od y s s e i a acknowledgments Engineer: Thomas Allgood, Allgood Media Services, Marietta, Georgia The recordings were made at Allgood Media Services between January and May 2011. Cover Art: Ralph Gilbert: Aegean Dreams, oil on canvas Notes on the compositions provided by the composers. Publishers: Nickitas Demos (Tonoi VII, An Empty Blouse): Sylvan Lake Press (ASCAP) George Tsontakis (Three Sighs, Three Variations): Merion Music, Inc. Theodore Antoniou (Celebration XV): available directly from the composer Christos Samaras (Ultimum III): Papagregoriou-Nakas Music Publishing House (www.panasmusic.gr) Funding made possible through the generous support of the Center for Hellenic Studies and the School of Music at Georgia State University. www.albanyrecords.com TROY1413 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd Theodore Antoniou | Celebration XV | Nickitas Demos tel: 01539 824008 © 2013 albany records made in the usa ddd Tonoi VII | An Empty Blouse | George Tsontakis waRning: cOpyrighT subsisTs in all Recordings issued undeR This label. Three Sighs, Three Variations | Christos Samaras | Ultimum III the composers Christos Samaras (b. 1956) studied at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki, the University of Theodore Antoniou (b. 1935) studied at the National Conservatory and the Hellenic Conservatory Music and Fine Arts in Vienna and the University of Fine Arts in Berlin with Isang Yun. He is pro- in Athens, with further studies in conducting and composition at the Hochschule für Musik in fessor of composition in the Department of Music Studies at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. Munich, and the International Music Center in Darmstadt. After holding teaching positions at His awards include first prizes in the Foundation for Literature and Arts Composition Competition Stanford University, the University of Utah, and the Philadelphia Musical Academy, he became (Ministry of Culture, Athens), the ALEA III Composition Competition (Boston University) and Professor of Composition at Boston University in 1978. He is also director of the ALEA III the Macedonian Arts Company, among many others. His compositional work includes more than International Composition Competition, president of the Greek Composers’ Union since 1989, 160 compositions in almost all genres including symphonic works, chamber music, songs, choral director of the Experimental Stage of National Opera of Greece and director of the music depart- music and music for solo instruments. He has received performances throughout Europe, the ment of the Hellenic American University (H.A.U.) Many of Professor Antoniou’s compositions United States, Russia and Turkey. were commissioned by major orchestras around the world. He has received many awards and prizes, including the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship grants and the Richard Strauss Prize, as George Tsontakis (b. 1951) studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and Roger Sessions at the well as commissions from the Fromm, Guggenheim, and Koussevitzky Foundations, and from the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1978, and later with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di city of Munich for the 1972 Olympic Games. Santa Cecilia in Rome. His music has been performed and broadcast by major orchestras, chamber ensembles, and festivals throughout North and South America, Europe and Japan. In 1995, Nickitas Demos (b. 1962) holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from the Cleveland Tsontakis was honored with the Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Institute of Music, a Master of Music in Composition from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Pianist Stephen Hough’s recording of Tsontakis’s Ghost Variations on Hyperion Records was nominated Music and a Bachelor of Music in Clarinet Performance from the University of North Carolina at for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and was the only classical Chapel Hill. His principal teachers were Donald Erb (1927-2008) and Roger Hannay (1930-2006). recording among Time magazine’s 1998 Top Ten Recordings. In 2008, his Violin Concerto No. 2 Commissions include works for the Cleveland Orchestra, Atlanta Ballet, Atlanta Chamber Players, was also nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition. and the National Association of College Wind & Percussion Instructors. He is the recipient of He received a Vilar Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin in 2002, and the University of numerous grants and awards including a MacDowell Fellowship (2012), Grand Prize in the 2004 Louisville Grawemeyer Award for his Violin Concerto No. 2 in 2005. He was awarded the Charles Millennium Arts International Competition for Composers, Grand Prize in the 2005 Holyoke Ives Prize in 2007. A proficient conductor of orchestral and choral music, Tsontakis is the conductor Civic Symphony Composition Competition and 