MORTEN LAURIDSEN RECEIVES NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS

Morten Lauridsen's tremendous contribution to the choral music of our time was honored by the 2007 National Medal of Arts at a White House ceremony on November 15. The official announcement cited Lauridsen's "radiant choral works combining musical power, beauty and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide."

We are proud of our long association with Morten Lauridsen, and delighted that he is receiving this honor he so richly deserves.

More on Morten Lauridsen and his music.

More on the National Medal of Arts.

John Musto and Mark Campbell have extended their creative collaboration that began in 2004 with the comic opera Volpone. Now comes Later the Same Evening, inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper. The Marlyland Opera Studio production ran from November 15-18 at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Leon Major directed; Glenn Cortese conducted. Review and more on the opera.

INTRODUCING JEAN-LOUIS AGOBET

We welcome composer Jean-Louis Agobet to our catalog. Born in 1968, Agobet studied in Nice, Aix-en-Provence, and Lyon. He is active as a lecturer and teacher in Europe as well as Japan and Hong Kong, and has served as composer-in-residence for the National Orchestra of Montpellier and the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra.

Agobet is in the middle of an impressive run of premieres that dot the French landscape, starting this past summer with Concerto Scorrevole for horn and orchestra in Avignon. Four more premieres take place over the next half year: on January 18, Exo for two sopranos and orchestra, by the Orchestre National de France, Kristjan Jarvi conducting, in Toulouse; February 12-14, In Triple Time for string quartet, in Caen, performed by l'Ensemble de Basse-Normandie; April 16, a quintet for the Alternance Ensemble in Paris; finally, on May 11, Sectio for large ensemble appears on the last concert of the Presences festival in Paris at the Cité de la Musique, by the Tokyo Sinfonietta, Yasuaki Itakura conducting. Both Exo and Sectio are Radio France commissions.

PREMIERE RECORDINGS

Ned Rorem Piano Concerto No. 2; Cello Concerto
Composed for Julius Katchen in Morocco in 1951, the Second Piano Concerto was hailed at its premiere in 1954 but lay dormant for over 50 years. Brian Mulligan takes the solo part; Jose Serebrier leads the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The Dallas Morning News calls it "jazzy, sassy, sweetly melodic and utterly delicious."
Naxos 8.559315

Mieczyslaw Weinberg
Violin Sonatas of Shostakovich and Weinberg includes Weinberg's Sonatas No. 3 and 4. Kolja Blacher, violin, Jascha Nemtsov, piano
Haenssler Classic 93.190

Mieczyslaw Weinberg
String Quartets Vol. 1,
including String Quartets No. 4 and 16.
Quatuor Danel
cpo 777 313-2

COMPOSER COMMEMORATIONS

2009 brings the 50th anniversary of the deaths of two 20th century composers whose voices were stongly inflected by their native countries: Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos(1887-1959) and Czech Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959). Peermusic publications of these two composers are listed here and here.