I wrote all of the music on this album in the second half of 2015. The Fanfare was written for and premiered at the Gaylord Memorial Library in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The Trio Sonata for Two Violas and Piano is one of two possible instrumentations for the piece and was written for the excellent Viola and Saxophone duo, the Irrelevants (Tim Deighton and Carrie Koffman) in its other possible instrumentation: Viola, Alto Saxophone, and Piano. I wrote the short Sonata in G for Violin and Viola for our friends Kaila Graef and Mike Lewis. Kaila is a fine professional violinist. Mike is off to a great start playing the viola, but as he only began lessons a couple months ago, their first performance of the piece could be quite a while off. Something to work toward! In October, Tanya's cousin David Tasgal was killed while riding his bicycle in Greenfield, Massachusetts. David had a great sense of humor and was an accomplished musician and composer. His main instruments were cello and clarinet, though he played many others. His wife, Faith, asked us to play two movements from the first Bach cello suite at his funeral service at Temple Israel. He had been playing this music daily on his cello before his death. In Yizkor (Hebrew for 'in memoriam'), the Bach movements are referenced at the beginning of the A and B sections. As David was a long-time member of a Klezmer band, I turned the middle section into a Klezmer tune. I wrote Happy Holidays in December with holiday music all around, and some of it seeped into this piece. Whether there is sarcasm or sincerity present, or perhaps both, is up to the listener to decide! All other works on this CD I wrote for me and Tanya to play, though of course we like when other people play our tunes, too. The sheet music for this album is available for purchase from Violacentric Publications. For specific links, the most direct way to find a piece is to visit our websites. Outside of the Trio Sonata, we recorded the entire disc on December 26, 2015 at Cellar Dweller Studios South in North Plainfield, New Jersey with engineer Larry Bentley. Larry and I have been working together for nearly twenty years now! The Trio Sonata was recorded at Northfire Studios in Amherst, Massachusetts on January 7, 2016 with engineer Marc Seedorf. -Scott Slapin BIOS: Violist-composer Scott Slapin's playing has received critical acclaim in such publications as the American Record Guide, Fanfare, Mundo Clasico, Musical Opinion, and Strad, and his compositions have been performed by scores of violists throughout the Americas and Europe as well as at the Primrose, Tertis, and ARD Competitions. Slapin (b. 1974) is the featured performer for dozens of solo and duo recordings, ranging from numerous premieres including four albums of his own violacentric chamber compositions to the twin-bibles of upper string playing: J.S. Bach's Sonatas and Partitas and Paganini's 24 Caprices. Slapin's 1998 Bach recording was the first complete cycle ever made on viola, and he and his final teacher Emanuel Vardi (1917-2011) were among the first violists to have played and recorded all twenty-four Paganini Caprices. At eighteen Scott was one of the youngest graduates of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. He has performed in nearly every state in the US as well as throughout much of Europe and South America, and he has taught via Skype on five continents. He has given countless solo and duo recitals and has been featured on award-winning film soundtracks as both soloist and composer. He was commissioned to write the required piece for the 2008 Primrose International Viola Competition (currently a required piece for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble), and he served on the committee for the inaugural International Maurice Gardner Composition Competition. He has also written educational materials (24 Etudes and 12 Divertimenti) for beginning string players. Scott is a former fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center in California and was featured in a lengthy interview in the Spring 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Viola Society. He is the featured soloist for the first album produced by the American Viola Society, Premieres. He plays a viola by Hiroshi Iizuka. Scott and Tanya live in South Hadley, Massachusetts. They maintain private violin and viola teaching studios in South Hadley and Amherst as well as worldwide via Skype. As duo recitalists, they have been featured at several international viola congresses, and they won Best Chamber Performance of 2008 at the Big Easy Entertainment Awards in New Orleans. Their debut CD Sketches from the New World: American Viola Duos in the 21st Century was hailed as 'absolutely brilliant' in Strad Magazine. A native of Geneva, Switzerland, violist Tanya Solomon holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Northwestern University. Her teachers have included Michael Tseitlin, Robert Eshbach, Jeffrey Irvine, and Peter Slowik. Tanya was a finalist in the International William Primrose Viola Competition, and she has performed extensively in ensembles and music festivals throughout the United States and Europe. Tanya can be heard performing the complete Bach Cello Suites as part of the first complete recording of J.S. Bach's Unaccompanied Sonatas, Partitas and Suites (BWV 1001-1013) released in 2009 on the Eroica Classical Recordings label. She is a former principal violist of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera. She has also been a member of the New World Symphony in Florida, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the Philadelphia Virtuosi, the São Paulo State Symphony in Brazil, and the Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans, in the last four sharing a stand with Scott. She plays a viola made by Marten Cornelissen of Northampton, MA. Heather W. Reichgott is a pianist located in western Massachusetts. She works as an accompanist, church musician, teacher and performer. Initially trained in the Suzuki method, Heather went on to study with several exceptional teachers including Peter Takacs at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Alissa Leiser in Amherst, MA. Awards include the Award for Excellence in Concerto Performance at the Seattle Young Artists Music Festival, selected by Seymour Bernstein. Heather plays music from the Baroque through the present day and especially enjoys Haydn, Mozart, ballet music, piano/orchestra repertoire and new music. Heather serves as Minister of Music at the United Methodist Church of South Hadley, Holyoke and Granby (MA). She is a dance accompanist for Amherst Ballet School and for the Five College Dance Department serving Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College and Hampshire College. In 2011 Heather released a CD of ballet class music, "A Musical Feast for Ballet Class," available on CDbaby. Her 2014 CD "Preludes, Problems & Prayers" features pieces written between 1983 and 2013, by well-known and emerging composers. It is available on CDbaby, iTunes and Amazon.