Chamber Concerto For Cello & 10 Players - Charles Wuorinen

 

Chamber Concerto / Ringing Changes

Chamber Concerto For Cello & 10 Players (Side One)

Charles Wuorinen, Conductor

Fred Sherry - Cello

The Group For Contemporary Music

The Group For Contemporary Music:

Fred Sherry - Cello

The Group Fro Contemporary Music

Harvey Sollberger - Flute

Josef Marz - Oboe & English Horn

Jack Kreiselman - Clarinet & Bass Clarinet

Donald MacCourt - Bassoon

Jeanne Benjamin - Violin

John Graham - Viola

Alvin Brehm - Double-Bass

Robert Miller - Piano

Raymond DesRoches, Richard Fitz, Claire Heldrich - Percussion

Ringing Changes, For Percussion Ensemble (Side Two)

Charles Wuorinen, Conductor

The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble

Raymond DesRoches, Director 

The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble

Raymond DesRoches, Director

Joseph Passaro - Vibraphone & Timpani

Marty Martini, Louis Oddo - Vibraphone

Dean Poulsen, Eugene McBride - Piano

Ken Hosley, Donald Mari - Drums

Matthew Patuto - Brakedrums

Doreen Holmes - Almglocken

Michael Moscariello - Cymbals

Vincent Potuto, Jr. - Tamtams

James Pugliese - String Drums & Chimes

Coordinator: Teresa Sterne

Art Direction: Robert L. Heimall

Cover Art: Herb Tauss

Cover Design: Paula Bisacca

Engineering: Marc J. Aubort, Joanna Nickrenz (Elite Recordings, Inc.

Mastering: Robert C. Ludwig (Sterling Sound, Inc.)

A Dolby-system recording

Nonsuch Records H-71263

1971

Form the back cover: Charles Wuorinen (b 1938 in New York) has to date composed nearly 100 works of all genres, and he is also active as performer, conductor, teacher, and writer. He holds degrees from Columbia University and an honorary doctorate from Jersey City State College and has taught at Columbia and Princeton Universities, the New England Conservatory, University of Iowa, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of South Florida.

In 1970, Wuorinen received the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his electronic work Time's Encomium. Other distinctions have included the Lili Boulanger Memorial Award, BMI-SCA Awards, Bearns Prize, Brandels University Creative Arts Award Citation in Music, Alice M. Ditson, and Guggenheim Fellowships; commissions from the Ford Foundation, Berkshire Music Center, Koussevitzky, and Fromm Music Foundations; and he has been honored by the American Academy of Arts & Letters.

Works by Charles Wuorinen have been issued in recordings by Acoustic Research, Advance, Cambridge, CRI, Golden Crest and Nonesuch. Time's Encomium was composed to a Nonesuch Records commission (H-71225, released July 1969).

In 1962, Charles Wuorinen, together with fellow Columbia University students Joel Krosnick and Harvey Sollberger, founded the Group for Contemporary Music. The motivation for its formation was the desire on the part of composers to exercise more direct control over the performance of their music and the conditions under which it was to be presented; the Group was the first of the active contemporary-music ensembles directed by composers who also played and conducted. With Sollberger and Wuorinen as co-directors, its first nine seasons of concert-giving were presented at Columbia University's McMillin Theatre, in cooperation with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. The Group also preformed frequently in major concert halls and on other campuses, as well as in numerous radio broadcasts and television appearances throughout the U.S.A. Since its inception, it has presented hundreds of new works – many of them world premieres and first New York performances.

Beginning with the 1971 - 72 season, the Group for Contemporary Music has become affiliated with the Manhattan School of Music. The Group has recorded for Acoustic Research, CRI, Epic, and Vox. This album marks its first appearance on Nonesuch.

Fred Sherry (b. 1948) has been associated with many of the principal new-music performance ensembles, including the Group for Contemporary Music, New York Composers Forum, Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and the recently formed Speculum Musicae (of which he is a founding member). He was a student of Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School of Music and made his New York recital debut in 1969. Mr. Sherry has performed abroad, including appearances in France, Italy, and Hawaii with the Juilliard Ensemble, and with Charles Wuorinen and Harvey Sollberger, presenting contemporary American music in a U.S. State Department tour of Cyprus and Greece. He has participated in recordings for CRI, Columbia, Philips, RCA Victor, and Nonsuch.

Raymond DesRoches (b. 1934) was a student of Paul Price at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received his Master of Art degree. A leading percussionist, he has been active as a member of the Group for Contemporary Music, the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and virtually every East-coast organization devoted to the presentation of new music. He has recorded for CRI, Columbia, Desto, Vanguard, and Nonesuch.

In 1968, DesRoches formed the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, consisting of students from William Paterson College, Rutgers University, and Jersey City State College (where he has been a member of the teaching faculties). In its first season, the Ensemble was invited by the Group for Contemporary Music to perform Varése's Ionisation in one of their programs at McMillin Theatre. Following this highly acclaimed debut, the Ensemble made return appearances in full concerts in the Group's 1970 and 1971 series, and it has presented an annual series of programs in the New Jersey colleges. Ringing Changes was composed for the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, and this recording of the work represents the Ensemble's record debut.