Jeffrey Ryan is one of Canada's most outstanding composers. He evokes bright, vivid colors in his works which brim with imaginative sound worlds.

Described as a 'conductor who makes a difference' (Daily Telegraph), and acclaimed for her artistic vision and commitment to accessibility in classical music, Marin Alsop founded String Fever in 1981. It's pioneering blend of jazz, pop and classical repertoire took critics and audiences by storm, breaking the boundaries between musical genres through remarkable versatility and a palpable sense of fun. This album reflects String Fever's forays into standards ranging from Rogers and Hart's early hit Manhattan to Dave Brubeck's famously rhythmic Blue Rondo la Turk. Much in demand by many top solo artists from Billy Joel to the late Sir Yehudi Menuhin, String Fever is featured on two of Billy Joel's albums, Nylon Curtain and Innocent Man. String Fever has collaborated with vocalist Mel Torme, top dance great Honi Coles, and appeared as featured soloists with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and the Eugene Symphony Orchestra.

PERFECT WEDDING

The four English composers represented on this disc were all born within a generation, and were inspired by the pioneering violist Lionel Tertis. Bainton's 1922 Viola Sonata veers restlessly between autumnal song and militaristic intensity, possibly influenced by his wartime experiences. Theodore Holland's Suite in D is a theatrical, wide-ranging work full of ingenious themes, whilst York Bowen's Piece for Viola is brief but ardent. Bantock's Viola Sonata, by contrast, is a large-scale, powerful and rhapsodic statement full of profuse lyricism and romantic feeling. Since making her concerto debut with the Philharmonia in 1992, and as a recitalist at the Wigmore Hall in 1997, Sarah-Jane Bradley has established a distinguished international reputation as a soloist and chamber musician. She is a pioneer of new works and has given the premieres and recorded a number of new concertos for solo viola.

The wind ensemble repertory has a rich history and a vibrant contemporary presence. Donald Grantham, for example, evokes gospel music of the 1920s and '30s in Starry Crown, which draws on the earthy vitality of call-and-response sermons. Steven Bryant's Ecstatic Waters reaches forward to present a pulsating narrative of exuberance, contradiction and subtle dialogue. Gordon Jacob wrote two series of settings of Old Wine in New Bottles in which he took old English settings and clothed them in his zesty and witty colors. To end, we have the songful lyricism of Carter Penn's Hold This Boy and Listen. Stephen L. Gage has served as instrumental music coordinator, professor of conducting, and director of bands at Youngstown State University's Dana School of Music since 1993.

This disc demonstrates the richness and variety of 20th century Norwegian music when it responds to the powerful stimulus of folk music. Klaus Egge' breakthrough work, his First Piano Sonata.

At the turn of the 15th century, Pierre de La Rue was the leading composer working north of the Alps. A member of the Habsburg-Burgundian chapel, he composed polyphony for all the major liturgical genres.

Beethoven's opera, under the title Fidelio, insisted on by the theatre to avoid confusion with the L�onore of Gaveaux or the Leonora of Pa�r, was staged with limited success in Vienna in November 1805, introduced by the second of the four different overtures eventually written for the work. There were only three performances of this first version, mounted at a time when Vienna was occupied by the French and many of the composer's supporters had taken refuge elsewhere. Beethoven was induced to shorten the opera, with a libretto now revised by Stephan von Breuning. This version was staged the following year on 29th March and 10th April, this time with the third of the Leonore overtures, the best known in concert performance. It was then withdrawn, apparently through Beethoven's dissatisfaction either with the performance or the financial results. It was not until 1814, after further revision and changes in the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke, an actor who had quickly risen in 1802 to the position of poet and stage manager of the German Court Theatre, that Fidelio was again staged in Vienna. The Fidelio overture was not ready for the first performance on 23rd May but was available for the second performance, three days later. It is in this final revision, with the new overture, that the opera Fidelio is now generally known. In the opera the name Fidelio is assumed by the heroine, Leonore, who disguises herself as a boy and takes employment under the gaoler Rocco in the prison where her husband Florestan is kept by his enemy, the prison governor Don Pizarro. She is able to rescue her husband from imminent death, as trumpets announce the arrival of higher authority, to give Don Pizarro his due and allow Leonore and her husband their freedom together.

Mozart: Don Giovanni (Highlights)

Joseph Merk was the most outstanding cellist in Vienna in the first half of the nineteenth century. Although Beethoven's Triple Concerto was not originally written for him, Merk's performances established it as an important work, and he was the dedicatee of Chopin's Introduction et Polonaise brilliant. He was also a formidable composer for his own instrument, creating a dazzling series of instrumental episodes in his Fleurs d'Italie, based on operatic motifs by Donizetti and Verdi. The Valses brillantes bridge the gap, in classic virtuoso fashion, between Schubert's piano dances and Johann Strauss the Elder's grand gestures.

The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition: Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenth-century German authors, early Romantics and Biedermeier poets.

This wide ranging program offers connections and contrasts in music of devotion and consolation. The settings by life long friends Holst and Vaughan Williams, whilst very different, are highly affecting. The music of Rachmaninov, whose hymn derives from his 1915 All-Night Vigil, and John Tavener is immersed in the ritual of the Russian Orthodox Church. Marian Prayers come from Pierre Villette and Knut Nystedt. The music that gives it's name to the title of the disc is the beautiful 'conversation' of Roxanna Panufnik. Founded by conductor and composer David Ogden in 2002 to sing a live broadcast on BBC Radio, Exultate Singers has gone on to give over 120 concerts, broadcasts and other appearances in the United Kingdom, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain. The choir has given several broadcasts on BBC Radio and has appeared on BBC television's Songs of Praise and the One Show.

Alfano' chamber music is receiving deserved recognition. The Violin Sonata is a powerful and impressive work, with elements of French impressionism, but essentially post-romantic in ethos. The Piano Quintet was Alfano' last chamber work, premiered in 1946.

Respighi: Suite in E major

The Naxos Deutsche Schubert-Lied-Edition: Schubert set the poetry of over 115 writers to music. He selected poems from classical Greece, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, from eighteenthcentury German authors, early Romantics and Biedermeier poets.