Catalog

Taken together, the works on this portrait album of composer John Liberatore, are an eclectic mélange of instrumentations and affects, sometimes whimsical or wistful, dark or light. But each of them was composed in the same way, and in close proximity to each other. Liberatore is a composer, pianist, and one of the world's few glass harmonica players. Described by critics as "enchanting" and "truly magical," his music seeks poignancy through levity, ambiguity through transparency, and complexity within simple textures. The recipient of numerous awards and commissions, his music has received hundreds of performances in venues around the world, including The Kennedy Center, Carnegie's Weill Hall, and the Seoul Arts Center, among many others. A graduate of Eastman and Syracuse University, he is assistant professor of composition and theory at the University of Notre Dame.

Pianist and educator David Witten's career has included numerous concert tours in Europe, Israel, Russia, China, and South America. He is the editor of Nineteenth-Century Piano Music: Essays in Performance and Analysis, which includes his landmark analytical study of the Chopin Ballades. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, SUNY Buffalo and Boston University, he is on the faculty of Montclair State University. Witten has chosen four works by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who was born in Florence, but whose ancestry traces directly back to a Sephardic Jewish family that escaped the Spanish Inquisition. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's musical style is filled with colorful harmonies and a penchant for modal melodies. Coming to the United States in the mid-1930s, he found work at MGM and other studios, ultimately composing soundtracks for more than 200 films. This recording features both his early and late piano works -- two concert suites from 1924 and works from his later years in California.

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.

Love Comes In At The Eye is a recording of songs and instrumental works by Kevin Puts, Ned Rorem, and James Scott Balentine. All Americans, these composers vary in age from 46 (Puts), to 70 (Balentine), to 95 (Rorem), so there a wide spectrum of compositional styles that offers an outstanding listening experience. With works for voice and piano; voice and chamber ensemble; a work for voice and cello; and two works for flute and piano, the recording gives the feel of being part of an audience for a chamber music concert. The performers each have distinguished careers and all participate in the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society concerts.

Composer Don Walker says that he has always felt a strong affinity for vocal music, having been a boy soprano soloist, a baritone soloist, and a member of several choirs. He composed and performed his first solo arias while still in high school and had written several song cycles and choral works before receiving his undergraduate degree. All told, he has written five operas, 30 song cycles and equivalent numbers of cantatas and other choral works over the past 50 years. This recording showcases select works from his oeuvre, some for a cappella chorus and others for chorus and piano and one work (Cummings Country) for chorus, vibraphone and contrabass. This is Walker's third recording for Albany Records -- the first a collection of song cycles and the second feature his works for chamber ensemble.

Lou Harrison was one of the most influential percussion composers and innovators in the United States. In fact, he was one of the great composers of the 20th century -- a pioneer in the use of alternate tunings, world music influences, and new instruments. The percussion ensemble at Utah Valley University with violinist Donna Fairbanks perform some of his major works including a concerto for violin and percussion. Percussionist Doug Smith, director of Percussion UVU, is also an active freelance musician in Salt Lake City with groups includng the Utah Symphony, Utah Opera, and Ballet West. He is a graduate of Rice University and the University of Central Missouri. Violinist Donna Fairbanks has presented recitals and masterclasses in Europe, China, Mexico, Brazil and throughout the United States. She has recorded for MSR Classics, 4TAY, Tantar and Albany Records. Pianist Hilary Demske, who performs in the Varied Trio, has performed in prestigious venues across multiple continents, appearing annually in China since 2011. She is a Steinway Artist and has recorded multiple CDs for Albany Records.

Violinist Donna Fairbanks and guitarist Jon Yerby have recorded a delightful album of music for violin and guitar with music spanning four centuries. Ms. Fairbanks is on the faculty at Utah Valley University. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona, Eastman, and Brigham Young University.Ms. Fairbanks has appeared as a soloist with numerous orchestras and has presented recitals and master classes in South America, China, Europe and the U.S. Born in Germany, Jon Yerby has performed across four continents as an acclaimed soloist and chamber musician. He studied at Florida State University, New England Conservatory, and the University of Texas at Austin. He has held faculty positions at the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, and Westminster College.

