Two things propelled the re-emergence of the keyboard double concerto. One of them was the revival of interest in early classical and baroque music. The other was the emergence of the piano duo, those popular and virtuosic two-piano teams that captured a big audience and toured widely. Some of these duos became superstars: Vronsky & Babin, Gold & Fizdale, Whittemore & Lowe, Luboshutz & Nemenoff are still remembered as masters of their trade and it is due to them and others like them that this new piano-and-orchestra repertoire was created. And this is the tradition that Joshua Pierce and Dorothy Jonas have revived and carried forward as the successors to those virtuosic piano duos of another era. It is logical that Pierce & Jonas have recorded – and, in some cases unearthed and revived – these masterpieces of 20th century two-piano-and orchestra repertoire. This 2-CD album containing seven of these works constitute the first volume; there will be six more in the forthcoming 2-CD second volume, making a bakers dozen of works in all, an extraordinary collection of original works for this medium by an extra-ordinary piano duo working in a grand tradition.

Peter Davison has composed music scores for Indie Features, the History Channel, A+E, Biography, PBS, Warner Bros., Disney, Universal, Discovery, Gaiam (Yoga/Relaxation music) and others. Over 30 CDs of his music are on Universal/Higher Octave, Gaiam, Davisounds and TSR/Baja. His CDs “Meditate” and “Exhale” were both in the Billboard Top 10 New Age Albums.

William Grant Still (1895-1978) is celebrated as the “Dean of African American Composers.” He was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra and the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company. Summerland is the second piece of his Three Visions set.

"John Robilette begins his unusual, somewhat old-fashioned programme with two Bach transcriptions by Kempff (with a reminder in his informative booklet notes that Bach transcribed his and other composers' music long before 'transcriptions' became a dirty word). Instantly noticeable from Robilette's playing of Kempff's transcription of Bach's Siciliano is the sheer beauty and quality of tone he produces from his instrument.

The Chicago Gargoyle Brass was founded in 1992 by its Artistic Director, H. Rodney Holmes, as a chamber group of faculty and students at the University of Chicago, whose campus architecture boasts a charming variety of the ensemble’s namesake. By 2006, the ensemble had slowly professionalized and established a residency in the western suburbs at a major church with a full-time professional organist. Over the next five years, the group transformed itself into a specialized brass and organ concert ensemble, comprised of classically trained musicians, performing a wide variety of repertoire in an equally diverse range of settings. Well into its third decade, the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble maintains its position at the cutting edge of music for brass and organ, commissioning and performing new arrangements and compositions for that instrumental pairing.

ANDREW STETSON maintains a versatile career as a performing artist, clinician and educator. He also serves as Associate Professor of Trumpet at Texas Tech University, where he won the 2016 Hemphill-Wells New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award. As an orchestral musician, he has performed with the Alabama Symphony, Albany Symphony, Arkansas Symphony, Boston Philharmonic, Colorado Music Festival, Houston Symphony, Lubbock Symphony and Steamboat Springs Symphony. In addition to performances with the Texas Tech Faculty Brass Quintet, Stetson has performed with Boston Chamber Music Society and as part of the Monadnock Music Festival.

It all started with William Butler Yates' poem, The Wild Swans at Coole. One October day, as I was reading and reflecting on this wonderful poem, a melody for the opening line (The trees are in their Autumn Beauty) came to me. Several hours later, seated at the piano, I had written the opening to the song. In the following days, as I worked on it, the idea came up to write a song-cycle of poems on the subject of birds.