• VIVA ITALIA! The Queen's Chamber Band - Gems from the Baroque (CD4011)
• The Deus Ex Machina Cycle - Music for voices and Baroque ensemble by Elodie Lauten (CD 4013)
• Radiance - Choral Music by Judith Lang Zaimont (CD4015)
• Waking in New York - Elodie Lauten (CD4023)
• Canticas y Madrigales - The Music of Luis Antonio Escobar (CD4024)

"This diverse program has a thread of logic connecting the elements. The composers are Italian, or were influenced by Italian style ... The performances are a delight. All of the vocals (Monteverdi, Gorzanis, Handel) are taken by Marshall Coid, who should become more familiar as news of his prowess gets around. He produces the powerful, yet unforced tone of a true countertenor...a disc for the adventurous who want to be surprised."

In 1762, John Christian Bach was appointed Music Master to England's Queen Charlotte Sophia, wife of "Mad" King George III. With a few close musical friends, the "London Bach" formed an ensemble to entertain Her Majesty in her private chambers - The Queen's Chamber Band . In this spirit of intimate, personal performance Elaine Comparone, "a harpsichordist with few equals" (The New York Times), has successfully recreated The Queen's Chamber Band with musical friends Marshall Coid, countertenor, Daniel Waitzman, flutes, Marsha Heller, oboe, Robert Zubrycki and Lori Miller, violins, Yari Bond, cello and Jerry Willard, lute and baroque guitar. The Queen's Chamber Band, in its modern incarnation, performs a superbly chosen, intimate program that combines breathtaking virtuosity, profound historical perspective and expertise and extraordinary musical sensitivity.

Available at ClassicalCDs.net or from 4Tay Inc. - 516-586-3433

"There's a compellingly ritualistic feel to the cycle; Lauten has found a kinship with the minimalists...a rich tapestry that discloses submerged patterns on repeated hearings"

"Deus Ex Machina...is a grand work that we are likely to return to again and again, combining post-minimal and pre-classical musics into a unified, spiritual whole, all colored by the use of 18th-century Velotti temperament...Lauten turns all to gold."

"The beauties of the entire work...are considerable.. There is very little that gives the recording away as being live, and the sound is very good. Recommended"

Elodie Lauten's "major opus, strikingly scored for Baroque ensemble with harpsichord, with the text chanted in a style reminiscent not of minimalism but of an exotic fusion of Stravinskian chinoiserie and the 17th century cantata: very beautiful." Kyle Gann, The Village Voice New Music for Baroque Ensemble from this internationally renowned composer, in a stunning live performance from New York's Merkin Hall, conducted by Mimi Stern-Wolfe and featuring harpsichordist Elaine Comparone, flutist Andrew Bolotowsky, baritone Thomas Buckner and many other star New York soloists. With inspiration and lyrics drawn from the words of Blaise Pascal, Steven Hall, Rainer Maria Rilke and Elodie Lauten herself, the Deus Ex Machina Cycle creates a unique sound world that grows out of what annotator John Schaefer calls "a synthesis of neo-Baroque and postminimalist musical styles". This large-scale, two-part work is very moving, deeply felt in its conception andexceptionally beautiful.

Elodie Lauten, whose Variations on the Orange Cycle was cited by Chamber Music Magazine as one of the 100 Reasons to Play This Century's Music, has created a distinguished body of work that has been performed in her native Paris, the US and Canada. She has been hailed by the Village Voice as "a composer of enchanting music, one of the most individual voices of the present generation."

Available at ClassicalCDs.net or from 4Tay Inc. - 516-586-3433

A glorious new recording of choral music by one of America's finest composers, Judith Lang Zaimont. Three works from the 1970s - The Chase (with the composer's own poetic text), Sunny Airs and Sober (set to poetry by Shakespeare, Shelley and Robert Herrick) and the dramatic and moving Excerpts from Sacred Service for the Sabbath Evening (text from traditional Jewish liturgy) are presented along with a newer work from 1997 Meditations at the Time of New Year in a radiant program of luminous performances by the renowned Choral Music Society of Southern California, conducted by Nick Strimple.

Featured performers include alto Kimball Wheeler, baritone Joel Pressman and pianist/organist Mark Hilt. This joins Ms. Zaimont's other 4Tay disk, Summer Melodies (CD4001).

"This new release is devoted to (Judith Lang Zaimont's) sacred and secular choral music, mainly from the 1970's and is written in an immediately accessible melodic style. Sunnay Airs and Sober...The five texts are supplied by Shakespeare, Shelley, and Gay/Herrick, with the music graphically picturing the words, and tempos nicely juxtaposed to create a well-balanced cycle of works.

The Choral Society of Southern California is obviously a very fine choir, with a good and just balance of male and female voices.
Zaimont's scores are rooted in the tonal music of the Romantic era...(these works) will delight those who believe that music should be readily accessible to performers and listeners. The recording quality is good, placing soloists, choir and accompaniment in a natural perspective."

Available at ClassicalCDs.net or from 4Tay Inc. - 516-586-3433

During the Summer of 1996, only a few months before his death, the late Allen Ginsberg put together a set of poems on the theme of New York, as suggested by Elodie Lauten for a musical setting. The poems he selected, from Cosmopolitan Greetings 1986-1992, Collected Poems 1947-1980, and White Shroud Poems 1980-1989 are highly autobiographical and reveal some of his most intimate thoughts.

Waking in New York is scored for baritone, soprano and mezzo soprano, percussion, double bass, string quartet and flute. The music closely follows Ginsberg's own flow of mental associations, which act as triggers of rhythm changes and key modulations.

"Despite the formality of its cantata-like structure, Waking in New York is certainly one of the most intimate large-scale vocal works ever written.(...) This is a large work for Lauten, but large works have become her metier; her recent Deus Ex Machina Cycle for singers and baroque ensemble was 100 minutes long ... Waking in New York's hovering harmonies, gentle but relentless momentum, and chantlike melodies remind one of another great vocal work, from the 1920s: Erik Satie's Socrate, based on the last words of Socrates.(...) It's worth remembering that Socrate was one of Frank Zappa's favorite pieces. Born in Paris, daughter of the jazz dummer Errol Parker, Lauten seems a legitimate heir to Satie's imperturbable aesthetic."

"Blues melodies, gospel and pop as a song cycle. (...) Waking in New York is actually a lovely, effective and affecting song cycle for vocal ensemble and orchestra. Ms. Lauten has treated Ginsberg's poetry and its underlying spirit carefully, even reverently. She tucked its personal and sometimes diarylike texts into her own agreeably melodic and ecclectic style, but she also appears to have listened carefully for traces of the music that animated Ginsberg's soul."

Available at ClassicalCDs.net or from 4Tay Inc. - 516-586-3433

Available at ClassicalCDs.net or from 4Tay Inc. - 516-586-3433