Paul Freeman Introduces, Vol. 8

Adolphus Hailstork composed his Sonata da Chiesa (church sonata) on commission from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia for its string orchestra. It was premiered there in 1992. The Sonata da Chiesa reflects the composer's fascination with cathedrals, particularly the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, N.Y. where he was a chorister as a child. Today, Adolphus Hailstork is a professor at Norfolk State University in Virginia. Jiri Gemrot was born in Prague into a family of musicians. His work, American Overture, was written for Paul Freeman and the CNSO and was premiered in Prague in 1996. Gemrot's language utilizes 20th century elements, though it is his aim to fuse styles uniting past and present. His music might best be described as being aligned with neoclassicism. Richard Felciano is a native of California and today teaches at the University of California, Berkeley where he is a Professor of Music. There, he is also the founder of the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. The Symphony for String Orchestra was composed for the Orquestra Filamonica de la Cuidad de Mexico, which gave the premiere performance in February 1994. Mark D. Petering's Overture Celebration is taken from a larger work (the finale of his First Symphony). The composer uses the tone palette of the orchestra as an artist would in making bold splashes of color in a painting. The work was commissioned by the PieperPower Foundation. David Nathaniel Baker, Jr. is a native of Indianapolis and currently holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Music and Chairman of the Jazz Department at Indiana University. "Images of Childhood is one of only a handful of compositions I have written in the last 20 years which was not written on commission. I thought it would be fun to write a piece about my memories of growing up in the Indianapolis of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and Images of Childhood was the result."