The Prussian-born conductor-composer Leopold Damrosch (1832–85) built his reputation through the orchestra he founded in Breslau.

In 1871 he emigrated to the USA, where he founded a number of important musical institutions in New York and became chief conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

The spirited student performances heard on this CD reveal that the same fondness for adventure informed his own music, heard here in its first recordings.

At the heart of his only Symphony, which sits between Brahms and Wagner, is a dark and powerful funeral march.

The disc opens with a jubilant overture which takes an excited lead from Wagner’s 'Meistersingers' and closes with a bonne bouche in the form of Damrosch’s orchestration of a Schubert favourite.

Christopher Russell, Associate Professor and conductor at Azusa Pacific University and of the Orange County School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra, received his master’s degree in conducting from Indiana University. He has conducted the US premieres of three British symphonies: Havergal Brian’s 27th and 32nd and Robert Simpson’s Seventh, as well as the first complete performance of Rued Langgaard’s sixteen symphonies in the United States.

The Azusa Pacific University Symphony Orchestra in Southern California performs an extremely wide range of works, from Baroque to new works. Some of today’s foremost composers have worked with the orchestra on their compositions.