Baritone Robert Barefield's third recording for Albany Records includes four song cycles by American composers Scott Wheeler, David Conte, Larry Alan Smith, and Kendra D'Ercole. Two of the cycles, Wheeler's Light Enough and D'Ercole's Laughs & Sighs were written for Mr. Barefield. Conte's cycle of four songs was composed between 1998 and 2003; while Smith found inspiration for his cycle through a roadside marker about the poet John Burroughs. Robert Barefield has performed as soloist with organizations throughout the United States and in Europe and is noted for his championing of American composers. He is on the faculty at the Hartt School. Pianist Kelly Horsted enjoys an active career in New York City as an accompanist, music director and vocal coach and has enjoyed a long relationship with American Opera Projects.

Music is language, said the legendary French flutist and inspirational teacher, Marcel Moyse, the flute is one of its mediums of expression, and when I play I try to convey the impression of laughing, of singing, of talking through the medium of my instrument in a manner almost as direct as that expressed by the human voice." This insight is especially pertinent to this recital of Latin American and Spanish music for flute and piano, which intermingles transcriptions of vocal music with original compositions and transcriptions of instrumental works. Regardless of the music's origins, whether in vocal or instrumental music, the flute speaks and singsand at times even dances. Flutist Stephanie Jutt's elegant artistry and passionate intellect have inspired musicians and audiences around the world. Her groundbreaking performances of new music, transcriptions, and traditional repertoire have made her a model for adventurous flutists everywhere. Stephanie Jutt received first prize at the International Concert Artist Guild and Pro Musicis International Soloist competitions, and was a finalist in the International Walter W. Naumburg Competition. She has performed in recital throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. A dedicated teacher, Ms. Jutt was Professor of Flute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music from 1990-2017.

This recording features largely unknown sacred art songs from the late 19th to the late 20th century, including works by American composers Leo Sowerby and Daniel Pinkham as well as their stylistic predecessors Gabriel Fauré, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Max Reger, Louis Vierne, and Gaston Litaize. These composers' common musical vocabulary of chromatic harmony, realized through the expansive timbral palettes of the organ and voice, creates vivid musical settings of sacred poetry. Baritone Stephen Lancaster was winner of the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition and of The American Prize for men in art song and oratorio. He has been featured in venues around the world as a recitalist, and soloist. He holds degrees from the University of Note Dame and the University of Michigan and is currently on the faculty at Notre Dame. Organist Kevin Vaughn is director of music and organist at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in South Bend, Indiana and on the faculty at Goshen College. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

In Vento Appassionato, Molly Barth presents her interpretations of ten of the most influential 20th century compositions for solo flute in the repertoire, chronologically spanning from 1913 to 1966. Each piece on this recording leads Ms. Barth on an impactful emotional journey, which she delights in sharing with her listeners. Grammy-Award winning flutist Molly Barth is in demand as a soloist, clinician, and chamber musician. Lauded by reviewers, she has performed in Australia, Korea, Mexico, and across the United States. A founding member of the famed new music ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, Ms. Barth won first prize at the 1998 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. She is on the faculty at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University and is a graduate of Oberlin, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and Northwestern University School of Music.

Composer/singer Linda Lister began her compositional career at age 15 writing a new musical version of The Little Match Girl for the University of Utah's Young People's Theatre. Since that time she has found her own tonal, neo-Romantic voice. Her vocal writing reveals a fondness for coloratura, an element not often found in contemporary art song. Her goal is to imbue her compositions with the pathos or humor befitting the text. She enjoys the creative synergy of singing her own music and sharing it with the world. A graduate of Vassar, Eastman and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she has performed as a soloist with orchestras, with opera theatres across the country and her recordings appear on Albany and Centaur Records. She is on the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her collaborator, Canadian pianist Amanda Johnston is on the faculty at the University of Mississippi, Musiktheater Bavaria; and the Druid City Opera Workshop.

Rajiv Joseph's spare libretto, based on the book by Salman Rushdie, is full of gifts for an opera composer: love triangle with dancer, acrobat, and ambassador; vaudevillian rehearsal; over-the-top wedding; lonely hotel seduction; and Anarkali's dance -- a grand Khatak show-within-a-show. Rushdie's novel, not at all spare, is part Hindu/Muslim Romeo and Juliet, part Himalayan Paradise Lost -- a meditation on the personal as political, and an allegory of the danger of innocence. The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis commissioned composer Jack Perla to write Shalimar the Clown and this world premiere recording was made in 2016. Perla has steadily forged a reputation for his unique cross-fertilization of jazz, improvisation, and classical music. Librettist Rajiv Joseph is a New York-based playwright who has been called "daring, magnificent, and virtuosic." The recipient of numerous awards, Shalimar the Clown is Mr. Joseph's first opera libretto.

