Among orchestras with recent recordings news is New York’s Albany Symphony Orchestra, which has released an all-John Harbison CD featuring The Great Gatsby Suite, Darkbloom Overture, and Closer to My Own Life, led by Music Director David Allan Miller, on Albany Records. The Austin Symphony in Texas has released its first commercial CD, a Bridge Records recording of music by American composer Edward Burlingame Hill (1872-1960) led by Music Director Peter Bay with Anton Nel as piano soloist. Featured on the recording are Hill’s Symphony No. 4, Concertino nos. 1 and 2 for Piano and Orchestra, and the Divertimento for Piano Orchestra. The Boston Modern Orchestra Project has released Irving Fine’s Complete Orchestral Works, led by Gil Rose, on its own BMOP/sound label. Featured on the CD are Fine’s Toccata Concertante, Notturno for Strings and Harp, Serious Song, A Lament for String Orchestra, Blue Towers, Diversions for Orchestra, and Symphony. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has released the album “Built for Buffalo” on its own Beau Fleuve label, featuring Music Director JoAnn Falletta leading Miguel del Águila’s Concierto en Tango for cello and orchestra, with BPO Principal Cellist Roman Mekinulov; Daron Hagen’s Songbook for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion, with former BPO Concertmaster Michael Ludwig; and Eric Ewazen’s Triple Concerto for Three Trombones and Orchestra with BPO trombonists Jonathan Lombardo, Timothy Smith, and Jeffrey Dee. The Houston Symphony has released The Earth—An HD Odyssey on DVD and Blu-Ray, the second installment of the orchestra’s HD Odyssey film trilogy, under Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada, featuring John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. HD Odyssey was developed in conjunction with filmmaker Duncan Copp and features images from NASA shuttle missions, satellites orbiting Earth, and the International Space Station. California’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra has released a recording of Haydn Symphony nos. 57, 67, and 68, on its house label, led by Music Director Nicholas McGegan. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has released Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 on the Reference Recordings label, led by Music Director Manfred Honeck. The San Francisco Symphony’s live recording of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 and Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, led by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, will be released on the orchestra’s SFS Media label on May 5. Musicians from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra are featured on the inaugural recording of Ricky Ian Gordon’s opera 27, on the Albany Records label. The opera—about the American expatriate couple Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas—was commissioned and premiered by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in June 2014, with Michael Christie conducting.
Posted April 15, 2015
