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The New York Philharmonic plays the music of Augusta Read Thomas, Jacob Druckman, and Stephen Hartke

Augusta Read Thomas (born 1964) began composing as a child, and in the course of four decades has become one of the most admired and feted of her generation of American composers. She honed her craft through studies at Northwestern University, Yale University, and the Royal Academy of Music in London, working with composer-teachers such as William Karlins, Alan Stout, and Jacob Druckman. In July 1990 she came to the attention of New York Philharmonic audiences when the Orchestra gave the world premiere of Wind Dance, composed the preceding year, on its Horizons series.

Since then she has completed commissions for symphonic works from many leading orchestras in the United States and abroad, including the Cleveland Chamber Symphony Orchestra (Vigil in 1990), the National Symphony Orchestra (Air and Angels in 1992, Manifesto in 1995, and Galaxy Dances in 2003), the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (Passions, 1998), the Berlin Philharmonic (Aurora, 1999), the Cleveland Orchestra (Song in Sorrow, for solo soprano, six additional solo female voices, orchestra, and chorus, 2000), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Canticle Weaving for trombone and orchestra, 2002), Norddeutscher Rundfunk (Chanting to Paradise for soprano, chorus and orchestra, 2002), and the London Sinfonietta (Light the First Light of Evening, 2002). In 1997 she was named composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position she will occupy until 2006. In that capacity she has advised the orchestra on new repertoire and has worked closely with the ensemble in creating a number of her own compositions, including …Words of the Sea … (1996) and Orbital Beacons (1998), both of which were premiered under the direction of Pierre Boulez; Ceremonial, which Daniel Barenboim led in 2000; and, most recently, Tangle, which the Chicago Symphony unveiled last season under David Robertson.

Although symphonic music occupies pride of place in her catalogue, Thomas has also distinguished herself in other genres, including chamber music and works for chorus and for wind ensemble. Her chamber opera Ligeia, set to a libretto by Leslie Dunton-Downer and derived from a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, was commissioned by Mstislav Rostropovich and Rencontres Musicales d’Evian and was premiered at the 1994 Evian Festival, with Mr. Rostropovich conducting. It was awarded the International Orpheus Prize. Thomas and Dunton-Downer are now at work on a second opera, titled Dreams in the Cave of Eros.

Thomas’s compositions tend to be overt in their expression and unmistakable in the import they wish to convey. The critic John von Rhein was quite on target when he wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “Thomas’s music, particularly her orchestral music, fairly explodes with an extroverted boldness of utterance audiences and musicians alike find challenging yet immediate. It’s music that doesn’t sound like anybody else’s—music that insists you pay attention.” The score of Gathering Paradise fairly teems with written exhortations such as “Heroic and bright,” “Energized,” “Enthusiastic and edgy,” “Timeless, smooth and resonant,” “Bold and passionate” —directives that are surely helpful to an interpreter but are also reflections of what is already embedded in the notes of the score.  

Thomas deeply appreciates the poetry of Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Most of Dickinson’s poems are marked by first-person narrative, subtle metrical shifts, idiosyncratically generous capitalization, and unpredictable punctuation heavy in dashes (although some lack punctuation entirely); they are typically epigrammatic, deceptively simple observations whose insights flash with sudden, blinding clarity. “Much present in the poetry of Dickinson is the idea of the proximity of the Eternal in the here and now,” Thomas remarks. “Like other visionaries she was not content to await Judgment Day for a glimpse of Paradise but, like William Blake, knew that it was visible if the doors of perception could be cleansed. She wrote in a poem: “Not ‘Revelation’ — ’tis — that waits, But our unfurnished eyes —”. 

In the five connected sections of Gathering Paradise (which together run just short of 30 minutes), Thomas sets five of Dickinson’s short poems in their entirety, sometimes repeating words or phrases and interpolating expostulations (for example, the ecstatic “ya’s” and “ha’s” in her setting of “How still the Bells . . .”). As one would expect of a composer of Thomas’s symphonic bent, the orchestration, which employs a large instrumentarium, vividly mirrors and subtly underscores the text.

