“This recording represents the core spirituality of my life. Since the early 1980’s, I have been writing choral music about spiritual unity – the unity that comes from knowing three basic things: 1) that there is one God for us all, 2) that the love of God is eternal and unconditional, and 3) that we are all Brothers and Sisters, eternal children of God and always loved unconditionally regardless of our actions in a given lifetime on Earth. Communicating this message, and related messages, became my main mission, and I proceeded to seek out or write texts that I thought would best communicate this message to my audiences, and set these texts to music. This recording contains several of my best compositions in this vein, including three of the six “universal masses” to date (the other three masses appear on Missa Universalis, Soundbrush 1002).” ROGER DAVIDSON

All compositions by Roger Davidson – Musica Universalis Publishing (BMI)

The New York Virtuoso Singers
Harold Rosenbaum, conductor

Jo-Anne Steinberg: clarinet
Matthew Dine: oboe, English horn
Seth Baer: bassoon

Recorded at the Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, January 13-15 2013
Recorded and edited by Adam Abeshouse

The solo piano pieces on this CD show what happens when Roger, in a reflective mood, simply lays his hands on the keys. The influences of a lifetime flow through him. You may hear nods to Gershwin, Jobim, and Ravel, and to the wealth of styles he has absorbed in his travels. The album, he says, is “not just a journey of the spirit; it’s an intuitive journey around the world. When you have the right color 
and the right kind of brush to express a feeling or a quality of life, it instinctively comes up and becomes part of the fabric of each piece.”

Release Date: JUNE 10, 2014

Rhapsody for Trumpet, Strings, and Percussion Jeffrey Silverschlag, trumpet London Symphony Orchestra, Kirk Trevor, conductor from Mandala, MMC 2131

The new face of contemporary choral music. Featuring works by Davidson and McKinley performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Choir (Kirk Trevor, conductor)

enThe eclectic PERSPECTIVES double disc set, spanning over two hours of music, is sure to enchant listeners and place them in the purview of some of today’s most evocative modern American composers- featuring 11 in all on this release from MMC.

“English Suite” by Roger Davidson finds the accomplished MMC composer/ pianist paying respect to his lifelong kinship with English country dance music through 5 sweeping movements written for String Orchestra.

NEW AMERICAN WORKS FOR CLARINET features compositions by Jonathan Sacks, Roger Davidson, and William Thomas McKinley as recorded by Richard Stoltzman, the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, and conductor Carl St. Clair.

FROM THE LINER NOTES:

Breath tranformed to tone. A thin sliver of bamboo vibrates, fingers flash, and composers call each of us to hear sounds emanating from their souls. For me, this MMC recording represents the sixth CD in a journey to learn and perform music for clarinet written by over twenty-five American composers. This odyssey represents more than a decade of partnership with MMC and a lifetime of friendship with William Thomas McKinley.

The works on this CD seem to speak with me personally about openings into the unconscious; meditation on basic intervals of tension, poignancy, and resignation; qualities of sadness; and the weirdly weaving whirls with our partners in life’s dances.

– Richard Stoltzman, 2007