SKU: PR.41641542L

UPC: 680160632329.

Echoes of Silence was commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra for the American Music Festival of 2012 as part of the Capitol Region Heritage Commissions project. The work takes as its inspirations the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Albany, NY, and the Albany Symphony Orchestra. The Troy Savings Bank was founded in 1823 and was one of the more important music halls in early-twentieth-century America. It was honored with performances by many world-renowned artists, such as Vladimir Horowitz, Yehudi Menuhin, and Arthur Rubinstein. The title, Echoes of Silence, refers to the echoes of these and other artists' great performances, which one might imagine still resonate in the hall. If the hall had a voice, it would also sing of the all the wonderful masterpieces that were performed there in the past. The main idea of this piece is to reflect the sounds that were absorbed by the walls of this concert hall during the past century of live performance. Some of the main pitch materials are derived from Alexander Borodin's Symphony No. 2, a masterpiece that was composed in 1823, the same year as the founding of the Troy Savings Bank. The main thematic materials of Echoes of Silence are developed from many small musical motifs found in Borodin's symphony. Another source of material is Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, composed in 1930, the year in which the Albany Symphony Orchestra was founded. These borrowed materials are used as the main elements in maintaining the structural unity of Echoes of Silence. Because this concert hall has absorbed so much wonderful music from so many great performances, we can imagine even the smallest corner of the hall filling its silence with echoes.

SKU: HL.298905

ISBN 9781540059901. UPC: 888680955274. 9.0x12.0x0.556 inches.

This updated second edition features 100 songs from the silver screen in larger-than-usual fake book notation and all in the key of C. Songs include: Born Free • Chariots of Fire • City of Stars (from La La Land) • Endless Love • Footloose • Ghostbusters • Happy (from Despicable Me 2) • I Will Always Love You (from The Bodyguard) • Theme from Jaws • Let It Go (from Frozen) • A Million Dreams (from The Greatest Showman) • My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titanic) • Nine to Five • Over the Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) • Shallow (from A Star Is Born) • Singin' in the Rain • Summer Nights (from Grease) • (I've Had) The Time of My Life (from Dirty Dancing) • The Wind Beneath My Wings (from Beaches) • Yellow Submarine • and more.

SKU: ST.CN23P

ISBN 9790220225147.

Commissioned by the BBC as part of the celebrations for International Women's Day, and reflecting its theme of hope, Like a Singing Bird was premiered live on Radio 3 on 8 March 2015 by Sarah Connolly and the St Catharine's Girls' Choir, conducted by Edward Wickham. The distinctive vocal scoring features a small solo group of sopranos or mezzo-sopranos drawn from the upper-voice ensemble. The anthem is the first of three which are collectively entitled Echoes from Willow Wood, the second also being available in Choral Now. The text, Christina Rossetti's poem 'A Birthday', features in Virginia Woolf's classic essay A Room of One's Own, based on lectures delivered at Newnham College and at Randle's own Cambridge alma mater, Girton, an institution at the forefront of women's education for two centuries. Inspired by the clock in Girton's Stanley Library, the 'chiming rhythms' which are a driving force within the piece offer a further level of connection. The music moves from quiet anticipation to bright affirmation, the sense of something life-changing heralded by an Advent plainchant quoted in the second half. The final couplet is set apart in a hushed recitative, reflecting, in the composer's words, 'the hope I and other young female composers can have as we try to make our mark in what has traditionally been a male domain.'.