“...[Listen to] Rosen's exuberant scoring of Langston Hughes's equally exuberant ‘Harlem Night Song’: Come/Let us roam the night together/Singing/I love you.'' (Bloomberg News) “If you have not heard this music, the passion and intelligence of "Dream Suite" and "Twelve Songs on Poems by Maya Angelou" was gripping. They are poems of reflection, remembrance and inspiration, with Jenkins interpreting the emotions that Rosen formed into music.” (Cabaret Scenes) A Note from Louis Rosen: Langston Hughes is my favorite American poet. Though his poems often explored the issue of race, his work breaks through racial boundaries to touch the soul of humanity. For me, even his brilliant and iconic image of a “dream deferred” can now also speak to any fundamental, deep dream deferred, whether racial, political or personal. Most important for the composer, his poetry sings with a natural ease and grace that few poets can match. The language is rich in imagery – drawn from influences as diverse as Walt Whitman and various forms of Afro-American culture – yet always rooted in the American vernacular and soulfully direct in emotional expression. This description applies equally well to what I strive for in my songwriting, and especially in the making of "Dream Suite". These songs find their inspiration in jazz, blues, classical music, popular song, art song and Latin jazz; and like Langston’s poems, I hope they manage to blend and juxtapose these influences in fresh ways, and with a soulful sense of expression. "Dream Suite" is also dear to my heart, for it was written for, and beautifully sung by my friend, the gifted Alton Fitzgerald White; and the recording of it introduced me to the remarkable Capathia Jenkins – who sings here with great beauty and sensitivity – and with whom I set off on a new creative path that led to many more songs and cycles and recordings, a musical adventure that continues. "Dream Suite" is Part One of "The Black Loom Trilogy", a set of song cycles on the poems of three modern African-American poets. This recording was made in 2002, the year the composition was completed. The world-premiere performance of "Dream Suite" was given by Alton and Capathia at the Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York City in June 2006. The release of this recording and the ten-year anniversary performance of "Dream Suite", again sung by Alton and Capathia, was celebrated at the legendary Manhattan jazz club, Birdland, June 27, 2016, with Kim Grigsby at the piano. The second and third parts of the trilogy were written specifically for Capathia. Part Two is "Twelve Songs on Poems by Maya Angelou" (2005); Part Three, "One Ounce of Truth" (2008), on poems by my friend, Nikki Giovanni, was recorded and released on the PS Classics label.