15 ASCAP Awards among others. Professor of and a founding director of the Contemporary Ensemble at the Aspen Music School, where he Composition and Coordinator of Composition Studies at the Georgia State University School of teaches composition and directs the contemporary music series. He was an assistant professor at Music, Demos is the Founder and Artistic Director of the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble. the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music in 1986–87, and has served on the faculty of Sarah Lawrence College. He also serves on the faculty of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Tsontakis’s music has been recorded by KOCH International, New World, and Opus One. the music Christos Samaras: Ultimum III Theodore Antoniou: Celebration XV Ultimum III for alto and soprano saxophone and piano is based on the creation of multiple forms Celebration XV is one of my 15 pieces with the same title written for specific occasions to celebrate of contrast that lead the listener to the conclusion that balance comes as a result of heterogeneous friends, ensembles and different events. The piece, written for a rather unusual instrumental elements. In this world of a sudden and unexpected circulation, all that we need is the reverse. In ensemble (flute, alto saxophone, violin and piano), has three distinct sections. It starts with an intro- the music, virtuosity and an unclear melodic process that surprise a listener is the opposite view of duction that suggests the material of the middle section. A folk-like theme that follows is, in reality, a warm, melodic and lyric process. The piece is divided into four sections that create couples of written by adding a higher step to the beginning motive (f-e-f-d, e-f-g-e-f-d, e-f-g-a, e-f-g-a-b-flat contrasting elements. These sections include: the sudden; in front of the calm melodic line, the quick etc.). It is a theme that I used varied in two of my previous works, Octet, for wood wind quartet tempo; in front of the slow, the unexpected element; and in front of the simple needful. Under each of and string quartet (1986) and Concerto for Strings (1992). The piece, like most of my works, has these thoughts, the music grows with dissonant and consonant intervals, with very quick movements a virtuoso character and at the same time is trying to expose and use some idiomatic instrumental and slow lyric melodic lines and with the use of tonal and atonal elements. The main characteristic techniques. The piece is dedicated to the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble, who premiered it on in the building of musical thought in the melody and the harmony is the semitone. March 16, 2010, and to my colleague and friend Nickitas Demos, who initiated this piece. Nickitas Demos: An Empty Blouse (text: Helen by Giorgos Seferis; trans. Dr. Gregory Jusdanis) Nickitas Demos: Tonoi VII An Empty Blouse marks the third collaboration between myself and the noted scholar, Dr. Gregory Tonoi VII is the seventh in an ongoing series of works for solo performers. Although presented in Jusdanis, Director of Modern Greek Studies at Ohio State University. This work is a translated one contiguous movement, the work is divided into clear sections. It was written in a linear fashion setting of the poem, Helen, by Giorgos Seferis (1900-1971) a Nobel Laureate and one of the most — beginning with the first measure and writing straight through to the last with no insertions of important Greek poets of the 20th Century. The musical setting is darkly introspective throughout sections, composing a later section before an earlier section, etc. As harmonic and melodic materials and moves back and forth between sung pitches and spoken dialogue that is both reminiscent of a presented at the beginning of the piece develop throughout, each section moves further away from Greek chorus (albeit simply a single person in this case) and also serves to help delineate the thoughts the original statement. The game that I set-up up for myself is to figure out a way to return to the of the narrator. The text is through-composed, yet held together, nevertheless, by a recurring motive opening material no matter how far I have wandered. comprised of a perfect fifth. There is also a bit of text painting as the piece makes use of a solo flute line meant to represent the nightingales often quoted throughout the poem. The music is also George Tsontakis: Three Sighs, Three Variations imbued, at times, with Greek folk dance rhythms as well as subtle hints of Byzantine chant. Three Sighs, Three Variations was composed during a seven-month stay in Rome, where I was a student at L’Accademia di Santa Cecilia. They were meant to be musical postcards, never mailed, but imagined to be sent to friends back home. The tiny pieces, composed of short, but expressive the performers gestures, are light in weight, but dark in color. They are truly sighs, which reflect brief pangs felt by Baritone W.