William Schuman, President of the Juilliard School, invited Mr. Hillyer to co-found the Juilliard String Quartet. This quartet went on to concertize throughout the world in thousands of concerts and broadcasts, becoming the quartet-in-residence at the Library of Congress, and making numerous recordings for Columbia and RCA Victor. In 1969, he resigned from the Quartet to pursue his own solo career. In this capacity, he has appeared all over the world. Mr. Hillyer has taught at the Juilliard School, Yale University School of Music, the Tanglewood Music Center, the Aspen Music Festival and many other centers of learning around the world. He was visiting professor in chamber music performance at Harvard and is on the faculty of Boston University.

Sigurd Rascher's influence on the development of a body of music suitable for performance by saxophonists is truly international. He is a man with a mission. For nearly fifty years he traveled the globe as a concert artist appearing as soloist with both major and provincial Orchestras, and as a recitalist in concert venues large and small. During his years as a frequent traveler, he was constantly on the lookout for promising young composers whom he encouraged to create fresh new works for the saxophone. These efforts have resulted in a large percentage of the best music yet composed for the instrument. In addition to encouraging the creation of original music for the saxophone, Rascher transcribed a number of preexisting compositions, both classical and traditional, so that they could be performed and enjoyed by saxophonists and their audiences. He did so much to establish the saxophone as a viable medium for serious artistic expression, and through his example and teaching encouraged numerous other saxophonists to continue on the same path he blazed. All of the music recorded on this disc has some association with the great man himself. Lawrence Gwozdz, a former student of Rascher, is Professor of Saxophone at the University of Southern Mississippi. He concertizes extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

This recording of music for flute and piano contains three works by Canadian composers in addition to works by Liszt, Franck and Ibert, taking the program into new and interesting listening experiences. William David Smith is a Trappist monk, while Larysa Kuzmenko is a Juno-Awards nominated composer and composer-in-residence with the Toronto Symphony and Reeves Medaglia-Miller is on the faculty of George Brown College in Toronto. Pianist Yaroslav Senyshyn has an impressive career with his performances winning critical acclaim in the major concert halls of the U.S., Russia and Canada. His wife, flutist Susan O'Neill-Senyshyn, has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in England and Canada. Dr. O'Neill has a PhD. In Psychology and has held faculty positions at Simon Fraser University and the Don Wright Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario.

Robert Schulslaper, a writer for Fanfare Magazine stated: "Reflections is a large-scale work in seven movements and Walwyn has the concentration, intensity and technique to focus attention on its every phrase and transformation. A large dynamic range, excellent pacing, attention to detail, and fleet-fingered dexterity serve her vision with grace and nobility...Walwyn has written music that will surely resonate with listeners' own reflections on 9/11. In my case, at least, it's left a lasting impression."

Pianist Thomas Stumpf is fascinated with the concept of time and how it is utilized to make sense of the human condition. We have language and symbols for time and music is one of the most powerful of those symbols. Stumpf has used this 2-CD recording to reveal composers' concepts of time as it appears in their composition. Time as a straight line — time as a circle — time as the tolling of bells — the totality of time. Music exists in the dimension of time, and is one of the deepest and most genuine expressions of the unity of time. Music offers a deeper satisfaction with its inevitability of beginning, middle, and end that unpredictable real life can't. Moments of deep satisfaction can be found in the works chosen for this recording, especially when listened to again and again. Born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong, Thomas Stumpf studied at the Mozarteum and the New England Conservatory. His career as a solo and collaborative pianist has spanned four continents and his discography consists of seven compact discs. He was co-founder and Artistic Director of Prism Opera and is the recipient of numerous awards. He has taught at the New England Conservatory, Boston University and UMassLowell and is currently on the faculty of Tufts University.

Rosa Antonelli evokes the memories of Latin sounds for her second recording on Albany Records. Born in Argentina, Ms. Antonelli enjoys an active and varied performance career. She has been hailed as a leading exponent of Spanish and Latin American music, which she has performed to audiences around the world in extensive tours that have taken her to Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and North America. Trained at the National Conservatory in Buenos Aires, she was also a participant in the International University Music Program in Santiago de Compostela where she received the Rosa Sabater Award for her interpretation of Spanish music. Her first recording on Albany Records, Esperanza-Sounds of Hope, received critical praise as did her New York debut at Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, where Harris Goldsmith wrote that her " inward poetry forced me to rehear, and revalue Piazzolla's Tangos, which she infused with an eloquence and inner communication "

Enric Madriguera is connected to Andrés Segovia in many ways: he was a student of Segovia’s as a young man, and his aunt, Paquita Madriguera, was Segovia’s second wife. Enric’s program is offered as a form of homage to Segovia and the music reflects Segovia’s influence with the choice of works and their direct connection to the maestro. Especially notable is the first recording of Three Studies by Segovia, performed as a set and using a “Segovia guitar” from the collection of Russell Cleveland. On the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas, Enric Madriguera, he also is the director of guitar ensembles for the ChamberArt Festival in Madrid, Spain. As both a performer and educator, Madriguera has traveled to and presented in five continents during the span of his career.

