Albany Symphony Announces The Recording Release Of Two Major Works By Composer Christopher Theofanidis

The Albany Symphony has announced the release of its newest recording, featuring two gorgeous orchestral works by internationally acclaimed composer, Christopher Theofanidis. The new recording, on the Albany Records label, features violin soloist Chee-Yun and viola soloist Richard O'Neill. The breathtaking, on-the-edge of your seat pieces, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and Concerto for Viola and Chamber Orchestra, also highlight the brilliant musicians of the Albany Symphony, led by GRAMMY Award-Winning Conductor David Alan Miller.

The Concerto for Violin was recorded on June 4, 2017 at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, NY. The Concerto for Viola was recorded on January 8, 2018 at the legendary Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. Both Theofanidis and Miller are excited to share these recordings with music lovers around the world.

"This release is particularly meaningful to me," said Theofanidis, "since it is the first recording of both of these pieces, which date back 12 and18 years. Both works were very important for me personally. I just couldn't be happier with the way these recordings turned out."

"Christopher Theofanidis is one of our greatest living American Composers," said David Alan Miller. "He is a true orchestral master, who writes in the most idiomatic way for all the instruments, allowing them not only to sing, but to shimmer and glow in a way no one else can. His music is always deeply felt and expressed, and has a gorgeous lyricism reminiscent of of the great Samuel Barber. The Albany Symphony and I have been honored to have had a long relationship with him, and are even more honored to be able to bring these two remarkable concertos to a wide, international listening audience."

The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was written for Sarah Chang and the Pittsburgh Symphony. Theofanidis revised the piece in 2017. The first movement grows out of a strongly romantic sensibility, in which the soloist struggles against her environment. The second movement was composed after the birth of Theofanidis' daughter, Isabella, and its primary melody was written for her.

The final movement is short and fast, with wildly virtuosic twists and turns.

"I feel honored and humbled to have been given a chance to work with the great composer Christopher Theofanidis, fantastic Tonmeister Silas Brown, brilliant conductor David Alan Miller, and the wonderful musicians of the Albany Symphony," said violinist Chee-Yun. "Learning this concerto from the composer himself and then further exploring the piece with Maestro Miller, who has a special affinity with modern music, was an incredible experience for me."

The Concerto for Viola and Chamber Orchestra was written for Kim Kashkashian, who sent Theofanidis a collection of anonymous Navajo poems that shared a supernatural sense of nature and an extremely evocative, if often terse, vocabulary. The first movement, "Black Dancer, Black Thunder," is based on a three-note figure, Spartan but volatile- fire and earth.

The second movement, "In the Questioning," contrasts a melancholic tune in the soloist's part with a static background in the orchestra, representing a voice that questions, but receives no answer from the universe. The Viola Concerto was written during the period of 9/11, when Theofanidis was profoundly influenced by being in midtown Manhattan that day. This inevitably came out in the music, but in no place more directly than in the third movement, "The Center of the Sky."

At a memorial service held in Yankee Stadium after 9/11, a Sikh singer sang a melody which moved Theofanidis deeply and became the centerpiece of the movement, which ultimately leads into the fourth and final movement, "Lightning, with Life, in Four Colors Comes Down."

Violist O'Neill said, "Working with David, Chris, the wonderful musicians of the Albany Symphony, and Silas Brown was a dream. I strongly believe in Chris's amazing language and think that this viola concerto is an incredibly special and moving work. Thanks to David and the Albany Symphony for all of the work they do to make works like this available."

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