• Courtenay Budd - Soprano
• Claire Bryant - Cello
• Corey Cerovsek - Violin
• Monica Church - Visual Artist
• Oren Fader - Guitar
• Paul Greenwood - Piano
• Sylvia McNair - Soprano
• Molly Morkoski - Piano
• Tara Helen O’Connor - Flute
• Todd Palmer - Clarinet
• Daniel Phillips - Violin
• Alisa Weilerstein - Cello
• Fuma Sacra
•   Alyson Harvey - Mezzo-soprano
•   Clara Rottsolk - Soprano
•   Andrew Megill - Tenor (director)
•   Blake Henson - Baritone
• Christopher Fecteau

Courtenay Budd’s soprano, praised as "a voice for connoisseurs," has been heard with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the National Symphony, and repeatedly at Carnegie Hall, Spoleto USA, and the Grand Teton and Bard Music Festivals. The recipient of a 2001 Sullivan Award, Ms. Budd won First Prize in the 2001 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, leading to acclaimed recital debuts at Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center, Boston’s Gardner Museum, and New York’s 92nd Street Y, prompting the New York Concert Review to applaud: "Ms. Budd effortlessly took New York; the East Coast is secured.”

Critic Wes Blomster calls Courtenay Budd “one of the fastest-rising stars on the American opera stage.” A 1998 Metropolitan Opera National Finalist, her operatic performances include Ilia in Idomeneo at Alice Tully Hall, Baby Doe, Zerbinetta, Zerlina, Pamina, Amy in Little Women, and Marie in The Daughter of the Regiment, with such companies as Central City Opera, Opera Omaha, Atlanta Opera, and the Colorado Symphony.

Courtenay Budd is a favorite of audiences and critics at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., where she has appeared in orchestral concerts and has been a regular on the Dock Street Chamber Music Series, appearing alongside her mentor and collaborator of choice, pianist Charles Wadsworth. The 2002 Festival featured Ms. Budd in the world premier of Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae, performed to critical acclaim with Todd Palmer and the St. Lawrence Quartet.

Ms. Budd’s chamber music performances include Schönberg’s String Quartet #2, I Hear an Army by David Del Tredici, recitals nationwide, and Rachmaninoff songs with pianist Ruth Laredo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has collaborated with symphony orchestras across the United States in such works as Brahms’ Requiem, Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915, Mahler’s Symphony no. 4, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor and Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells, Strauss' Brentanolieder, and Haydn’s Creation, to name a few.

A Georgia native, Courtenay Budd was honored with the 2004 Distinguished Young Alumnus Award from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. She also holds a masters degree from Westminster Choir College. She resides in New York’s Hudson Valley with her husband Anthony Caramico and their son Asa, to whom this recording is lovingly dedicated.

Ms. Budd also appears on the VMS recording Korngold’s Hollywood Songbook. For more information, see www.courtenaybudd.com

Cellist Claire Bryant graduated from and is currently serving as assistant cello faculty at The Juilliard School. A founding member of the Tetras String Quartet, she is also a member of Vision Into Art (VIA), a multi-media art performance group in New York City, and the contemporary music ensemble Second Instrumental Unit. She is performing in Savion Glover’s String Octet in upcoming tours of both the U.S. and Japan. In the 2006 season Ms. Bryant has appeared on stage at Zankel Hall of Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Boston Symphony Hall, Chelsea Art Museum, the Bruno Walter Theater at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall and the Goethe Institute.

Born in 1972 in Vancouver, Canada, Corey Cerovsek began playing the violin at the age of five. At twelve he graduated from the University of Toronto¹s Royal Conservatory of Music with a gold medal, and was accepted by Josef Gingold as a student and enrolled at Indiana University, where he received bachelor¹s degrees in mathematics and music at fifteen, master¹s degrees in both at sixteen, and completed his doctoral coursework for each at eighteen. Concurrently he studied piano with Enrica Cavallo, until 1997 frequently appearing in concert performing on both instruments. Cerovsek performs extensively with orchestras throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Asia; in recital around the world; and avidly as a chamber musician, regularly appearing at the Kuhmo, Verbier, and Tanglewood festivals, as well as the Spoleto Festivals in the USA and Italy. He plays the ³Milanollo² Stradivarius of 1728, played among others by Viotti, Paganini, and Christian Ferras.

