A Fifth of Slapin, All You Need Is Viola (or Two) is the only album which is strictly a duo recital (no guest artists), and it is dedicated to Tanya. We each have a solo piece, and the rest is viola duos. This is also specifically a program of short pieces. Even the multi-movement works are meant to be fairly concise. Fanfare for a New Library was written for the new South Hadley Public Library in our town of South Hadley, Massachusetts, where we give yearly concerts. The South Hadley Public Library overlooks the Connecticut River, and you can hear the sound of water quietly flowing over the Holyoke Dam in the background. The Ill-Tempered Violist was written for Tanya. She's not normally ill-tempered, except when I write a whole album that she has to type into computer software for me because I only write with pencil and paper. Since this is the fifth and last album in the series, I thought I'd enshrine the moment in a piece of music. Dead of Winter is exactly what it sounds like. It's -15 Fahrenheit, -35 with the wind chill factor. The wind is howling. Outside all you can see is snow and trees with no leaves. It's bleak. Occasionally the wind blows leaves and twigs around. But it always returns to the stillness of the dead of winter. A nice piece to listen to in the summer. The entire disc was written in the span of 2 1/2 weeks in January and February, 2016 and was recorded April 3, 2016 at Cellar Dweller Studios South in North Plainfield, New Jersey. The engineer and long-time friend Larry Bentley and I have been recording together for almost twenty years now. - Scott Slapin