Stephen Foster, an American composer, fused spirituals, minstrelsy, and folk traditions into a distinct American song style, leading Harper's magazine to declare his melodies "our national music."
Composer Biography
Some composers featured on this album were born in America, while others immigrated from countries like Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, influencing American musical life.
Album & Artwork
This album features world-premiere recordings, making it the second in a series dedicated to promoting music by American composers from the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Composition History
The piece "To A Vanishing Race" by Charles Wakefield Cadman was originally a piano miniature inspired by a frontier poet's tale of a tragic love between a man and a Native American woman.
Recording & Production
The pieces on this album were provided by the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music at the Free Library of Philadelphia, the world's largest lending library of orchestral performance material.
Composer Biography
Arthur Foote, an American composer, was the first person in the United States to earn a graduate music degree, receiving his Masters in Music from Harvard.
Performer Biography
Reuben Blundell, the conductor, is the Music Director of the Lansdowne Symphony in Philadelphia and the Riverside Orchestra in New York, and has taught for the US State Department in Lebanon and Iraq.
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