Hush-Hush II, is part of a series of paintings that was inspired by the intimate and profound experiences of day-to-day parenting. Hush-hush is the sound that Monica chanted into her infant daughter’s ears when trying to comfort her cries. Of this project, Monica says, “My friend, Courtenay, and I had many conversations about the horror we observed by the devastation of the tsunami and the helplessness we felt about not being able to do anything relevant from our safe homes in Poughkeepsie, New York. Many of our discussions also revolved around the role of art, and the place of artists when natural disasters occur. We brainstormed and came up with the idea to create a CD of lullabies using my painting as a framework for the tone of the project. Courtenay is an amazing person as she then brought the entire project to life by her research, connections, friendships and mere determination. I feel very privileged to be a small part of Sleep is Behind the Door. With luck, my painting Hush-Hush II is living up to it’s role, and is setting the tone for the amazing lullabies that Courtenay has collected and performed.”

Monica lives in Poughkeepsie, New York with her husband and daughter. All profits from the sale of the poster will go to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres.

For more information about Monica d. Church please visit her web site at www.monicachurch.org

Oren Fader (www.orenfader.com) has performed hundreds of concerts in the U.S., Europe and Asia with a wide range of classical and new music groups, including the Met Chamber Ensemble (directed by James Levine), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, New York City Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. As a member of the Award- winning new music ensembles Cygnus, Fireworks, and Glass Farm, he has premiered over 100 solo and chamber works with guitar. Mr. Fader can be heard on over 20 commercial recordings and film. His latest solo releases include Another’s Fandango, featuring 500 years of guitar music, and First Flight, a disc of 10 premier solos written for Mr. Fader by New York City composers. Since 1994, Mr. Fader has been on the guitar and chamber music faculty of the Manhattan School of Music.

Paul Greenwood is a much sought-after pianist in the New York cabaret scene. Mr. Greenwood has accompanied Sylvia McNair, and appears regularly with the Paul Greenwood Trio.

Two-time Grammy Award-winning singer Sylvia McNair is equally at home on the stages of Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and in the intimate environs of the Rainbow Room and the Algonquin’s legendary Oak Room. Her performing repertoire has embraced classical, cabaret, opera and Broadway musicals. Ms. McNair has made over 70 recordings ranging from Mozart arias with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields to CDs with Andre Previn of music by Jerome Kern and Harold Arlen. McNair has been a regular guest soloist with the major American and European orchestras and opera houses working with today’s most prominent conductors, including Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur, Leonard Slatkin and Robert Shaw, the musician she credits with giving her the early and important opportunities that started her career. McNair has received honorary doctorates from Westminster College and Indiana University. In 1999, she received the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Arts and Entertainment from Ohio Governor Bob Taft. In a recent appearance at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, McNair’s performance drew raves from critic Rex Reed: "What a glowing surprise to find Ms. McNair not only in such splendid voice, but thrillingly adept at exploring the subtexts of songs in a dozen variable moods … Ms. McNair certainly charmed me. … she is not an ice-water soprano. In fact, she is so down-to-earth that you would never mistake her for a snob ... I could get used to this kind of ecstasy."

Pianist Molly Morkoski’s playing has been recognized by the New York Times as “strong, profiled, nuanced and beautifully etched.” The Boston Globe called her “outstanding.” She has performed as soloist and collaborative artist throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. She regularly receives invitations to perform at Carnegie Hall where, in 2003, she performed on the inaugural concert of Zankel Hall under the direction of John Adams. Ms. Morkoski has been a featured soloist on the Making Music Series at Carnegie and at the Tanglewood, Bang-on-a-Can, and Pacific Rim Festivals, as well as appearing as soloist with the Raleigh and Asheville Symphony Orchestras. As an avid chamber musician, she has performed at the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Norfolk festivals and with the NY Philharmonic Chamber Players, St. Louis Symphony Chamber Players, New World Symphony, Speculum Musicae, the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society, and some of today’s leading composers, conductors, and solo artists. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Paris, she was apprentice with the Ensemble Intercontemporain from 1999-2000. She is also a recent recipient of the Teresa Sterne Career Grant. She holds a doctorate degree from SUNY- Stony Brook where she was a student of Gilbert Kalish. Her performances have been broadcast internationally, and she has recorded for Bridge Records and Indiana University labels.

