a song by David Krane and Stephen Cole sung by Rebecca Luker on the occasion of Alice Hammerstein's 90th Birthday

ALICE'S SONG

The HS of Music and Art graduation at Carnegie Hall,
Premiere: June 25, 1969

Celebration - A Liturgical Experience by David Krane

Original Theme for Broadway play by David Krane

The West Side Waltz

Samples from "The Road to Qatar"; visit davidkrane.com for more info

Good Things Come in 3's

The Road to Qatar | Title Song

Here's Looking At You

Oh, What A Show!

Arkansas Symphony*
Philip Mann, Conductor | Ted Ludwig, Guitarist
Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra: Katrina  
Duration c. 25 minutes.
Live Recording, April 2016
*with permission

Score: https://issuu.com/d.j.sparr/docs/00_sparr_jazzguitarconcerto_conduct 

D.J. Sparr’s Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra: Katrina is a work that draws as inspiration metaphors from epic poems as a connection to victory in the face of overwhelming odds. Written for Ted Ludwig, a refugee of Hurricane Katrina who now lives in Little Rock, it ties our understanding of a horrific tragedy to the story of the Great Flood. In this tale, the protagonist character—known in different cultures as Ziusudra, Gilgamesh, or Noah—manages to escape the rising floodwaters and find redemption and strength in a new home. Sparr ties the ancient to the modern by mixing element s of ancient Sumerian string music with quotations of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps and Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie’s When the Levee Breaks (which was inspired by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927).
 
Recalling a conversation between Mr. Ludwig and himself, the composer says:
 
He described to me the moment he left New Orleans. It was beautiful day. In fact, he said, “one of the most beautiful days you could imagine, but we all knew to get out of there.” That day inspired the opening of the piece. Ringing bells and triangles lead to strings entering playing overlapping chords from Giant Steps. I thought it was an appropriate metaphor for the personal struggle to leave home behind.
 
The soloist improvises over long sustained chords representing the rising sun and sky, but with elements of rain-drops hovering above and strings of Tibetan bells in the background. Following this is the first articulation of a written out melody, loosely based on When the Levee Breaks. As the work progresses, there is a close association with Noah’s tale: an evocation of floating for long spans and the release of birds to search for land. The conclusion, described in the score as “The Temple of Enki at Erdu,” refers to one of the most important cult centers throughout the history of Mesopotamia, purportedly visited not only by worshipers, but by the deities themselves. In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the water god Enki. Like all the Sumerian and Babylonian gods, Enki began as a local god, who eventually came to share the rule of the cosmos. His kingdom was the sweet waters that lay below Earth. As this is the place where flood myth’s protagonist finally finds his home and strength, so too is it a metaphor for Ted Ludwig finding his home in Little Rock.

*Note by Jacob Wallace

Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra: Katrina

2018 GRAMMY® Award, Best Classical Compendium. Kenneth Fuchs, one of America’s leading composers, celebrates his unique fifteen-year recording history with conductor JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra with this stunning release of concerti for alto saxophone, electric guitar, and piano, and an orchestral song cycle for countertenor on poems of Judith G. Wolf. Fuchs’s music continues to find its striking visual counterpart in the work of American Abstract Expressionist artist Helen Frankenthaler, whose art has adorned the covers of all his LSO discs for Naxos.

American Symphonic School. Copyright © 2018 Naxos Digital Services Ltd. Copyright © by Piedmont Music Company. Administered by Edward B. Marks Music Company. Used by permission.

Rush (Concerto for Alto Saxophone); Timothy McAllister, soloist

In honor of the 90th birthday of the late Alice Hammerstein Mathias, sung by Rebecca Luker with David Krane at the piano.

Krane/Cole

Alice's Song by Stephen Cole & David Krane

Kenneth Fuchs’s fifth Naxos recording with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta won the 2018 GRAMMY® Award in the category Best Classical Compendium. He has composed music for orchestra, band, voice, chorus, and various chamber ensembles. With Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lanford Wilson, Fuchs created three chamber musicals, The Great Nebula in Orion, A Betrothal, and Brontosaurus, which Circle Repertory Company originally presented in New York City. Fuchs’s operatic monodrama Falling Man (text by Don DeLillo, adapted by J. D. McClatchy) was presented at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in commemoration of the 15th anniversary of 9/11. His music has achieved significant global recognition through performances, media exposure, and digital streaming and downloading throughout North and South America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia.

The London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, has recorded five albums of Fuchs’s music for Naxos American Classics, which have earned four GRAMMY® Award nominations.

Kenneth Fuchs serves as Professor of Composition at the University of Connecticut. He received his bachelor of music degree in composition from the University of Miami (cum laude) and his master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees in composition from The Juilliard School. Fuchs’s composition teachers include Milton Babbitt, David Del Tredici, David Diamond, Vincent Persichetti, and Alfred Reed. His music is published by the Hal Leonard Corporation, Edward B. Marks Music Company, Theodore Presser Company, and Yelton Rhodes Music, and it has been recorded by Albany, Cala, and Naxos Records.

Rush (Concerto for Alto Saxophone); Timothy McAllister, soloist

Kenneth Fuchs

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