Thomas has cited two comments by Emily Dickinson that she feels are particularly apt in relation to these orchestral song settings:

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”

Composer’s note

“Composing for voice is my first passion in life, and as a result the largest part of my catalogue is music for voice: solo voice, small groups of voices, small or large choirs, with and without orchestral or other kinds of accompaniments. For me, the human voice—possibly the most subtle, complex, and fragile, yet forceful, flexible, seductive, and persuasive carrier of musical ideas and meanings—has always been an inspiration for and influence upon my entire musical thinking. I sing when I compose. I adore reading poems, and cherish the opportunity to set them to music; and I believe that text plus music (1 + 1) must equal at least 24. If 1 + 1 = 2, there is no need, for me, to set the text to music.

Emily Dickinson’s poems are intensely personal, intellectual, introspective, and offer a meditation on life, death, and poetic creation; her poems share a close observation of nature as well as consideration of religious and philosophical issues. The poems used in Gathering Paradise are marked by the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are suggestive of hope and the possibility of happiness found in art and in the observation of the natural world.

These poems are all about light. We start with ‘gleam,’ ‘illumination,’ ‘fuse is lit,’ and work through ‘the Everlasting Clocks — Chime — Noon’ (when, in the middle of the composition, there is an actual kind of carillon-sounding orchestration to represent a clock striking 12 times). Then, at the end of the work, ‘Soft as the massacre of Suns,’ and, finally, ‘Image of Light, Adieu — ’. So there is a kind of cycle of light, from sunrise to sundown . . . or perhaps a birth to a death, the final words of the composition being ‘Impart — Depart — ’.”

Jacob Druckman (1928–1996) was one of the most honored composers of his time, having been awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships and a Pulitzer Prize. The latter he earned in 1972 for Windows, an orchestral piece that marked his transition from being a more-or-less orthodox proponent of mid-century abstraction (including, for a while, a profound interest in serialism) to a style that might incorporate harmonic and melodic elements related to the “mainstream” of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music. In 1978 he was elected to the Institute of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and two years later was named president of the Koussevitzky Foundation. In 1982 Druckman was appointed the New York Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence, a position he held through 1986; in that capacity he served as artistic director of the Orchestra’s Horizons new-music series, in 1983 and 1984, focusing on “The New Romanticism” (a popular term he is widely credited for originating) and “Music and Theater.”

Druckman’s upbringing was thoroughly musical: He studied piano and violin as a child, performed as a jazz trumpeter, and began composing his own music by the time he was fifteen. Aaron Copland took him on as a pupil at the Berkshire Music Center during the summer of 1949, and that autumn he entered The Juilliard School, where his composition teachers included Vincent Persichetti, Bernard Wagenaar, and Peter Mennin. In 1954 a Fulbright Fellowship enabled him to study with Tony Aubin at the École Normale de Musique in Paris, after which he returned to America to join the faculty at Juilliard, where he taught from 1956 to 1972. During that time he was also affiliated successively with Bard College, the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and Yale University. From 1972 to 1976 he taught composition at Brooklyn College, and then moved to Yale, where he would spend his remaining years as chairman of the composition department and director of the electronic music studio.

Druckman’s style is typically colorful but not ostentatious, often involving the listener with subtle suggestive or allusive qualities. Many of his works testify to his interest in the sound-world of earlier twentieth-century figures such as Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Mahler, and Schoenberg. “There are,” he said, “many things—orchestral color is a good example—that I consider intrinsic and structural in a piece that others would consider decorative. The whole concern of orchestral coloring is as central to me as sonata allegro form was to Mozart.” Many of his works include quotations from composers of the past, which are characteristically heard as if through a scrim, surrounded hazily by entirely modern, original halos. Titles such as Mirage, Chiaroscuro, Prism, Aureole, and Dance with Shadows accurately reflect this central element of his voice.

