Grammy® Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller and the Albany Symphony Release New Album with New York Roots.
Albany, NY [August 16, 2017] – The adventurous and intrepid Albany Symphony recently announced the release of its latest album featuring three new works by distinguished New York composer, George Tsontakis. Recorded in Troy, NY at the American Music Festival and the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, the album was released on August 11, 2017 by Naxos Records, the world’s largest independent classical music record label.
Tsontakis, a Grawemayer Award recipient and distinguished composer-in-residence at Bard College and Conservatory in Duchess County, New York, is a major American composer whose newly released album is a compilation of three dazzling never-before-recorded concertos for clarinet, trumpet, and violin. At the center of the album is True Colors, a two-part, jazz-tinged concerto that was commissioned by the Albany Symphony for its principal trumpeter Eric Berlin.
In addition to True Colors, the album features Anasa for Clarinet and orchestra, and Unforgettable for two solo violins and orchestra. Anasa builds upon a body of work inspired by Tsontakis’ passion for Greek art and culture. Composed for the legendary clarinet virtuoso David Krakauer and named after the ancient Greek word for "breathe," Anasa includes elements of Klezmer and dance themes inspired by traditional Cretan instruments. The third and final concerto presented on the album is a revision of a previous work commissioned by philanthropist and investor George Soros. Featuring violinists Luosha Fang and Eunice Kim, Unforgettable is a double concerto for violins and orchestra that balances meditative ballads with playful and buoyant gestures.
With over 28 commercially recorded albums including Conjurer, the Albany Symphony’s debut recording on Naxos that earned David Alan Miller a 2014 Grammy® Award, the Albany Symphony continues to solidify its national reputation as an incubator for American orchestral music while positioning upstate New York as a destination for international new music audiences.
The album is now available for sale at the Albany Symphony Box Office or for digital download on iTunes or wherever you purchase your music.