Soprano Susanna Phillips, featured on this album, won four of the world's leading vocal competitions in 2005, including Operalia and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Performer Biography
Tenor Joseph Kaiser, a performer on this album, starred as Tamino in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute.
Composer Biography
Scott Wheeler, the composer, grew up listening to songs from the Great American Songbook by artists like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and his parents also sang these songs.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Virgil Thomson, a composer and Wheeler's teacher, advised that correct verbal prosody is the basis of communicating in vocal music, rather than illustrating secondary meanings or emotions.
Composer Biography
Scott Wheeler studied text-setting with Virgil Thomson, a composer known for his opera Four Saints in Three Acts, at Thomson's apartment in the Chelsea Hotel.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Scott Wheeler believes that songs offer the most sensuous fun through the combination of words and music, allowing for a wide expressive range from humor to operatic drama.
Performer Biography
Baritone William Sharp, a performer on this album, was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for his recording of works by American composers.