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its founding, the Tanglewood Music Center commissioned new works from five composers, all of whom had enjoyed some relationship with Tanglewood: Jacob Druckman, Lukas Foss, William Bolcom, David Lang, and Judith Weir. Druckman’s contribution, Summer Lightning, to some extent displays the fingerprint we have mentioned, particularly in its central section. In this case, however, the halo sets off not a quotation, but, rather, sudden outbursts from distinct instrumental voices, which we may take to represent the flashes of “summer lightning” itself, some of it “glimpsed” from a considerable distance. We might view this as related through its luminosity to one of Druckman’s earlier orchestral works, Aureole; of that work the composer has said that he “had the image of those sparklers that we used to get on the Fourth of July.”

Often Druckman’s works involve an element of conflict—indeed, of crashing contrast— between disparate forces. In Summer Lightning the conflict may be less titanic, but it is certainly present: the sudden divergence of electrical force from a background at once serene and tense. By the end of the piece the storm seems spent, and the work drifts away in a page of exquisite delicacy and apparent calm.

Composer’s note

Jacob Druckman prepared the following comment about Summer Lightning when the Boston Symphony performed its premiere, in 1991:

“Summer Lightning is the latest and perhaps most brazen step my music has taken in recent works toward simplicity and candor. At times I feel like some fate-driven Istar, shedding veils of complexity and sophistication, moving inexorably toward a blinding light of simple truth.

Stephen Hartke (born 1952) came of age when the serialism that had reigned over mid-twentieth-century music was being called into question by certain mainstream masters. One was George Rochberg, whose abandonment of twelve-tone serialism in favor of a reinvented “neo-Romanticism” set many tongues wagging in the mid-1960s. Hartke signed on to study with Rochberg as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania a decade later (having completed his undergraduate degree as a composition major at Yale) and was deeply affected by the possibilities this new aesthetic offered composers. Hartke proved to be open to a wide-ranging variety of musical influences, from Stravinsky to miminalism to the sounds of the Indonesian gamelan. Such a broad palette suggests a personal path in which Hartke has maintained profound rigor while expressing musical ideas that audiences do not find off-putting, which he considers an important responsibility of today’s composers. “It’s time to stop demonizing the [modern] composer as some sort of mischief-maker, confusing people in the concert hall,” he has said. “We composers write the music we do because we like it. We do it as an offering to intrigue, please, entertain, stimulate, and move.” 

Hartke’s music, both symphonic and chamber, has become widely performed: Among the orchestras that have programmed his compositions are the Moscow State Philharmonic, the Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (which he served as composer-in-residence from 1988 to 1992). He has received numerous prestigious honors, including a Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (1991) and grants or awards from the ASCAP Foundation, BMI, Chamber Music America, the Fulbright Senior Scholar program, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards, Meet the Composer, and the National Endowment for the Arts, in addition to a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Stoeger Award of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (the latter two in 1997). He currently serves as a professor of composition at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. 

His compositions typically inhabit a world of distinctive expression. His harmony seems to be based in tonality, although not in an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century way. One senses a tonal grounding at most moments in his music, and certainly one does not sense the pan-tonal aesthetic of Schoenberg at work; however, it is not always clear precisely what that tonal center may be. One might say that Hartke’s music sometimes proclaims tonality while shrouding its actual tonic note in ambiguity.  

Hartke’s orchestral sound is also not that of past centuries; he largely eschews the possibilities for out-and-out lushness that his forces would allow. His Symphony No. 3 (a 25-minute piece that unrolls in a single movement) provides a good case in point. The orchestra it requires is a full one, yet he often seeks transparency in his symphonic writing, to the extent that his use of the orchestra can sometimes seem austere. When he does use the full available forces, he sometimes tempers the expansive effect by imposing “curtailed” articulation, such as staccato or marcato. This has a way of making his orchestral climaxes all the more emphatic when he does let loose, in occasional effusions of lyricism. Says Hartke of his Symphony No. 3:

While I do let the orchestra rip here and there, I worked very hard to control the balances, using terraced dynamics and generally writing the orchestra above and below the singers but less often in their register. There are some discreet doublings here and there, but only of the occasional chord or pair of chords—which serves as a sort of lapidary coloration. The challenge I had to face in the finale was how to keep energy building without resorting to volume; I set up a series of phrases, punctuated by louder ritornelli, each accompanied by a very light though busy scoring (e.g., harp, contrabassoon, bass clarinet or piano, basses, and five solo violins), with a subtle rhythmic intensification pushing toward the finish.

