DiscoGlassy

Gloria Cheng

Piano Dance: A 20th-Century Portrait

2000

© GlassPages, 2000

Cover Picture

References

• Telarc 80549 (2000, USA).

Credits

• Recorded at Alfred Newman Recital Hall at the Flora L. Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California, November 27-28, 1999.
• Microphones: B&K 4006, Coles 4038.
• Microphone Preamplifiers: FM Acoustics, Millennia Media.
• Digital Processor: Prism AD2 24-Bit ADC.
• Console: Ramsa DA7.
• Speakers: ATC SCM50A.
• Interconnecting Cable: MIT, Monster.
• Digital Editing: Sonic Solutions.
• Piano: Steinway, courtesy of Fields Pianos, West Los Angeles.
• Piano Preparation: Ron Elliott.
• Recording Producers: Gloria Cheng, Fred Vogler.
• Recording Engineer: Fred Vogler.
• Executive Producer: Robert Woods.
• Editor: Mark Agostino.
• Production Assistance: Sonny Ausman, Erica Brenner, Dave Bryce, Steve Kaplan, Mike Lang, Garby Leon.
• Mastered at Telarc by Esther Luna.
• Photography: Martin Cohen.
• Cover Design: Jim Burt, Burt and Burt Studios.
• Art Director: Anilda Carrasquillo.
• Philip Glass's "Modern Love Waltz" published by Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc. (ASCAP).
• © 2000 Telarc.

Tracks

1. Joan Huang "Red Ribbon Dance from Reflections after a Rainbow" (1:04).
2. William Albright "Sleepwalker's Shuffle from Dream Rags" (3:41).
3. Claude Debussy "Golliwog's Cakewalk from Children's Corner" (3:00).
4. Samuel Adler "Like a Tarantelle from The Road to Terpsichore" (1:59).
5. Paul Hindemith "Shimmy from Suite 1922" (3:36).
6. Bahuslav Martinu "Polka in E major" (1:54).
7. György Ligeti "Hungarian Rock for harpsichord (Chaconne)" (4:47).
8. Béla Bartók "Rumanian Dance, Op. 8a, No. 1" (3:55).
9. Igor Stravinsky "Tango" (4:12).
10. Samuel Barber "Hesitation-Tango from Souvenirs" (3:34).
11. Per Norgard "A Tortoise's Tango (Without Jealousy)" (3:09).
12. Leo Ornstein "Waltz No. 7" (3:49).
13. Alexander Scriabin "Mazurka in D-flat major, Op. 40, No. 1" (1:41).
14. Francis Poulenc "Valse-Improvisation sur le nom de BACH" (1:34).
15. Maurice Ravel "Waltz IV from Valse nobles et sentimentales" (1:14).
16. George Antheil "Percussion Dance from La Femme de 100 Têtes" (1:37).
17. Philip Glass "Modern Love Waltz" (3:38).
18. Henry Cowel "Lilt of the Reel" (2:11).
19. Sergei Prokofiev "Rigaudon from Ten Episodes for Piano, Op. 12" (1:31).
20. Federico Mompou "Canción y Danza, No. 6" (3:40).
21. Alberto Ginastera "Danzas Criollas, No. 1" (2:09).
22. Donald R. Davis "Illicit Felicity" (4:10).
23. Miguel del Aguila "Conga" (9:26).

Total Time 1:12:07.

Notes

Dance mirros the movement of life itself, and, like life, is constantly renewed. This Telarc recital by Gloria Cheng brings together a wide variety of concert compositions by many of the leading modern composers which embody the vitality, the dynamic spirit, and the many guises of dance in the twentieth century.

Philip Glass (b. 1937) has won a place for himself among the most successful composers of the late twentieth century with "minimalist" works constructed from slowly changing, repeated common chords in hypnotic rhythms, often overlaid with a lyrical melody in long, arching phrases. His Modern Love Waltz was written in 1977 for the "Waltz Project", a collection of contemporary waltzes solicited from twenty five composers by Robert Moran and the publishing house of C. F. Peters.

Gloria Cheng has appeared as a soloist and chamber artist at major festivals worldwide, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland, Ars Musica Brussels, Tanglewood, Ojai Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and Festival der Kunste Bad Gleichenberg in Austria. As a favorite guest artist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its New Music Group, Ms. Cheng has been featured in concerts honoring Elliott Carter, György Ligeti, Toru Takemitsu, Pierre Boulez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Adams, Witold Lutoslawski, and many others. She has twice been featured with the New Music Group at Alice Tully Hall, and appeared with the LA. Philharmonic in December 1 998 performing Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques and Couleurs de la cité céleste under the direction of Zubin Mehta.

She enjoys a close association with the Ojai Music Festival, having been engaged first in 1989, and again in 1992 and 1996 as a featured soloist at the special request of music director Pierre Boulez. In 1992 she won the performer competition of the League of Composers-ISCM, culminating her New York debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in February 1993. She was a longtime member of the California E.A.R. Unit and Xtet, and appears annually on the Piano Spheres concert series in Pasadena. The composers who have written for her include John Adams, Mark Applebaum, Pierre Boulez, Don Davis, Joan Huang, David Raksin, Terry Riley, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Chinary Ung, and Andrew Waggoner. Ms. Cheng's first solo CD of music by Olivier Messiaen was released in 1995, and her second, Piano Music of John Adams and Jerry Riley, was released by Telarc in June 1998. She has an economics degree from Stanford University, and graduate degrees in music from UCLA and USC. Her major teachers were Isabelle Sant'Ambrogio, Aube Tzerko, and John Perry.

- Richard E. Rodda

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