Composer Robert Xavier Rodríguez has been hailed as "one of the major American composers of his generation." His music has been performed by organizations such as the New York City Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Seattle, Houston Dallas, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Boston, and Chicago Symphonies, among many others. His numerous awards include a Gugggenheim Fellowship and the Goddard Lieberson Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served as composer-in-residence with the San Antonio Symphony and the Dallas Symphony. He is on the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas and conducts its Musica Nova Ensemble. His sixth recording for Albany Records includes two works for string quartet and a work for violin and piano.

The presidents honored in this album fundamentally altered the structure and development of the United States. Composer Victoria Bond, in collaboration with librettist Myles Lee, MD, has written four concertos for soloist and narrator: "Soul of a Nation" (from which the title of the album was derived) is a portrait of Thomas Jefferson; "The Indispensable Man" illuminates Franklin Roosevelt; "The Crowded Hours" presents Theodore Roosevelt; and "Pater Patriae" honors George Washington. As portraits of personal character, each piece illustrates the inner turmoil each man endured on his journey to immortality. Soloists from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (Frank Almond, Concertmaster), and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (John Bruce Yeh, assistant principal clarinet and Mark Ridenour, assistant principal trumpet), and Gabriela Vargas (flute) join narrators Adrian Dunn, Henry Fogel, Ray Frewen, and David Holloway. Emanuele Andrizzi and Stephen Squires conduct the chamber orchestra and wind ensemble from the Chicago College of performing Arts at Roosevelt University.

Cendrillon opened at the Paris Opéra-Comique on February 22, 1810, and brought unprecedented success to composer Nicolo Isouard and his librettist Charles-Guillaume Étienne. However, beginning in 1817 Rossini's La Cenerentola superceded Isouard's opera and Cendrillon fell into obscurity.The head of Opera Music Studies at Manhattan, William Tracy along with Jennifer Gliere, conductor Pierre Vallet and director Dona D. Vaughn have prepared an entirely new edition and production for this recording. In fact, orchestral parts could not be located, nor the original score. Working from the original manuscript and the first printed edition, Mr. Tracy and Ms. Gliere created the present edition heard here. You can now hear Isouard's brilliant "perfect little jewel box" opera, Cendrillon, last performed in the United States on July 13, 1827 at the Park Theater by a French company from New Orleans.

Composer Joseph Fennimore's ninth recording for Albany Records includes new works for piano, brilliantly performed by Jeffrey Middleton. Fennimore, who is known as a formidable pianist, has a special affinity for this instrument, and it shows in these works. He wrote the music on this collection when he was in his mid 60s to mid 70s. It is mature, the product of a restless and powerful mind. While these works don't form a program, they each benefit from a lifetime of accumulated experience and feeling. They are ruminative, unflinching in the contemplation of mortality, yet retain the composer's natural vivacity, his sense of whimsy and style. Pianist Jeffrey Middleton is a graduate of Juilliard and Yale. His career has included chamber music, vocal coaching and accompanying, solo performances, and teaching. He is on the faculty of the School of American Ballet, receiving the Mae Wien Award for distinguished faculty service in 2010.

Amos Elkana is a multi-award-winning composer whose music has been characterized as original, guided by unique and delicate taste, and radiating a strong sense of honesty. Born in Boston but growing up in Jerusalem, he returned to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory. He has also studied at Bard College. His music has been performed all over the world by leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists. Apart from concert music, Elkana composes for dance and theater. Also and active performer, he participates in concerts and performances of improvised music where he plays the electric guitar and the computer. This recording of his music contrasts a work for large ensemble with works for single instruments, some of which include electronics.

Violinist Julie Rosenfeld has invited five composers with whom she had worked over the past 30 years, to each write a work for violin and piano. The composers include Kenneth Fuchs, Katherine Hoover, John Halle, Laura Kaminsky, Tamar Muskal, and Stefan Freund. There is a wonderful diversity in the styles of the pieces and this recording will surely provide important additions to the contemporary violin repertoire. Julie Rosenfeld was first violinist of the acclaimed Colorado Quartet for many years before joining the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Music in 2014. Pianist Peter Miyamoto enjoys a brilliant international career, and studied at Curtis, Yale, Michigan State, and the Royal Academy. He is also on the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Music.