Composer’s note

“The text is an Old English elegy, perhaps one of the oldest surviving Old English poems, from the eighth or ninth century. In it the poet describes the ruins of a Roman city (perhaps Bath), contrasting the decay he sees with imaginings of the splendor that once was. What is particularly striking is that it does not moralize, as later memento mori poems do, but rather celebrates the creative spirit of the city’s vanished inhabitants. 

The text is somewhat fragmentary owing to the age of the volume in which it was found and the damage it had sustained. Thus the poem fades in and out, and the actual ending is entirely missing (though the final surviving line, “That was spacious,” provides a satisfying close).  

The piece is cast in a single movement, but is clearly divided into four main sections: The slower ones (the first and the third) treat the descriptions of the ruined city, and the faster ones are the evocations of the greatness of the city at its height. 

Maestro Maazel invited me to consider creating a piece which might reflect on the anniversary of the September 11 attack. Shortly thereafter the idea of using this text came to mind because of the beautiful way it affords a broader historical context within which to view the crises of our own time. The resulting symphony is something of a sacred work, though from a humanist point of view.”

James M. Keller is program annotator for the New York Philharmonic. Reprinted by permission of the New York Philharmonic and the author.

Gathering Paradise: Emily Dickinson Settings (for Soprano and Orchestra)

“The gleam of an heroic Act”

“How still the Bells in Steeples stand”

“It’s like the Light”

“The longest day that God appoints”

“I dwell in Possibility — ”

“Soft as the massacre of Suns”

“Image of Light, Adieu — ”

Text for Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3

The Ruin

Anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, 8th–9th century C.E.; translated and adapted by the composer 

The gaps below reflect missing portions of the fragmentary text.

Broken are the roof-beams, cut away,   collapsed, undermined by age.

light of heart, gleaming with gold,   adorned with splendors,

On December 18, 2004, the New York Philharmonic gave its 14,000th concert—a milestone unmatched by any other orchestra in the world. Founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, the Philharmonic is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world. Under the direction of its celebrated music directors and conductors it has played a leading role in American musical life. Currently, the Orchestra plays some 180 concerts a year, most of them in Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center. Since its inception, the Orchestra has championed the new music of its time, giving the first performance of many important works, from Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World” (1893) to John Adams’s Pulitzer Prize–winning On the Transmigration of Souls (2002). The recording of the latter, released in August 2004, received three Grammy Awards, including for Best Classical Album.

The New York Philharmonic’s remarkable achievements in media have helped shape communications history. In 1922, it became one of the first orchestras to broadcast a live concert. Television and the Internet have further expanded the Philharmonic’s audience. In recognition of its outstanding contributions to the industry and American culture, the Orchestra was honored by The Recording Academy in February 2003 with a Trustees Award. Members of the Philharmonic also performed at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards, televised around the world from New York’s Madison Square Garden. It was the first time that a major symphony orchestra has performed live on the Grammy Awards.

The Philharmonic tours widely. From its first tour in 1882 through the 2004–05 season, the Orchestra will have performed in 416 cities in 57 countries on five continents. The 75th Anniversary European Tour in 2005, which commemorated the Orchestra’s 1930 European Tour with Arturo Toscanini, took the Orchestra to 13 cities and five countries.

