JAVS Spring 2024

beautiful eight-minute single movement work. Inspired by a fourth Century Syriac Christmas hymn, the Aramaic title Shubho Lhaw Qolo translates to “Glory to the Voice,” and the composition explores layers time, color, and texture, along with microtonal melodic adjustments. I was lucky enough to attend the 2021 performance by Konopka and the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and I remember being moved by not only the beauty but also the tonality of this composition. It is my hope that Sami Seif’s captivating piece receives a commercial recording and release.

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These three new and recent releases represent the highest-level of viola playing. From Kevin Nordstrom’s interpretations of masterworks by American female composers to Basil Vendryes championing of sonatas by contemporary American composers, to Sami Seif and Stanley Konopka’s emotional performance of an exciting new viola and orchestra composition, these three recordings should be listened to and added to the collections of any serious violist or lover of new music. With hope, each of these recordings will remind us that contemporary and newly composed works continue to add worthy masterworks to our core cannon of viola repertoire.

THE AMERICAN VIOLA SOCIETY: A HISTORY AND REFERENCE SECOND EDITION

By Dwight R. Pounds

$24 Spiral Bound $28 Hard Cover (recommended for library use)

Dwight R. Pounds 651 Covington Grove Blvd. Bowling Green, KY 42104-6601 dwight.pounds@insightbb.com

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring 2024