CDCM Computer Music Series, Vol. 1

For decades now, the U.S.-born pianist and composer Chris Jarrett has been living in Germany. Jazz, classical, avant-garde and ethnic styles merge stunningly in his music. For this reason, he is often referred to by music journalists as a "rebel" against the "piano-establishment". The music of Chris Jarrett is vital and impulsive, full of breaks and surprises and rarely fits into the usual categories of the music industry. For Chris Jarrett, Frank Zappa is an equally valuable model as are the masters of the Baroque or the Renaissance. No wonder his repertoire ranges from atonal miniatures, to sonatas, film scores, ballet and opera. "When pressing the keys with such energy, such pianistic fury, but also with such brilliance and subtlety of attack, while virtually incorporating the bulky instrument ... [he awakens] associations to the mythical Centaur - half human, half piano ... full of fantasy, original, bursting with energy and technically perfect." (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) This new release is a truly remarkable album of his original compositions for piano.

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Linda Wang presents a program of varied works for solo violin—all are crowd pleasers. Wang truly has the measure of all these works.

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IRELAND, MOTHER IRELAND TOO-R

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Recording information: Bennington College (01/2007).

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This eclectic album includes works by Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Kris Becker, Rogers and Hammerstein, and more. The works included on this release all focus on American compositional vision. The pieces are recorded by pianist Ian Gindes.

Joseph Schwantner is one of the most prominent American composers of our day. This new release features Looking Back, a commission in honor of flutist Sam Baron by his former students. Sarah Frisof showcases Schwantner's works with her vibrant and soulful playing. Frisof was the winner of both the National Flute Association Young Artist Competition and the Heida Hermanns International Woodwind Competition. Frisof considers herself a proponent of contemporary music and frequently premieres major works.

Pianist Sophia Agranovich has been called “a tigress of the keyboard.” She is an acclaimed soloist and sought after chamber musician as well as a recording artist and educator. She has performed across the United States, Europe, Israel, and Canada in solo recitals as well as alongside all of the most respected orchestras. For this release, Sophia has chosen Robert Schumann’s Carnaval and Fantasie. Carnaval, Op. 9, was written in 1834-35 and consists of 21 short pieces which represent masked revelers at Carnival, the festival before Lent. The Fantasie in C major Op. 17 is dedicated to Franz Liszt. It is known amongst pianists as one of Schumann’s greatest works for solo piano, and is one of the most important works of the early Romantic period.

This new release is a rousing program of patriotic works for piano by John Philip Sousa, James Hewitt, Charles Grob, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and more. Kirsten Johnson was born in America, but has lived in the United Kingdom since 1994. While she is now a dual-national, she remains very proud of her American heritage and roots. Recording this album was a very important task for her, and one that she did not take lightly. A multi-instrumentalist, she began on piano and recorder, then added clarinet, organ, and harpsichord to her arsenal. A mentor once told her, “You’re a musician first and a pianist second,” a mantra by which she has lived out her professional career.

This is Volume 4 in Centaur's integral edition of the Complete Pieces de Clavecin of Francois Couperin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has made a specialty of Couperin throughout his long and distinguished career. Mark Kroll has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival. This recording was made on a 1974 William Dowd harpsichord at Brooks Concert Hall, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, and a 1769 Pascal Taskin harpsichord in the private instrument collection of Marlowe A. Sigal, Newton Centre, Massachusetts.

Gary Schocker has composed some of the greatest works for flute of the past half-century. Included on this new release are his Sonatas for Flute and Piano Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9, performed by Leslie Neighbor Stroud. Leslie Neighbor Stroud, flute, received her Bachelor’s degree in Flute Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music where she was a student of Britton Johnson (National Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) and Timothy Day (San Francisco Symphony Orchestra). She has also studied with Lois Schaefer (Boston Symphony Orchestra), Walfrid Kujala (Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and Mark Sparks (St. Louis Symphony Orchestra) and baroque flute with Suzanne Stumpf (Musicians of the Old Post Road), as well as participating in the master classes of Gary Schocker, Julius Baker, Bonita Boyd and William Bennett. Leslie currently performs with the Pentangle Arts Orchestra, BarnArts Festival Orchestra, Pro Musica Vermont, Guilford Music Festival Orchestra, Cameo Baroque (a period instrument ensemble), Buttonwood Wind Quintet, the Richard Faith Ensemble, and the Sterling String Quartet. She has performed with New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, The Plymouth Philharmonic, New Bedford Festival Theater, the Tri-County Symphonic Band, the Buzzards Bay Musicfest, the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Peabody Wind Quintet, the Bellemore Ensemble of Baltimore, the Mozart Festival of Alameda, and the Trinity Chamber Concerts of California.

