Born in 1942 in New York City, Allan Crossman has had the great pleasure of collaborating with many notable chamber musicians, orchestras, vocalists, actors, directors, playwrights, dancers, librettists, and poets on both the concert and theater stage. His compositions include many commissions and have received special awards and commentary. He was born into an artistic family in New York City in 1942 and worked with George Rochberg, George Crumb, Hugo Weisgall at the University of Pennsylvania, and principal piano studies with Irwin Gelber. This is a group of his finest works, composed over a period of many years.

This is a group of absolutely first-rate modern compositions for orchestra, beautifully performed by The University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Kiesler. Keisler and the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra’s previous release has been a best-seller on downloading and streaming sites. Director of orchestras and professor of conducting since 1995, Kenneth Kiesler is a GRAMMY nominee (2014), recipient of the American Prize in Conducting (2011), and Conductor Laureate of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, where – as its music director from 1980 to 2000 – he led debuts at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, founded the Illinois Symphony Chorus and Illinois Chamber Orchestra, and won several state and national awards. He was also the orchestra’s music advisor for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons.

The music of Brian Hulse is written for both traditional and non-traditional ensembles, and has been performed across the globe. This new release features musicians from the Virginia and Richmond Symphonies, and faculty from the College of William and Mary. The four works presented here are conducted by Paul Bhasin.

This new release is a showcase of French masterworks by composers including Debussy, Ravel, and more. Kathleen Karr is the Principal Flutist of the Louisville Orchestra and Flute Professor at the University of Louisville. In 2012, she was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Professor Award for the University of Louisville. At the University of Louisville, Kathleen teaches all applied flute students , flute ensemble, flute studio class, flute literature, flute pedagogy, chamber music coaching and performs with the faculty woodwind quintet. A frequent soloist with the Louisville Orchestra, Kathleen has most recently performed the Mozart G Major Flute Concerto with the Louisville Orchestra during the 2014-15 season. Kathleen has taught flute and chamber music at the Interlochen Arts Camp (Interlochen, Michigan), Bellarmine University, Centre College (Danville, Kentucky) and Indiana University Southeast. Dr. Denine LeBlanc teaches music in the Jefferson County Public School system where she has taught for over twenty-five years. From 1978 until its closure in the spring of 2020, she taught piano in the Community Music Program at the University of Louisville School of Music.

This is an eclectic program for solo flute by Israeli flutist and composer Yael Acher "KAT" Modiano. Most the of the program is made up of compositions by the performer/composer, but the program also includes one work each by J.S. Bach and Claude Debussy. It all works together as a compelling program. Critical praise for Modiano’s previous performances has been vast. “Spell binding, action packed and deeply original" (Berlingske Tidende, Copenhagen) “A bold, daring Bach –solo by the flutist Yael Acher, which initiates the spatial body energy in the beautiful pillar-yard, with her crispy tones and her androgynous jacket suit movements.” (INFORMATION, Copenhagen)

French composer Marin Marais (1656-1728) was one of the greatest French composers of the Baroque. He was probably the greatest of all Baroque composers in terms of his compositions for viola da gamba. Laura Jeppesen and Catherine Liddell are among the finest American artists at their respective instruments. Laura Jeppesen received a master’s degree from Yale University and subsequently studied the viola da gamba at the Hamburg Hochschule and the Brussels Conservatory. She has been a Woodrow Wilson Designate, a Fulbright Scholar, and a fellow of the Bunting Institute at Harvard. A prominent member of Boston’s early music community, she has long associations with The Boston Museum Trio, Boston Baroque, The Handel and Haydn Society, the Boston Early Music Festival and Aston Magna. Catherine Liddell is much in demand for her sensitivity and skill as a continuo player on theorbo and lute and has appeared with many of the leading period instrument ensembles in the U.S., including the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Apollo's Fire, and the New York Collegium.

This is an album of great works for clarinet and piano. Jackie Glazier and Galen Dean Peiskee, Jr. make this a particularly engaging album. Hailed for her “robust playing and virtuosic performance” (San Diego Tribune) and “beautiful and clear tone” (The Clarinet Magazine), Jackie Glazier is an active soloist, chamber musician, orchestral clarinetist, pedagogue, and advocate of new music. As assistant professor of clarinet at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, Glazier is a committed pedagogue and mentor to future generations of clarinetists, and a member of the Arizona Wind Quintet. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has performed throughout the United States and in China, Mexico, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Croatia, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. Galen Dean Peiskee has established a multifaceted career as an accomplished chamber musician, soloist, orchestral pianist, accompanist, and vocal coach. He has performed all over the United States as well as throughout the world in Poland, Italy, Austria, Greece, Cuba and Bolivia. He is a member of the Emerald Trio, Trio Vivo, Young-Peiskee flute-piano duo, the Bold City Contemporary Ensemble, and the Cerulean Trio, finalists in the 2016 Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition. Dean has performed as a soloist with the Brazos Chamber Orchestra multiple times, and was the pianist for the Singing Girls of Texas for 5 years. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in May 2017, performing music of Timothy Hoekman in Weill Recital Hall.

Contemporary American Composer David Loeb: "The choice of the trombone of pieces might engender some surprise, but the trombone has the necessary diversity of resources." These great works will make this point abundantly obvious. David Loeb was born in 1939 in New York into a family which took music and painting very seriously. He studied composition with Peter Pindar Stearns at the Mannes College of Music in New York, and then completed a master's degree at Yale. His catalog of compositions is unusually extensive and diverse. In addition to the expected assortment of works for orchestra, various chamber combinations, soloists, and voice, he has also written many pieces for Asian instruments (in addition to Japanese, some for Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Mongol) and for early Western instruments (in addition to viols, some for lute, harpsichord, and recorder). He has often brought these instruments together in unique combinations, such as four shakuhachi and four viols; flute, guitar, koto, and shakuhachi; and khaen, flute, guitar, cello, and percussion.

