Joseph Schwantner is considered to be among the most successful and respected living composers in the United States. Although he has been principally influenced by George Crumb, Messiaen and Debussy, his music is at once identifiable by its luminous, bewitching sounds, chords of equal intervals and unusual effects. The present selection of music for chamber ensemble features the world première recordings of Soaring, a highly virtuosic high-wire act for flute and piano and Two Poems of Aguedo Pizarro, a pair of contrasting songs written for soprano Lucy Shelton. Sparrows is an expression of fifteen haiku by the eighteenth-century Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, while Music of Amber is an expressive work of high energy and virtuosity.