Noted for her wonderful integral recording of the complete Debussy works for solo piano, Larissa Dedova now brings us an equally wonderful recording of the complete solo piano works of Maurice Ravel. For over 30 years Larissa Dedova has appeared in solo and chamber recitals in concert halls throughout the world at such venues as Carnegie, New York, Kennedy Center, Washington DC, Great Hall of St. Petersburg Philharmonic, St. Petersburg, Sumida Triphony Hall, Tokyo, Teatro Ghione, Rome, and many more. As a soloist, she has played with famous orchestras, including St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Kiev Philharmonic, Orchestre de Chambre de Budapest, Moscow Philharmonic and Estonian State Symphony Orchestra, among many others. The lyricism, romanticism, and virtuosity of Ms. Dedova’s performances have brought her love and affection of audience and critical acclaim. Commenting on Ms. Dedova’s performance of the D-minor Brahms Concerto with Fairfax Symphony, the Washington Post described it as “performance that went straight to the heart of the music.” Larissa Dedova holds both Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts Degrees in Piano Performance from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory where she studied with Lev Oborin and Evgeny Malinin.

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Italian pianist Sebastian Di Bin provides us here with an intriguingly beautiful performance of Franz Liszt’s complete Transcendental Etudes. Sebastian Di Bin has dedicated this album to the memory of his brother, Francois, who passed away in March 2015. The composition of Liszt’s twelve Transcendental Etudes began when the 15-year-old composer composed a set of much less difficult exercises titled the Etude en douze exercices. These works were elaborated upon to become his Douze Grandes Etudes in 1837, then finally revised and republished in 1852 as the etudes performed here.

Alexander Krein was a Russian Jewish composer who lived and worked during the twentieth century. The piano works featured on this new release date from the early parts of his career. Also included are pieces by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who was a Soviet composer of Polish-Jewish origin. The sonata included here was composed in 1955. The Ukrainian-born pianist Anastasia Seifetdinova has performed extensively in the United States and Europe. She has appeared in the Weill Recital Hall in New York City, the Bolshoy Hall of Moscow Conservatory and many European festivals. She was first prize winner of the International Piano Competitions in Rome and in Puigcerda, and received her musical education in Kiev at the Lysenko School of Music with V. Vorobyov, in Wurzburg at the Hochschule fur Musik with Silke-Thora Matthies and at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford with Oxana Yablonskaya. She is currently pursuing a Doctoral Degree in Hartford and is active as her teacher's assistant. She is a recipient of the Musical Club of Hartford's Evelyn Bonar Storrs Scholarship.

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Natus es: A Christmas Celebration

A native of Turkey, Betul Soykan has the full measure of these colorful works. She is beautifully accompanied by Russian pianist Anatoly Sheludyakov.

Polish-born New York City-based musician Kinga Augustyn is a versatile classical concert violinist and recording artist who is gaining worldwide recognition through her performances as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has been described as "an adventurous performer valuable to New York's scene" (NY Concert Review), "stylish and vibrant... playing with verve and superb control" (The Strad Magazine), and "beyond amazing, one hell of a violinist!" (The Fanfare Magazine). Her repertoire ranges from early baroque, which she sometimes performs on a baroque violin, to modern, oftentimes written especially for her. She has won several international awards, including First Prizes at the Alexander & Buono International String Competition. On this release, she presents Georg Philipp Telemann's 12 Fantasias for Solo Violin.