A Woman's Life (and Love) was commissioned by Alta Marie Boover as a companion piece to Robert Schumann's 1830 song cycle, Frauenliebe und Leben, or "A Woman's Love and Life." Mezzo-soprano Alta Marie Boover performs both works wonderfully, along with superb pianist Tian Tian. Alta Boover Dantzler, mezzo-soprano, is a singer praised by audiences and critics for her “perfect comic timing” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) and “lustrous big voice…with excellent diction and plummy tones” (Saratoga Daily Gazette). In New York, she appeared at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center as the Narrator in Peter and the Wolf as well as in the premiere of a new version of Victor Herbert’s Babes in Toyland. On the operatic stage, she has performed with Opera Carolina, Toledo Opera, Arbor Opera Theatre, Austin Lyric Opera, Shreveport Opera, and Des Moines Metro Opera. In both 2005 and 2007 she was a District Winner and Regional Finalist in the renowned Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and can be seen in the documentary The Audition which chronicles the 2007 competition.

This a great program of Russian works performed by chamber orchestra. The Tchaikovsky serenade is the original work; the works by Glinka and Mussorgsky are masterful transcriptions for chamber orchestra (Glinka) and string orchestra (Mussorgsky). The ARCO Chamber Orchestra was originally founded in Russia in 1989 at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory by Levon Ambartsumian. When Mr. Ambartsumian joined the University of Georgia's School of Music faculty in In 1995, he remained the artistic director and conductor of the orchestra, moving its home base to the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, where the ensemble has now become a talented international blend of musicians. Since its creation, Ambartsumian has led UGA's ARCO Chamber Orchestra, commercially releasing 15 albums and has performing four times in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall.

Charles Gounod (1818-1893) is universally regarded as one of the greatest of all French composers. His pieces are crafted with beautiful melodies, fluid lyricism, and sensitive expression. These are wonderful performances of works of uncommon beauty. Professor Yi-Lan Niu started her music training at the age of 4. She completed her master’s degree in voice at the Eastman School of Music and her doctoral degree in vocal performance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout her academic career, Niu has been the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including the Joyce and William Wartmann Scholarship, UW-Madison Opera Props Award and scholarships to the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Madison Early Music Festival and the Vancouver Early Music Festival.

Mikiko Miyakawa is a composer/pianist and TV/film producer from Tokyo. Now based in New York, Mikiko gives us a series of works, each based upon a particular personal inspiration, performed by herself on piano. As a composer and producer, Mikiko has signed with leading music licensing companies in the United States, such as Scorekeepers Music, Crucial Music, and Atrium Music. In Japan, Mikiko was arranger and keyboardist to a new wave band S-KEN. As a member of this band, she recorded an album “Gang Busters” for a major record company King Records, known for its top artists such as world-famous AKB48.

Intuicion is a program of contemporary music for clarinet and piano by Latin-American composers. Virginia Figueiredo and Lorenzo Sanchez have the full mettle of these colorful works. Praised in The Clarinet Magazine for her “intense musicality … and unapologetic interpretations,” Los Angeles-based clarinetist Virginia Figueiredo is an internationally active performer, recording artist, and educator. She has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician, and her performances have been featured on radio broadcasts in both Portugal and the United States. In Southern California, she performs regularly with The Pacific Opera Project, the Luso-American Duo, and numerous other orchestras and chamber ensembles. As a recording artist, Figueiredo has released two prior albums to critical acclaim: her debut solo album, Seule, was a 2018 Global Music Awards silver medalist, while her 2014 album with The Divan Consort, Refuge, earned a first-round GRAMMY nomination in 2015 as well as a Global Music Awards gold medal.

Detours is a compilation of works for piano by composers of different origins from approximately the last century. This is an a very appealing program of music for piano. Born in Indonesia, pianist Martin Kesuma is a graduate of Texas State University and the University of Texas at Austin. He is currently pursuing his Doctor of Musical Arts degree with Professor Anton Nel at the University of Texas, where he holds the positions of Piano Project Coordinator and Class Piano Teaching Assistant. Martin’s recent highlights include first prize at the PianoHouse International Piano Competition, the Ben Gomez Award at the Texas State International Piano Festival, Honorable Mention at the San Jose International Piano Competition, Special Recognition Award at the Weatherford College International Piano Competition, and performance of Stravinsky Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments with the Density512 Orchestra.

Distant Carillons is an album of acoustic works by contemporary American composer David Loeb, who has a number of albums on the Centaur label. David Loeb was born in 1939 in New York into a family which took music and painting very seriously. He studied composition with Peter Pindar Stearns at the Mannes College of Music in New York, and then completed a master's degree at Yale. His catalog of compositions is unusually extensive and diverse. In addition to the expected assortment of works for orchestra, various chamber combinations, soloists, and voice, he has also written many pieces for Asian instruments (in addition to Japanese, some for Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Mongol) and for early Western instruments (in addition to viols, some for lute, harpsichord, and recorder). He has often brought these instruments together in unique combinations, such as four shakuhachi and four viols; flute, guitar, koto, and shakuhachi; and khaen, flute, guitar, cello, and percussion.