To honor the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth, pianist Robert Cassidy offers a brilliant reading of his Préludes, Livre I. In addition, this beautifully recorded program includes a world premiere recording of David Noon's Elegy Variations, a work written in memory of one of his colleagues and Mozart's longest fantasy for piano. Robert Cassidy has performed in solo and collaborative recitals, and with orchestra, throughout the United States and Canada. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University and Ball State University, Dr. Cassidy has appeared in venues such as Merkin and Weill Halls and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He is the pianist for the Almeda Trio and is on the faculty at Cleveland State University.

Robert Helps was one of the few musicians of the 20th century who identified himself as both a pianist and composer, a tradition of musical life that was more akin to previous centuries. To Helps, these dual facets of life were equally important and highly dependent on each other. As a teenager he studied piano with Abby Whiteside and composition with Roger Sessions. Helps often wrote about Whiteside's "outlining" or "the magic of rhythm:" the importance of feeling one's way through a piece not by individual notes, but by larger sections that draw one towards a much longer destination. And it was Sessions who jump-started Help's career as one of the leading American new music pianists of the 1940s and 1950s, when he handed Helps a copy of his From My Diary. Helps would eventually give the New York premiere of Sessions's Sonata No. 2. As a composer Helps forged his own way, identifying with no single style. His works have been described as neo-romantic and tonal, impressionistic, twelve-tone, and minimalist. Albany is proud to present this first volume of the complete works for solo piano as performed by Naomi Niskala, a pupil of Gilbert Kalish and Claude Frank. Helps did so much for American music with his classic recordings of the past forty years or so, and it's time to hear his own remarkable piano works in a complete edition.

Naomi Niskala writes, "It is with great pleasure that I present this second and final volume of Robert Helps' complete works for solo piano (Vol. I is on TROY925)...Helps' piano works vary tremendously in style and language (and) to answer the question of what Robert Helps' music is like, I would have to answer: genuine, honest, and heartfelt, lacking any and all superficiality." Classicstoday.com in reviewing the first volume said "...What most impresses me about Naomi Niskala's solid, intelligent, and caring virtuosity is that she is fully attuned to the substance and spirit of these works, yet does not feel compelled to emulate Helps' own performances...."

Composer Robert Muczynski (1929-2010) garnered national and international recognition for his compositions, which have been heard throughout the world. Muczynski studied composition at DePaul University with Alexander Tcherepnin, crediting Tcherepnin for inspiring his career. He performed his first Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony in 1958 and was a noted film composer. He became composer-in-residence at the University of Arizona in 1965, where he spent the remainder of his professional career. Some may call Muczynski's music traditionalist or conventional, but there is no arguing his music is truly authentic, expressive, invigorating, and meticulously crafted. Pianist Zachary Lopes offers the first recording of his piano sonatas since the composer's own recording done in 2000. Lopes is an active soloist and collaborative artist and has given performance and master-classes across the U.S., South America, and Europe. He has held teaching positions at Wittenberg University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and serves as President of the Kentucky Music Teachers Association. He studied at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is on the faculty at Western Kentucky University.

Called "one of the major American composers of his generation" (Texas Monthly), Robert Xavier Rodriguez's music has been described as "richly lyrical" by Musical America. He first gained international recognition in 1971 when he was awarded the Prix de Composition Musicale Prince Pierre de Monaco. Other honors include the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served as composer-in-residence with both the San Antonio and Dallas symphonies and is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas. This recording offers his complete music for cello and piano, written between 1979 and 2006. Cellist Jesús Castro-Balbi, who is on the faculty at Texas Christian University School of Music, and Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Lin, also on the faculty at TCU, offer ravishing performances of this music.

Robert Xavier Rodriguez has been called “one of the major American composers of his generation” (Texas Monthly), and his music has been described as “richly lyrical” by Musical America. He first gained international recognition in 1971 when he was awarded the Prix de Composition Musicale Prince Pierre de Monaco. Other honors include the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served as Composer-in-Residence with both the San Antonio and Dallas symphonies, and he is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas. Composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez comments that his teacher Nadia Boulanger told him “that I would be only half a composer until I also learned to express in my music the same love of laughter that she knew I enjoyed as a person I think Boulanger would be pleased to see that all of the pieces on this CD, dating from the 80s to the present, incorporate humor in some way.” Noted pianist Jeff Lankov, who has edited Rodriguez’s piano works for G. Schirmer, gives informed, sensitive performances of this delightful music.

Composer Roberto Sierra's fourth recording in the series of his music on Albany Records features music for cello and piano. More than three decades separate the compositions, but despite this, there is a common thread that unites all the repertoire—an approach to composition that draws and builds on Sierra's musical heritage. Growing up in Puerto Rico, studying 18th and 19th century European piano repertoire, his musical memory merged this with the sounds of the popular Afro-Caribbean music of the time and this unique DNA shows in his compositions. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sierra's music is performed throughout the world. He has served as Composer-in Residence with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, and the New Mexico Symphony. Cellist John Haines-Eitzen and Matthew Bengston call themselves the "Sierra Duo," having established a special relationship with the composer. They have spent years studying and performing Sierra's passionate and virtuosic music for cello and piano and this recording demonstrates their deep affinity for his music.