It says something about how few opportunities there are for composers to have new works performed by orchestras that the Riverside Symphony, an adventurous ensemble that typically presents just three programs per season, got such a strong response to its International Composers Competition in 2002. Scores from 74 composers were submitted. On Friday night at Alice Tully Hall, one of the three winning works, "On the Playground" by Keith Lay, received its New York premiere at the Riverside Symphony's...

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Keith Lay, Course Director for Music History at Full Sail Real World Education, has had his classical composition "On the Playground" selected by New York's Riverside Symphony for an upcoming concert. The three-movement concerto will be performed on Friday, November 5th at the esteemed Lincoln Center in New York City. Having a work showcased at the Lincoln Center is a great honor, as it has long been heralded as one of the world's finest stages for classical music. "The...

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Richard Stoltzman, clarinet; Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by George Manahan (Perlongo, Lay, Iannaccone, and Stiller) and by Jerzy Swoboda (Goodwin). Daniel James Perlongo: Sunburst (1995); Keith Lay: Earth Caoine (1995); Gordon Goodwin: Paraph (1996); Anthony Iannaccone: Concertante for Clarinet and Orchestra (1995); Andrew Stiller: Procrustean Concerto (1994). MMC RECORDINGS MMC 2105. Total time 61:39. (distributed by Albany Music) To date, world renown clarinetist Richard Stoltzman has more than 50 recordings to his credit, is an Emmy award winner...

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Had this sort of collection been released a few years ago, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun: It would have been full of 12-tone angst. But times have changed (for the better!) and these five free-spirited American composers have found intriguing ways to combine tonality and atonality, melody and dissonance. Above all, it is an extraordinarily well-played and well-produced recording. The Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra responds alertly and with stylistic awareness to conductor Jerzy Swoboda and soloist...

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The trouble with being the Great American Clarinet Virtuoso is also the advantage of it: The repertoire for your instrument isn't exactly scant but nor is it overly abundant, either. A clarinetist needs his contemporaries in the composer's tribe. Brahms, Mozart and the Baroque masters simply didn't supply enough repertoire. That's what "Reflections" is all about - five new works for clarinet and orchestra for Richard Stoltzman, the wizard of his instrument (and a man convincing, too, as a...

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