Fine Classical, Instrumental, and Specialty Recordings
Label: Soundset Recordings Item Number: SR1110 Format: CD Year Recorded: 2018 Memories of Hope Sorores Duo Amy Rosine - soprano Sandra Mosteller - clarinet
Sorores Duo  Sorores Duo has been performing together for over ten years. They have built a repertoire of works with a particular emphasis on contemporary music, as well as music related to the Holocaust. Programs range from serious to whimsical. Their "signature" piece, The Child in the Hole by William Vollinger, was the springboard for their collaboration. Having performed throughout the United States, the ensemble features works by Vollinger, Jacob, Seiber, Greaves, Schubert, Laitman, Gordon, Tate, and Roe, to name a few. Although they perform with pianists as a trio, they enjoy the duo experience performing together. They have performed at Sigma Alpha Iota National Conventions, College Music Society South Central Regional Conference and several colleges and universities. The Duo attended undergraduate school together at Truman State University and were sisters in the women’s fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota. The name “sorores” is Latin for “sisters,” from which their professional collaboration was born. Amy Rosine - soprano  Amy Rosine, lyric soprano, is Associate Professor of Music at Kansas State University where she teaches Applied Voice, Vocal Techniques, and is the vocal director for K-State musicals. Rosine frequently performs with clarinetist Dr. Sandra Mosteller as the “Sorores Duo.” She has been a featured soloist in Brahms Requiem and Carmina Burana at the prestigious Kauffman Center in Kansas City. Rosine’s favorite opera roles include Rosalinda (Die Fledermaus), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and Countess Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro). She has performed with Kanas City Civic Opera and Lyric Opera Express, Fort Worth Opera, Opera in the Ozarks, the St. Charles Music and Arts Festival, and the Lake Placid Institute Vocal Seminar. She is a recipient of the Alpha Corrine Mayfield Award in Opera Performance from the National Federation of Music Clubs. She holds degrees from the University of Kansas (DMA), the University of Missouri-Kansas City (MM), and Truman State University (BME). Voice teachers include Inci Bashar, Norman Paige, and Kathleen Dawson. She has been a faculty member of the International Opera Performing Experience (Italy), Riverside Lyric Opera Adult Opera Program (CA), and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp (MI). She founded the Flint Hills Vocal Academy with fellow faculty member Cheryl Richt. The academy is for 7th-12th grade singers. Professional memberships include National Association of Teachers of Singing, College Music Society, Fellowship of United Methodist Music and Worship Artists and Sigma Alpha Iota, where she serves as a Province Officer. Sandra Mosteller - clarinet  Clarinetist Sandra Mosteller frequently performs as soloist, orchestral, and chamber musician. She has been a featured soloist throughout the United States and in Belgium, Spain, and Russia. She has performed works for composers including Thea Musgrave, Donald Erb, Bruce Mahin, Mark Kilstofte, and Rodney Washka. She has commissioned and premiered several pieces, including works by composers Gary D. Belshaw, Douglas Brown, and Belgian composer Norbert Goddaer. She is principal clarinet of the Plainview Symphony, and is a member of the Lubbock Moonlight/Broadway Musical orchestra. Mosteller often teams with lyric soprano, Amy Rosine (Kansas State University) in their Sorores Duo, an ensemble dedicated to the promotion of new music, as well their special interest in music of the Holocaust. Dr. Mosteller is Professor of Instrumental Music at Wayland Baptist University, where she teaches applied clarinet and saxophone, chamber music ensembles, woodwind methods, world music courses, and online general music courses, as well as serving as junior and senior recital coordinator. Her private students have achieved success at the state, regional, and national level; including scholarships to major universities, summer music institutions, all-state, and honor band festivals. Dr. Mosteller earned a doctorate in Clarinet Performance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, master’s degree in Clarinet Performance at Arizona State University, and both master and bachelor degrees in Music Education at Truman State University. Her major clarinet teachers include Kelly Burke, Robert Spring, Ted Gurch (Atlanta Symphony), Richard Weerts, David C. Nichols, Debbie Augsberger, and Paul Brizzi. She is a life member of Sigma Alpha Iota and Pi Kappa Lamba. She performs on Buffet Greenline clarinets, with Muncy Barrels. She uses Pyne and Vandoren Mouthpieces with Vandoren V-12 reeds. Gordon Jacob’s Three Songs use text from the English Book of Verse. Of All the Birds that I Do Know, by John Bartlett, is a playful song about "Philip my sparrow." In contrast, Jacob sets Flow My Tears (John Dowland) in emotional dissonances as the “night blackbird sings.” The music uses beautiful word painting, providing a palette of light and darkness of life. Ho, Who Comes Here? (Thomas Morley) joyously expresses the happiness of the piper in a light contrapuntal dance of chirping and chattering. Hungarian Jew Mátyás Seiber drew Drei Morgensternlieder from English literary nonsense poetry of Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914). Das Trichter (The tunnel) visually and verbally depicts a tunnel of light in the evening. Das Knie (The Knee) is a whimsical song about “just a knee, that’s all.” The final piece, Nasobem (The Nose) even inspired the creation of a fictitious character “Rhinogradentia," a subject of a mock-scientific book. Laitman’s I Never Saw Another Butterfly was inspired by a collection of poetry and art produced by children who lived in Holocaust concentration camps. Pavel Friedman’s (1921-1944) poem, I never saw another butterfly…, describes her experience at Terezin, and her search for beauty through “dandelions” and “…white branches.” But alas, “Butterflies don’t live in here.” Laitman’s haunting melodies echo both the beauty and the starkness of the holocaust. Yes, That’s the Way Things Are by Koleba (Košek (1932-1944), Lőwy (1933-1944), Bachner (b. 1931) tells of a toothless, long bearded old man sitting in a “so-called park.” The soprano humorously/dramatically provides antics of the story while the clarinet moans and cackles appropriately. In Birdsong (Ella Wollsteinerova), a flowing dance is heard as the poet tearfully sighs and dreams of life’s beauty, forgotten in this harsh world. The clarinet’s mournful ostinato in The Garden accompanies the story of a beautiful flower and a boy. Sadly, the flower’s bloom will outlive the boy. Man Proposes, God Disposes (Koleba) tells of a rich man who is now “poor soul.” Interplay between voice and clarinet gives a playful yet ironic twist. In The Old House, the clarinet drones as the soprano sings of a deserted house, its past life, and the waste as it “rots in silence.” Vollinger’s Child in the Hole is a dramatic portrayal of the true story of a Holocaust survivor, a child who was hidden in a hole until World War I ended. The soprano takes the persona of the child telling his story, his thoughts, memories, fears, and hopes. The clarinet creates a backdrop of moods-mysterious, scary, playful, ugly, terrifying, and joyous. References wil be made regarding the survivor, and the conditions he experienced during this horrorfying event.
Label: Soundset Recordings Item Number: SR1110 Format: CD Year Recorded: 2018 Recording Engineer: Clarke Rigsby (https://tempestrecording.com/studio) Memories of Hope refers to the resilience displayed by children of the Holocaust. Mosteller and Rosine first collaborated on A Child in the Hole, and over the past decade has become an organic display of their sensitivity to each other when they perform. Since their first collaboration, they have explored traditional repertoire as well as a variety of pieces that range from sublime to ridiculous. Not Available | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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