George Oakley is a Georgian-born American composer and a prize-winning concert pianist. The solo piano pieces on this recording, Toccata and Sonata-Fantasia, are technically demanding works which exhibit a range of styles from jazz to classical and Georgian folk music. Oakley’s Sonata for Cello and Piano takes us from an initial state of struggle and doubt to a cheerful and victorious conclusion. For his Four Songs on Shakespeare Sonnets, Oakley “drew inspiration… from the musical language of Shakespeare’s era, so that each song would somehow become a bridge connecting the Renaissance with modernity.” His mentor and friend Richard Danielpour has written that “George Oakley’s music is always highly expressive, inevitable without ever being predictable, and speaks to the heart as well as the mind.”