Lorin Maazel, who has led more than 150 orchestras in more than 5,000 opera and concert performances, became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2002. His appointment came 60 years after his Philharmonic debut at Lewisohn Stadium, then the Orchestra’s summer venue. In the course of his first three seasons as Music Director, he conducted four world premiere–New York Philharmonic commissions, including the Grammy Award–winning On the Transmigration of Souls by John Adams; the complete Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos over a three-week period; and two free Memorial Day concerts at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. He also celebrated the Orchestra’s 160th birthday, and led the musicians on tours to Asia, three southern U.S. states, the American Midwest, and in residencies in Cagliari, Sardinia, and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival in Colorado. In autumn 2005 he led the Philharmonic’s two-part 75th Anniversary Tour to 13 cities and five countries, including three concerts in Dresden, Germany, as part of the rededication of the historic Frauenkirche.

Prior to his tenure as Music Director, Mr. Maazel conducted more than 100 performances of the New York Philharmonic as a guest conductor. He served as music director of the Bavarian Radio Orchestra (1993 to summer 2002), and has held positions as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1988–96); general manager and chief conductor of the Vienna Staatsoper (1982–84)—the first American to hold that position; music director of the Cleveland Orchestra (1972–82); and artistic director and chief conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (1965–71). He was named an honorary member of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1985 when he conducted its 40th anniversary concert. He is also an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic, and is the recipient of the Hans von Bülow Silver Medal from the Berlin Philharmonic.

Heidi Grant Murphy has appeared with many of the world’s finest opera companies and symphony orchestras, notably the Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival and Opéra National de Paris. She has been engaged as soloist with the Vienna, New York, and Los Angeles philharmonics, the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, and the Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, and National symphonies. She enjoys an active chamber music and recital career, and has performed throughout the United States and in London and Salzburg. Ms. Murphy’s other recordings include projects for Deutsche Grammophon, Delos, PS Classics, the New York Philharmonic’s Special Editions label, Arabesque, and three discs for KOCH International. Ms. Murphy resides in New York City with her husband and four children.

The Hilliard Ensemble is probably unrivaled for its formidable reputation in the fields of both early and new music. Its touring schedule includes appearances in Europe as well as regular visits to Japan, the United States, and Canada. The group’s 1988 recording of Arvo Pärt’s Passio began a fruitful relationship with both Pärt and the record company ECM. The group has more recently commissioned other composers from the Baltic States, including Veljo Tormis and Erkki-Sven Tüür, adding to a rich repertoire of new music written for the Ensemble by Gavin Bryars, Heinz Holliger, John Casken, James MacMillan, Elena Firsova, Stephen Hartke, and others. In 1994, Officium was released. This was the first of the group’s collaborations with saxophonist Jan Garbarek. A more recent collaboration titled Morimur with the violinist Christoph Poppen has been greeted with great acclaim. Concerts with major orchestras have included performances of Pärt’s Litany with the BBC Symphony Orchestra; a series with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; a premiere of Miroirs des Temps by Unsuk Chin, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Quickening, by James MacMillan, commissioned the BBC and the Philadelphia Orchestra; and Stephen Hartke’s Third Symphony with the New York Philharmonic.

Aureole. Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin conducting. New World Records 80318-2.

Chiaroscuro. The Juilliard Orchestra, Lukas Foss conducting. New World Records 80381-2.

Brangle, Counterpoise, Viola Concerto. Dawn Upshaw, soprano; Roberto Diaz, viola; The Philadelphia Orchestra, David Zinman, Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting. New World Records 80560-2.

Other Voices. American Brass Quintet. New World Records 80377-2.

Prism. New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta conducting. New World Records 80335-2.

String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3. Curtis Macomber, Carol Zeavin, violins; Lois Martin, viola; Fred Sherry, cello. Koch 7409.

Oh Them Rats Is Mean in My Kitchen. Michelle Makarski, Ronald Copes, violins. New World Records 80391-2.

Sons of Noah, Wulfstan at the Millenium. Lisa Stidham, soprano; Xtet, Donald Crockett conducting. New World Records 80568-2.

Symphony No. 2. Riverside Symphony, George Rothman conducting. New World Records 80533-2.

Tituli. Michelle Makarski, violin; Lynn Vartan, Javier Diaz, percussion; Andreas Hirtreiter, tenor; The Hilliard Ensemble, Donald Crockett conducting. ECM New Series 119236.

