Film Music Classics: Riviera

American composer and producer William Perry began actively composing and conducting at the age of fifteen, and eventually studied at Harvard University, where his teachers included Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston and Randall Thompson. He is today best known as a film composer, but in addition to his more than one hundred film scores and five stage musicals, Perry has been active as a composer of concert music. Among his best-known compositions are the Trumpet Concerto, the Jamestown Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, written to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first permanent colony in America (available on Naxos 8.559344) and the whimsical Six Title Themes in Search of a Movie (Naxos 8.572567). Perry’s scores combine broad-based melodies and multi-hued harmonies with more than a hint of wit and good humor. Dance forms, both period and contemporary, are a dominant element in the bright rhythmic structuring of his film and concert music.

About Wallis Giunta

Canadian mezzo, Wallis Giunta, is a captivating young artist at the beginning of a vibrant performing career. She has trained in New York at The Juilliard School, and at The Metropolitan Opera, where she debuted in 2013 in Verdi’s Rigoletto. She has also debuted at the Canadian Opera Company, Le Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, Oper Leipzig, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Fort Worth Opera, Madison Opera, Opera Lyra Ottawa, and L’Opera de Montreal. She excels in the repertoire of Rossini, Handel, Britten, and Mozart, and is in particular international demand as the ardent young page, Cherubino. A very versatile singer and performer, Wallis is sought after for the creation of new works, and for 20th and 21st century repertoire, ranging from the music-theatre of Weill & Brecht, to the minimalist operas of John Adams, and to the pop/art songs of Rufus Wainwright.

About John Brancy

Hailed by the New York Times as a “vibrant, resonant presence”, American baritone, John Brancy, has begun what promises to be a major international career. Brancy received two degrees from the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City and has garnered numerous accolades for his interpretations of operatic, song and concert repertoire. Previous operatic engagements have seen Brancy in lead roles at Oper Frankfurt, Opera San Antonio, Edmonton Opera, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Le Theatre du Chatelet, Paris and Semper Oper Dresden. Brancy specializes in art song repertoire, and has been showcased in solo recitals at The Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Opera America, Carnegie Hall and the Hugo Wolf Akademie, Stuttgart. Brancy is a recipient of the Sullivan Foundation Grand Prize, and winner of the 2013 Marilyn Horne Song Competition.

About Timothy Hutchins

Principal flute of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal (OSM), Timothy Hutchins has performed to critical acclaim as a soloist in North and South America, Europe and Asia. Highly praised solo recordings include the concertos of Ibert, Rodrigo, Vivaldi and Honegger as well as the recital recording Flûte à la française with his pianist wife Janet Creaser, on Decca/London. As principal flute, he has also performed with and received invitations to join the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. He can be heard on more than 70 award-winning OSM recordings, Charles Dutoit and Kent Nagano conducting, as well as on recordings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Leonard Bernstein, and with the Pittsburgh Symphony under Mariss Jansons. Timothy teaches at McGill University, and has given classes in Japan, the UK and North America.

About Nick Byrne

A trombonist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra since 1995, Nick Byrne studied with Simone de Haan, Ian Perry, Ronald Prussing and Michael Mulcahy at the Canberra School of Music, thereafter undertaking further studies in Chicago, again with Michael Mulcahy, Jay Friedman, Ed Kleinhammer, Arnold Jacobs and Charles Vernon at De Paul University. As an ophicleide player, Nick Byrne made the first complete CD recording for the ophicleide, Back from Oblivion, for Melba Recordings in 2006 and is widely recognized as the first performer to rediscover the ophicleide as a solo instrument, as well as being its leading exponent. He continues to revive the instrument’s repertoire with numerous commissions and several dedications. He has performed on ophicleide with ensembles and orchestras including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the World Orchestra for Peace, under conductors including Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Simone Young. In this present recording Nick Byrne performs on a Halari Sudre 10-Key instrument in C, dating from c. 1885.

About Michael Chertock

Pianist Michael Chertock has fashioned a successful career as an orchestral soloist, collaborating with conductors such as James Conlon, Jaime Laredo, Keith Lockhart, Erich Kunzel and Andrew Litton. His many orchestral appearances include solo performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, the Toronto Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, and numerous other orchestras. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1999 with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and in June 2005 with the Boston Pops Orchestra, he performed the world premiere of a work by Todd Machover, commissioned by the Boston Pops expressly for Mr. Chertock. In 2010, Chertock gave the world premiere of William Perry’s The Silent Years: Three Rhapsodies for Piano and Orchestra which he then recorded for Naxos (8.572567).

About Paul Phillips

Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at Brown University, and Music Director and Conductor of the Pioneer Valley Symphony and Chorus in Massachusetts, Paul Phillips is an award-winning conductor, composer, and author. Educated at Eastman, Columbia, Cincinnati, Aspen, and Tanglewood, where he studied with Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, and Kurt Masur, Phillips began his conducting career at the Frankfurt Opera and Stadttheater Luneburg, later holding posts with the Savannah Symphony, Maryland Symphony, RI Philharmonic, and other American orchestras. He has conducted more than 60 orchestras worldwide, including the San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra and Choir, plus numerous opera companies and dance troupes. His conducting honors include 11 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, 1st Prize in the NOS International Conductors Course (Hilversum) and Wiener Meisterkurse (Vienna), and selection for the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program.