Flutist Tara Helen O’Connor is a charismatic performer sought after for her unusual artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone in music of every era. Tara is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, the 1995 Naumburg Award winning New Millennium Ensemble and the flute soloist of the world renowned Bach Aria Group. Tara performs regularly with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orpheus, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto USA, Chamber Music Northwest and Music from Angel Fire. A 2001 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, she also received a Grammy nomination in January of 2003 for the recording Yiddishbbuk on EMI Classics. She has recorded for Deutsche Gramophon, EMI Classics, Arcadia, CRI, Koch, and Bridge Records. Tara has appeared on A&E’s Breakfast for the Arts and Live from Lincoln Center. She is professor of flute at the Purchase College Conservatory of Music and was recently appointed to the faculty at the newly created Bard College Conservatory of Music. An avid photographer, she has photo credits in Time Out, Strad, and Chamber Music America magazines.

Clarinetist Todd Palmer has appeared as concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber music collaborator, educator, arranger, and presenter in a variety of musical endeavors around the world. He has appeared with the Houston, Atlanta, and Colorado Symphonies, the Saint Paul and Cincinnati Chamber Orchestras and I Musici de Montréal as well as being principal clarinet of the Minnesota Orchestra. He has been recitalist throughout the US and also guest of numerous string quartets including the St. Lawrence, Brentano, Borromeo, Pacifica and Ying quartets. A longtime friend of composer Osvaldo Golijov, he has championed his great klezmer quintet, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, with a number of string ensembles in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Having worked extensively with the St. Lawrence quartet, they together recorded this piece on EMI Classics, a CD which garnered two Grammy nominations, the Prelude Award for best chamber music recording from the Netherlands, and was one of the top ten best selling classical recordings of 2003. Mr. Palmer has performed Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock with Courtenay Budd on numerous occasions and also commissioned the song cycle Orpheus and Euridice, a 70 minute composition that has evolved into not only one of the major contributions to the clarinet and chamber music literature of the 20th Century, but a one-of-a-kind piece of music, theater and dance for all performers involved.

Violinist Daniel Phillips, a founding member of the Orion String Quartet, was born to a musical family and began violin study at age four with his father, Eugene Phillips, a composer and former violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. He received his formal training at The Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Sally Thomas. He also worked with Sandor Vegh, to whom he was teaching assistant, and with George Neikrug. As a winner of the 1976 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, he appeared in recitals at Alice Tully Hall and the 92nd Street Y. He has performed with the Pittsburgh, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies. This season he appears as soloist in the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the New Britain (CT) Symphony and the Queens College Symphony. He appears regularly at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto USA, Chamber Music Northwest, LaJolla Summerfest, Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival, and Music from Angel Fire. Recent collaborations include the premiere of Alexander Goehr’s Suite for Violin and Piano with Peter Serkin, and a concert series at London’s Barbican Centre featuring the chamber music of Schumann on period instruments. His recordings with Yo Yo Ma, Gidon Kremer, and Kim Kashkashian are available on the SONY/Classical label. His violins comprise an Antonius Stradivarius made in 1702 and a Samuel Zygmuntowicz made for him in 1993. Mr. Phillips is professor of violin at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY

The 24-year old American cellist Alisa Weilerstein has attracted widespread recognition for playing that combines natural virtuosity and technical assurance with impassioned musicianship.

Since her first public concert at the age of 4, Ms. Weilerstein has performed with the nation’s top orchestras, given recitals in music capitals throughout the U.S. and Europe, and regularly participates in prestigious international festivals. She is also dedicated to performing chamber music, having grown up in a family of musicians with whom she collaborated from an early age. Following a performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with The Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, "Cellists twice or thrice Weilerstein’s age would be hard-pressed to match the concentrated beauty and power of this young dynamo’s playing."

Ms. Weilerstein is already continually engaged by orchestras across the U.S. and has performed as soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Houston Symphony. In Europe she has performed with the Barcelona Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, Leipziger Bachkollegium, Orchestre National de France, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She makes regular appearances at festivals such as the Aspen Music Festival, Bad Kissingen, Blossom Music Festival, Caramoor, Green Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Spoleto USA, Vail, Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and the Verbier Festival.

