4 March 2018 marks the 90th birthday of one of the twenty-first century’s most influential and prolific composers: Samuel Adler. A pupil of both Paul Hindemith and Aaron Copland, Adler is a phenomenal symphonic writer (who, quite literally, wrote the book on orchestration) whose style merges twenty-first century ebullience with an lmost classical economy nd alance. This three-disc boxed set provides a cohesive overview of his output and includes many premiere recordings.

The first two discs feature the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt under conductor Emily Freeman Brown performing the First and Second Symphonies, a dance suite for orchestra, plus three concertos: the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, featuring Siwoo Kim, the award-winning violinist who originally premiered the work; the Concerto for Woodwind Quintet and Orchestra; and the First Piano Concerto, featuring the prize-winning pianist Michael Brown.

The third disc features the highly talented young players from the Eastman School of Music alongside guitarist and fellow Eastman professor Nicholas Goluses. This is especially fitting since Adler taught at Eastman for nearly thirty years and these students represent the continuation of his prodigious legacy.

Samuel Adler is one of America’s foremost composers and pedagogues. He is the author of over 400 published works in a wide variety of mediums, including six symphonies and five operas. His work stands out for its rhythmic and contrapuntal vitality, its coloristic inventiveness, and its formal command, as well as for its embodiment of his deeply held humane values.

Adler is Professor Emeritus at the Eastman School of Music and has been a member of the composition faculty at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City since 1997. Adler has recently published his memoir, Building Bridges with Music (Pendragon Press).

‘[Adler’s] music is strongly expressive and full of sonic variety and imaginative instrumental blends.’ – American Record Guide

‘Adler approaches the form, and orchestral writing in general, with a taut energy, a bright palette, a penchant for neoclassical leanness paired with big-brush post-Romanticism and blurts of machine-age modernity.’ – Gramophone

‘It is this highly intelligent use of orchestral colour which is perhaps Adler's most distinctive quality.’ – MusicWeb International