Celebrating his 80th birthday year in 2008, American composer James Cohn studied with Roy Harris, Wayne Barlow and Bernard Wagenaar, graduating from the Julliard School in 1950. Cohn’s first love is the symphony orchestra, and the works presented on this disc are like pages from a diary. The four movements of Symphony No. 7 are essentially four landscape paintings in sound. Symphony No. 2 is a musical equivalent to four scenes from a drama. Variations on ‘The Wayfaring Stranger’ is a memorial to two dear and generous friends who were like parents to the composer and the Waltz in D is essentially a bittersweet dance in waltz tempo.