Following her performances of Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo” Variations with the National Symphony Orchestra under Peter Oundjian at the Kennedy Center this season, the Washington Post wrote that Ms. Weilerstein played “with a rare mixture of elegance and wit, forged through the faster variations with dancing energy, sang out throbbing slow melodies as though they were Italian opera and even made the virtuosic runs and pyrotechnics toward the end of the piece musically, as well as technically, interesting.” Also during the 2005-06 season, Ms. Weilerstein gave acclaimed performances with the Bournemouth Symphony under Marin Alsop and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra with Jeffrey Kahane. This summer Ms. Weilerstein will participate in Spoleto Festival USA, the Green Music Festival, Caramoor, the Vail Valley Music Festival, and the Skaneatelas Festival. Ms. Weilerstein was recently named the winner of the 2006 Leonard Bernstein Award, which she will receive at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany.

In January 2007 Ms. Weilerstein will make her New York Philharmonic subscription debut performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with Zubin Mehta conducting. Other highlights of her 2006-07 season include recitals with violinist Maxim Vengerov and pianist Lilya Zilberstein at Carnegie Hall, La Salle Pleyel in Paris and the Barbican in London. She also performs as soloist with the Seattle Symphony under Asher Fisch, Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop, and the Moscow State Symphony as part of their U.S. tour, among other engagements. She also gives a U.S. tour with Gil Shaham and Friends that will include a performance at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. Abroad she performs with the NDR Hamburg Symphony under Semyon Bychkov in Germany, and with the New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel in Tokyo.

Ms. Weilerstein has given recitals in music centers across the U.S., including Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco. She performed at The Louvre in her Paris recital debut in September 1999. Other notable engagements have included an eight-city tour of Japan, featuring a Suntory Hall performance in March 1999, a concert tour of Australia, and Florida tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2000 and 2002.

Ms. Weilerstein was the recipient in 2000 of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was selected for two prestigious young artists programs in 2000-01, the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organization) "Rising Stars" recital series and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two. As part of the ECHO series in 2000-01, Ms. Weilerstein gave recitals at seven celebrated concert halls in Europe (Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Wigmore Hall in London, Athens Concert Hall, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam) as well as at Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall), which nominated her to be part of the series. Ms. Weilerstein also released an acclaimed recording on EMI Classics' "Debut" series in 2000 including works by Paganini, Dvorák, Ginastera, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Janácek, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and De Falla.

Born in 1982, Alisa began playing the cello at age 4 and performed her first public concert six months later. She often plays with her parents, Donald and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, as the Weilerstein Trio, which is the Trio-in-Residence at the New England Conservatory in Boston. Her Cleveland Orchestra debut was in October 1995, at age 13, playing the Tchaikovsky “Rococo” Variations. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the New York Youth Symphony in March 1997. Ms. Weilerstein is a graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss. In May 2004, she graduated from Columbia University in New York with a degree in Russian History. For more information visit www.alisaweilerstein.com.

Fuma Sacra has collaborated with leading instrumental ensembles, including Piffaro, Brandywine Baroque , and Tempesta di Mare, as well as with pianists Dalton Baldwin and JJ Penna and conductor Paul Salamunovich. Other appearances include the European debut of the ensemble at the Festival dei Dui Mondi in Spoleto, Italy (under newly-reconstructed frescoes of Fra Filippo Lippi) and regional and modern-day premieres of works by Caldara, Cavalli, Guerrero, Isaac, Guillaume de Machaut, and Pachelbel, as well as contemporary music by Augusta Read Thomas, Stephen Stuckey, Jon Magnussen and Andrew Bleckner.

Alyson Harvey’s performances have been described in reviews as "sterling", "theatrically meaningful" and "beautiful, compelling, and inspired". Acclaimed for her concert and recital work in a variety of repertoire from Bach to Brahms to Britten, she has sung recitals and appeared with many organizations across the US, including the Brandywine Baroque Ensemble, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra & the Camarata Singers, the Berkshire Bach Society, The Philadelphia Singers, The Westminster Choir, The Garden State Philharmonic, Riverside Choral Society of New York City, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. She made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Masterwork Chorus of NJ in Handel’s Messiah, appearing with them again in their 50th anniversary concert of Bach’s B Minor Mass, where her "Agnus Dei" was reviewed as "heartrending". She has appeared at The Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, the Copland Festival of the New York Philharmonic, and both the US and Italian Spoleto Festivals. A long time member of Fuma Sacra, she regularly appears at the summer Bach Festival at Westminster Choir College, and will be joining the Chorale at the Carmel Bach Festival in the summer of 2007. She appears with the Westminster Choir on the recordings O Magnum Mysterium and Like as the Hart, and holds degrees in Voice Performance from Westminster Choir College and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She also holds an Artist Diploma in Opera from Cincinnati Conservatory where she was a Corbett Award winner . She makes her home in Philadelphia.