Conductor Anthony J. Maglione has carefully selected texts that invite us to wrestle with ancient and timeless mysteries and think about how they are relevant to our present day. The centerpiece of the recording is Adolphus Hailstork's I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes, a three-movement cantata based on psalm texts. The William Jewell College Concert Choir is composed of the very best undergraduate choral singers who attend William Jewell College. The choir tours the United States and travels regularly to England and Scotland to perform. Anthony Maglione studied at Westminster Choir College, East Carolina University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Formed in 2009, the Anglo-American Duo Timothy Schwarz, violin; Jane Beament, piano) has evolved into a prominent ensemble that regularly tours in the United States and Europe. Praised for its energetic and sophisticated performances, the Anglo-American Duo specializes in music from the U.S. and Britain. For their first commercial recording, they perform music by British composer David Osbon. Osbon's music has been performed, broadcast and recorded around the world. The recipient of numerous awards, Osbon studied at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently he is on the faculty at the London College of Music.

Composer Anthony Paul De Ritis began studying with David Wessel at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies after returning from his studies at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau. Wessel exerted a tremendous influence on De Ritis, both as a teacher and as a person. This recording of De Ritis' music is a tribute to David Wessel.The pieces on this recording span more than 25 years. Listening to the music is captivating. Written for Western instruments or Asian instruments, the music sounds like a successful syntheses of East and West, where real-time processing devices transform the sound of acoustic instruments into a rainbow of sound colors. Having received a thorough Western education and then traveled the world, Anthony Paul De Ritis has come up with a music that is far more than the sum of its parts -- music that is imaginative and a wonderful balance of tone colors.

As the music on this recording so aptly demonstrates, Jessica Krash composes with the heart of a chamber musician. Her compositions look for conversations between musical lines, and for the shifts in feeling and outlook as these interactions deepen. Her works, which have wide-ranging emotions and textures, give space for performers to create nuanced shapes and tone colors while they respond to each other. The pieces on this recording are also a dialogue between old and new: old and new music and poetry; old and new musicians; old and new social, philosophical, and emotional issues. Krash's music has been presented in both traditional and experimental settings in Germany, Austria and around the U.S., including the major performance venues and museums in Washington, D.C. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards, and commissions, and has given a series of chamber music masterclasses at Strathmore, and a series of lectures at the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, and NIH. This is her second recording for Albany Records.

Through her recordings and her appearances in major cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, pianist Eliza Garth is well known as an artist with a passionate voice and adventurous spirit, championing some of the most demanding works in the repertoire of our time. For her debut recording with Albany Records, Garth has chosen two works -- a set of Piano Preludes by Sheree Clement and a major work by Perry Goldstein. Clement, a graduate of Peabody, the University of Michigan and Columbia, has heard her works performed by some of the most noted new music ensembles in the U.S. including the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the League of Composers Orchestra, among many others. Using intricate shimmering colors over re-imagined fragments of tunes, her music builds surprising narratives. It unfurls, percolates, and nudges, allowing listeners to rediscover the present. Perry Goldstein studied at the University of Illinois, UCLA, and Columbia. His music appears on 19 commercial recordings and he has written music for noted new music performers such as Gilbert Kalish and the Emerson String Quartet. On the faculty at SUNY-Stony Brook, Goldstein has been involved in a variety of activities in the service of contemporary music. His composition on this recording, Of Points Fixed and Fluid, is built on dramatic possibilities obtained when disparate ideas are forced to coexist and interact.

A collaboration of East and West, Ode To Nature contains a Blu-Ray disc of the performance along with an audio cd. The story is of Blossom, a beautiful and talented young woman with a boundless future. Her artistic gift was dancing and playing the Chinese single-string lute. At age 17, bone cancer struck and Blossom's life was saved by an ampuation. Life that was so promising now is left with only despair. Ode To Nature is about the transformation of the human spirit. It is about Blossom's power over life achieved by combining the five Chinese virtues (righteousness, order, benevolence, wisdom, trust) and the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, earth). It is her journey to find light admidst darkness and to gain victory from defeat.

The six works on this disc were composed over a 57-year span from 1958 to 2015. They present a series of snapshots of composer Harvey Sollberger's compositional concerns through the medium of the flute. In the 35 compositions that feature the flute, these six can be thought of as the plums, but are not the only ones by any means. Harvey Sollberger, now 80 years old, has had a distinguished career as a composer, flutist, and conductor. He co-founded the Group for Contemporary Music, the first contemporary music ensemble in residence at an American university. His music has been performed throughout the world, his discography now tops 150 commercial releases and he has taught at Columbia, the Manhattan School of Music, the Indiana University School of Music and the University of California, San Diego. The IWO Flute Quartet, named after its members' home states of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, was formed in 2011 by four leading Pacific Northwest flutists. Each member (Sydney Carlson, Leonard Garrison, Jennifer Rhyne, and Paul Taub) advocates for contemporary music and enjoys significant careers as performers and educators.