Augusta Read Thomas

Love Songs. Chanticleer. Teldec 3984-24570-2.

Meditation. Christian Lindberg, trombone; BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Grant Llewellyn conducting. BIS 788.

Pulsar, Incantation. Movses Pogossian, violin. Albany Records TROY 810.

Spirit Musings. Laura Russell, violin; Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Edwin London conducting. Albany Records 347

. . . Words of the Sea . . ., In My Sky at Twilight. Christine Brandes, soprano; Chicago MusicNOW Ensemble, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez conducting. ART 19952002 (self-published).

Other New York Philharmonic recordings on New World:

George Crumb. A Haunted Landscape. William Schuman. Three Colloquies for Horn and Orchestra. Philip Myers, horn; Arthur Weisberg, Zubin Mehta conducting. New World Records 80326-2.    

David Del Tredici. Steps, Haddock’s Eyes. Claire Bloom, narrator; Susan Narucki, soprano; Zubin Mehta conducting. New World Records 80390-2.

John Knowles Paine. Symphony No. 1. Zubin Mehta conducting. New World Records 80374-2.

John Knowles Paine. Symphony No. 2. Zubin Mehta conducting. New World Records 80350-2.  

George Rochberg. Oboe Concerto. Jacob Druckman. Prism. Joseph Robinson, oboe; Zubin Mehta conducting. New World Records 80335-2.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Symbolon, Concerto Grosso 1985. Zubin Mehta conducting. New World Records 80372-2.

Gagne, C. and Caras, T. “Jacob Druckman,” Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers. Metuchen, N.J., 1982: 153–62.

Jacob Druckman: A Complete Catalogue of His Works. New York, 1981.

Porter, Andrew. Music of Three Seasons: 1974–77. New York, 1978: 541 ff.

Tommasini, Anthony. The New York Times, May 27, 1996 (obituary).

Stephen Hartke

Griffiths, Paul. “Where Are America’s Young Composers?” New York Times, February 28, 1999.

Ross, Alex. “Hartke, Stephen.” New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition. London: Macmillan, 2001.

Schwartz, Elliott and Daniel Godfrey. Music since 1945. New York: Schirmer Books, 1992.

Tommasini, Anthony. “Composers Mining the Music of Their Youth.” New York Times, April 18, 1999.

Augusta Read Thomas’s Gathering Paradise: Emily Dickinson Settings (for Soprano and Orchestra) was composed in 2004, on commission from the New York Philharmonic, made possible by a generous gift from Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis with additional support provided by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust. It was premiered September 2004 at Avery Fisher Hall by the New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel conducting.

Jacob Druckman’s Summer Lightning was composed in spring 1991, on commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, supported by a grant from the AT&T Foundation, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Tanglewood Music Center; completed June 10 of that year in Milford, Connecticut; revised in August 1992. It was premiered July 19, 1991, at Tanglewood, in Lenox, Massachusetts, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa conducting. 

Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3 was composed in 2003, on commission from the New York Philharmonic and generously supported by Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis. It was premiered September 18, 2003, at Avery Fisher Hall by the New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel conducting.

Engineer and Digital mastering: Lawrence Rock

Stephen Hartke’s Symphony No. 3 was recorded September 18–23, 2003. Jacob Druckman’s Summer Lightning was recorded September 24–30, 2003. Augusta Read Thomas’s Gathering Paradise was recorded September 29–October 5, 2004. All three works were recorded in concert at Avery Fisher Hall, NYC.

Cover art, including size, gallery credit, date, format of art (pastel, etc):

Cover design: Bob Defrin Design, Inc., NYC

This recording was made possible by a grant from the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trust.

Herman E. Krawitz, President; Lisa Kahlden, Director of Information Technology; Paul M. Tai, Director of Artists and Repertory; Mojisola Oké, Bookkeeper; Anthony DiGregorio, Production Associate.

RECORDED ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN MUSIC, INC., BOARD OF TRUSTEES:

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Francis Goelet (1926–1998), Chairman

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