Andrew Megill is recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of his generation, known for his passionate artistry and unusually wide-ranging repertoire, extending from early music to newly-composed works. In addition to serving as Artistic Director of Fuma Sacra, Mr. Megill is also Music Director of the Masterwork Chorus, Chorusmaster of the Spoleto Festival USA, and an Associate Professor at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where Mr. Megill conducts the Westminster Kantorei. He has prepared choruses for many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the American Composers’ Orchestra; American Symphony; Cleveland Orchestra; Dresden Philharmonie; National Symphony; New Jersey Symphony; New York Philharmonic and the Mark Morris Dance Company for conductors including Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Rafael Frühbeck du Burgos, and Jane Glover. Mr. Megill has conducted world and regional premieres of works by Richard Rodney Bennett, Andrew Bleckner, Paul Chihara, Peter Maxwell Davies, Jon Magnussen, Arvo Pärt, Stephen Paulus, Lewis Spratlan, Stephen Stuckey, and Augusta Read Thomas.

Hailed as “one of the most important composers of our time,” Blake R. Henson has been praised for his diverse and imaginative musical works which the New Jersey Star-Ledger called “powerful and thoughtful at the same time.” Born in Dallas, Texas, Mr. Henson currently resides in Princeton, New Jersey where he is completing a master’s degree in music composition at the Westminster Choir College of Rider University from whence he holds a bachelor’s degree in music theory and composition. Sought after for his choral, vocal, and orchestral work, Mr. Henson has received numerous commissions from professional ensembles, colleges and high schools, churches, and community choruses and orchestras including Chanticleer, Westminster Kantorei, Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra, and the New Jersey Chamber Singers. He has studied composition and orchestration with Michael Cox, Martin Sweidel, John Parker, Joel Phillips, Jay A. Kawarsky, and Ron Hemmel and has collaborated with such noted composers as Mark Adamo and Tarik O’Regan. As a performer, Mr. Henson has appeared with the Westminster Choir, Westminster Kantorei, Fuma Sacra, the New York Philharmonic (Davis, Dutoit, Maazel, Gilbert, Hickocks), the Cleveland Orchestra (Boulez), the New Jersey Symphony (Labadie, Järvi), Dresden Philharmonic (Frühbeck de Burgos) and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (Litton) and has collaborated with such noted conductors as Joseph Flummerfelt, Andrew Megill, James Jordan and Emmanuell Villaume. Mr. Henson is published by Shawnee, Abingdon, Hindshaw, GIA, and Amber Waves.

Christopher Fecteau enjoys a multi-faceted musical life in the New York area as a vocal coach, pianist, conductor and arranger. He has prepared singers for engagements at most of the major companies on the East Coast, including the Met, Chicago Lyric and Florida Grand. Conducting engagements have taken him to Opera Illinois, Sarasota Opera, Opera Theatre of Philadelphia, Harrisburg Opera, and on a tour of the Czech Republic. He founded the dell’Arte Opera, which has produced over 20 workshop readings of mostly standard repertoire, as well as staged productions of Ariadne auf Naxos and Der Rosenkavalier. As a pianist, recital appearances include a program with Sherrill Milnes for Orlando Opera, the world premiere of Valerie Saalbach’s song cycle Catarina to Camoens (2003 International Festival of Women Composers), and a recent all-German program with the Longmeadow Chamber Music Society with his wife Karen Rich. The duo has been invited to perform a recital in Innsbruck, Austria. He was commissioned by Skylight Opera Theatre to create a new version of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, adapting the original music and Shakespeare’s text into a two-act format. Other projects have included chamber music reductions of Ariadne auf Naxos for dell’Arte and I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Corleone Opera. He has created chamber music arrangements of Funf Lieder of Alma Mahler (premiered with Longmeadow Chamber Music Society), and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Continuing projects include adaptations of the Vier Letze Lieder of Richard Strauss, and the Op. 2 Songs of Arnold Schoenberg.