James Adler's A Winter Triptych is a setting of three Christmas melodies from the Oxford Book of Carols and is scored for chorus, soloists, and an unusual, intimate accompaniment of horn and harp. Commissioned by the Windy City Gay Chorus, the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC and the Morehouse College Glee Club, the world premiere took place in Chicago in 1984. Composed at night at Adler's Aunt Reva's kitchen table during a visit, A Winter Triptych is a quiet and primarily introspective work. James Adler, equally at home composing or performing has a career that encompasses teaching, performing, and composing. Adler can be heard as a performer and composer on Albany Records, Capstone, Navona, and Ravello Records. He is on the faculty of Saint Peter's University and is a National Arts Associate in the Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity and a recipient of the 2017 Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Beautifully performed by the Judson Memorial Church Choir conducted by Henco Espag, A Winter Triptych is James Adler at his best.

Baritone Bradley Robinson explains what moved him to pursue this recording: "Many know of Ives the musical experimenter, life insurance revolutionist and, at times, the short-tempered eccentric. But there was so much more to the man: Ives the Devoted Son, Loving Husband, Adoring Father, Charity Volunteer, Philosopher, Social Activist, Man of Great Spiritual Convictions, Musical Jokester, Publicity-shunning Philanthropist; and the list goes on. " Robinson invites us to get to know Ives better by seeing how deeply the manner in which he expressed himself musically was influenced by factors which included events he personally experienced, his attitudes towards everyday things, philosophic and/or religious beliefs, and wonderful sense of humor. Bradley Robinson has performed opera, oratorio, and musical theatre throughout the United States to critical acclaim and is on the faculty at the University of Mississippi. His collaborator, pianist Stacy Rodgers, also teaches at the University of Mississippi.

The works for clarinet/piano duo on this recording were composed by five distinguished women working in the United States. Four of the pieces date from the later decades of the 20th century and one from mid-century. None of the pieces has been issued in commercial recording before now. The five pieces were chosen because each conveys something intimate and important to the performers (Jessica Lindsey, clarinet and Christian Bohnenstengel, piano). Each has an element that draws the listener closer to catch each inflection, every intended meaning. Dr. Jessica Lindsey has established herself as a dynamic performer and pedagogue, pursuing a career that is equally devoted to both spheres. Her reputation as a clarinetist in both chamber and orchestral settings has seen her perform throughout the United States, and as far afield as China and New Zealand. On the faculty of the University of North Carolina Charlotte, Lindsey studied at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Pianist Christian Bohnenstengel's performances have taken him all over the U.S., to South America and to Europe.

It is indeed a cause for excitement when two concertos by Florence Price, the first African American woman to write a symphony performed by a major U.S. Orchestra, are recorded. There are no known performances of Price’s first violin concerto, but the Violin Concerto No. 2, completed in 1952 was performed posthumously by its dedicatee, Minnie Cedargreen Jemberg at the opening of the Florence B. Price School in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood in 1964. The two concertos are joined on this recording by a work for violin and orchestra by Ryan Cockerham, which is a tribute to Florence Price’s home state of Arkansas. Violinist Er-Gene Kahng is on the faculty at the Universityof Arkansas in Fayetteville and is concertmaster of the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra. She is on the violin faculty at the Montecito International Music Festival, the Beverly Hills International Music Festival, and performs with the Bay View Music Festival string quartet. Ryan Cockerham’s creative work has been exhibited and performed by leading arts and academic organizations around the world, including the English National Ballet, Art Expo Milano, and the Texas Ballet Theater, among many others.

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.

Sinfonia No. 5, a new work completed in 2016 by the distinguished composer George Walker, is in one continuous movement. On this world premiere recording, two versions are presented. The work has four quotes of varying lengths inserted in the score with the first version containing five brief speaking parts for soprano, tenor, two baritones, and bass. The second version does not contain the spoken text. Goerge Walker is the recipient of seven honorary doctorate degrees as well as a Pulitzer Prize for his work, Lilacs for Voice and Orchestra. His extensive discography includes recordings of his chamber, vocal, instrumental and orchestral music. This is the fifth volume of his orchestral music to appear on Albany Records.