Named as one of the best classical CDs 0f 2007 by the New York Times. A two CD collection with two hours of pieces written for classical musicians by Dave Soldier written over the past twenty years. Features many outstanding players from the world of contemporary classical music, including violinists Regina Carter, Laura Seaton, and Rebecca Cherry, flute virtuoso Robert Dick, organist Walter Hilse, violist Richard Auldon Clark, accordionist William Schimmel, sax player Michael Swartz, and cellist Erik Friedlander. Among the pieces are East St. Louis, 1968, written for electronics, samples, and viola. The music portrays an adventure of a young viola player on his first trip to that city. Hockets and Inventions are two and three part inventions performed here by Walter Hilse on the church organ. To Spike Jones in Heaven is a fantasy on Spike Jones' apotheosis as performed by accordionist William Schimmel. New York Times One thing about having an approach as idiosyncratic as Dave Soldier's is that once listeners know your work at all, they realize that coming to new works with any expectations about style, form or language is fruitless. As this expertly played sampler of his chamber music shows, Mr. Soldier is all over the musical map, and this is only part of the picture. Absent are his music for elephant orchestra, his quasi-operatic dramas and his unalloyed rock music. Not to make it sound too limited. Mr. Soldier's Duo Sonata (1988) for violin and cello veers from Grappelli-style blues-tinted jazz to the gentility of 19th century salon music, before diving into a quick hoe-down section and scurrying back to the blues. "Sontag in Sarajevo" (1994) draws on similar influences, with polkas and soaring art-rock guitar solos added to the agenda. Mr. Soldier's trick is to make it all sound coherent. An arch humor drives "East St. Louis 1968" (1999), essentially a dance track for viola, electronics, found sounds (a preacher and a crowd, children's playground chants) and harmonica. Here and in the zany "To Spike Jones in Heaven" (1989), a showpiece for the accordionist William Schimmel, bizarre juxtaposition is everything. But Mr. Soldier's soberer side is represented as well. The "Utah Dances" (1990) for solo saxophone; "Little Andre" (1986), for solo flute; and "Hockets and Inventions" (1989) , for organ, are richly detailed, virtuosic suites. The rhythmic twists in "Clever Hans" (2006) , a neo-Baroque ballet suite for violin, cello, and harpsichord, are clearly built for choreography, but the work stands nicely on its own. And "The Unfolding Opium Poppy" (1996), for violin and piano, builds from dark plaintive introspection to a level of searing passion that makes it the most striking work here. -Allan Kozinn, Arts & Leisure, April 22, 2007