Hymn to the Desert, No. 8 (final piece) in Kalahari Kaleidoscope, suite for cello and piano plus vocals, by Carol Ann Weaver, was composed in the Kalahari, Nov-Dec, 2023, completed in Ontario, 2024. The piece sings to the glory of the Kalahari Desert, to its land and to its skies. Concert performance at Grebel/UWaterloo, Canada, Nov. 13, 2024, Mary-Catherine Pazzano, soprano; Ben Bolt-Martin, cello; Carol Ann Weaver, piano. Photo, CAWeaver, Kalahari, 2023.

Hymn to Desert

Mystery Sonata (2023) for cello and piano

(in memory of my mother, Harriet Brantley)

I. “…if there are any heavens…” 
(2nd and 3rd movements found in separate files)

performed by cellist Laura Metcalf and pianist Steve Beck at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University

Mystery Sonata: 1. “…if there are any heavens…”

Mystery Sonata (2023) for cello and piano

(in memory of my mother, Harriet Brantley)

II. Scene with Intermedia 
(1st and 3rd movements found in separate files)


performed by cellist Laura Metcalf and pianist Steve Beck at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University

Mystery Sonata: 2. Scene with Intermedia

Mystery Sonata (2023) for cello and piano

(in memory of my mother, Harriet Brantley)

III. Ricorso
(1st and 2nd movements found in separate files)

performed by cellist Laura Metcalf and pianist Steve Beck at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University

Mystery Sonata: 3. Ricorso

ROAR is a piece for cello and piano written by Los Angeles-based composer Hannah Rice (www.hannahricemusic.com). The work was commissioned by and dedicated to cellist Dr. Eduard Teregulov and pianist Dr. Albina Khaliapova as part of the expansion of the cello repertoire in the 21st century project.

Performed by Eduard Teregulov, cello, and Albina Khaliapova, piano

ROAR by Hannah Rice

Tesla Fantasy is a piece for cello and piano written by composer from Ufa, Alina Akhmetova. The work was commissioned by and dedicated to cellist Dr. Eduard Teregulov and pianist Dr. Albina Khaliapova as part of the expansion of the cello repertoire in the 21st century project.

Performance by Eduard Teregulov, cello, and Albina Khaliapova, piano
Recording by Eduard Teregulov

Tesla Fantasy by Alina Akhmetova

This is a landscape in music. Gomersal lies on the edge of South Australia’s Barossa Valley, just west of Tanunda. Its gently rounded hills and valleys, shaped by Gomersal Creek, are overlooked by the higher hills of the Barossa Range to the southeast, which curve away further south to the distant Adelaide Hills. The sky feels unusually large and close here, particularly when bobs of fluffy cloud are floating overhead.

The piece is in 6 connected movements:

1. Sky and Land
2. Ngadjuri Country
3. German & Prussian Settlers
4. Pastorale
5. Bitumen
6. The Sky and the Land Endure

'Gomersal' was commissioned by Nat Schmaal in memory of her husband Ian, a direct descendant of the first German settlers of Gomersal in the 1850s.

This demo recording was made by Jakub Jankowski (cello) and David John Lang (piano).

Gomersal: An Appreciation

Cellist Zlatomir Fung's debut recording for Signum Classics revisits the popular 19th-century genre of operatic fantasies and brings it up-to-date with two 21st-century examples composed especially. Fung's own fantasy on Janáček's searing opera Jenůfa and Marshall Estrin's Fantasia Carmèn join rediscovered gems from the French repertoire (although both by Italian composers) - Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment (arranged by Adrien-François Servais) and Rossini's Guillaume Tell (arranged by François George-Hainl) - and both German and Russian repertoire - Wagner's Meistersinger (arranged by August Wilhelmj) and Tchaikovsky (arranged by Mikhail Bukinik). BBT is proud to support this recording, on which Fung is joined by pianist Richard Fu.

Donizetti arr Francois Servais Fantasie et Variations La Fille du Regiment (end)

Janacek arr Zlatomir Fung Fantasy on Jenufa (start)

Tchaikovksy arr M Boukinik Lensky's Aria from Eugene Onegin (excerpt)

In recent years Paul Brantley’s compositions have been performed or commissioned by The Knights (at Tanglewood, BRIC, Dumbarton Oaks and Naumburg Concerts), Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, Horszowski Trio, Flux Quartet, New Esterházy Quartet, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, U.C. Berkeley Chamber Chorus (on tour), Monadnock Music Festival, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, St. Bartholomew's Summer Festival of Sacred Music, The Young People’s Chorus of NYC, Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (NYC’s Town Hall), Left Bank Ensemble (Kennedy Center), Ethel (Kimmel Center), Excelsior Trombone Ensemble (NPR’s Performance Today), The Goliard Ensemble on tour, The Manhattan School of Music Symphony, Belladonna (Schubert Club, St. Paul, MN), L’Opera du Village (Pourrieres, France), SONYC (the Kitchen), and as featured composer on these various series: Bargemusic, Ecstatic Music (Merkin Hall), The Harry Jacobs Chamber Music Society, HVG, North River, MOSA and Concerts in the Heights. 

His cello concertino, The Royal Revolver, was premiered in December 2017 by cellist Eric Jacobsen (The Knights, Silk Road Project) and members of The University of Michigan Symphony conducted by Kenneth Kiesler. The Washington Heights Chamber Orchestra will give 25th anniversary performances of On the Pulse of Morning this May, with Abigail Fischer, soprano, Spring 2021. It was recently announced that Brantley is one of three winners of the Aliénor Composition Competition sponsored by the Historical Keyboard Association of North America to compose a new full-length piece for solo harpsichord. Boyd Meets Girl recently gave the premiere of Filles de l’Elysee which will featured on their forthcoming CD.

Paul is a six-time MacDowell Colony Fellow who has also received fellowships from Banff Centre and Anderson Center. Brantley has been composer-in-residence for Monadnock Music Festival, Gabriel Fauré Conservatoire (Angoulême, France), Goliard Ensemble, Yara Arts Group, The Seal Bay Festival, Children’s Choral Celebration, Sewanee Music Festival, Washington and Lee University, and the Sophia Institute at Union Theological Seminary in NYC. He has given composition seminars at Yale School of Music, Hunter College (Anthropology Dept.), and The University of Michigan School of Music.

Multifaceted musician, Brantley has performed or recorded as solo cellist with Trey Anastasio (Phish), Cantata Profana, CITH, Cassatt Quartet, Jeff Coffin Mutet, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Dave Gregory (XTC), Heartbeat Opera, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Lenny White, and SONYC. Brantley has arranged and conducted for David Binney, Ethel, Todd Rundgren, and Christian Scott.

Paul studied at Manhattan School of Music (B.M), Curtis Institute (diploma), Eastman School of Music (M.M.) as well as Fontainebleau, Tanglewood, and The Yellow Barn where he was later artist faculty. His principal teachers include Samuel Adler, Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Eicher, Alan Harris, David Loeb, Ned Rorem, and David Wells.

He co-founded the Seal Bay Festival of American Music and was artist faculty at Yellow Barn Music Festival for many years. In addition to positions at Syracuse University and Washington and Lee University, Brantley was a Manhattan School of Music faculty member from 2000 to 2014.

Paul Brantley currently resides in New York City where he free-lances as a composer, cellist, and conductor. His music is published by Bill Holab Music and Oxford University Press. He has recorded solo cello for Sony/Columbia, Rounder, Warner Bros., Polydor, Compass, and others.

Internationally acclaimed cellist and recording artist.

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