"virtuosos in their own right, and together produce chamber music proper...close observance of each other's actions...a very tight performance." –Fanfare, May/June 2000
Since its beginning in 1985, Cygnus has created a large body of chamber music by both established and emerging composers, including commissioned work by Charles Wuorinen, Scott Johnson, Jonathan Dawe, Anthony Braxton, Milton Babbitt, Sebastian Currier, George Walker, Harold Meltzer, Chester Biscardi, David Claman, Richard Festinger, Laura Schwendinger, Matthew Greenbaum, David Lang, and Akemi Naito
AboutCygnus Ensemble
"World Class Performers"
William Anderson
Guitar
Susannah Chapman
Cello
Oren Fader
Guitar
James Austin Smith
Oboe
Tara Helen O'Connor
Flute
Calvin Wiersma
Violin
Joan Forsyth
Piano
Elizabeth Farnum
SopranoLatest Discography
Le Cirque - Anderson/Fader Duo
2011, Furious Artisans (FACD6811)This CD was recorded over a period of many years, as new masterpieces for guitar duo joined the Anderson/Fader repertoire. There is a great range of musical attitudes.
Le Cirque - Sydney Corbet
Warmth - David Lang
Entertwined - Robert Pollock
Bowery Haunt - Scott Johnson
Fantasy on 12 Strings - Martin Rokeach
Resisting Stillness - Chester Biscardi
Dodecadactyl - Charles Wuorinen
My Morphine - William Anderson/Gillian Welch
Harold Meltzer's Brion
2010, NAXOSCygnus commissioned Meltzer's Brion through a generous grant from teh Barlow Foundation. It was a Pulitzer Finalist in 2011. It was also a featured work at a Cygnus residency at the Library of Congress in 2012.
Ab nou cor Music of Frank Brickle
2010, Furious Artisans (FACD6809)Frank Brickle is quiet guru in the nascent field of post-maximalism. He was received all of his degrees from Princetonian, studying with JK Randall, Ben Boretz and Milton Babbitt. Starting from that high modernist background, he slowly plowed his way to the post-maximalist stance we see here.
Farai un vers, Merlin I, Ab nou cor, and The Creation are the masterpieces here.
In addition to his striking original compositions, this disc includes two transcriptions for Cygnus, each is advances one of the themes that weave through Cygnus programming over the years: Decadence and the Pre-Raphaelitism.
gone for foreign
2005, Bridge RecordsWilliam Anderson's A Giddy Thing
MIlton Babbitt's Swan Song #1
Akemi Naito's Four Poetic Images
David Claman's gone for foreign
Rolv Yttrehus's Plectrum Spectrum