MARK ADAMO (b.1962): Late Victorians for Soprano, Narrator and Orchestra, Alcott Music, Overture to Lysistrata, Regina Coeli from Four Angels for Harp and Orchestra.

Description: Late Victorians, a 1994 composition dedicated to the memory of friends who died of AIDS, uses parts of a prose text (from a 1990 "Harper's" article with the same title) for narrator and several Emily Dickinson poems for soprano; its success led directly to Houston Grand Opera's commission for the opera Little Women (released a few years ago on Ondine). A 16-minute suite of music from the latter is accompanied by the attractive slow movement of Adamo's 2006 harp concerto and the overture to his 2005 opera Lysistrata which he fully intended to be a tribute to the joyousness of Leonard Bernstein's Candide overture. Texts included. Emily Pulley (soprano), Andrew Sullivan (narrator), Dotian Levalier (harp), Eclipse Chamber Orchestra; Sylvia Alimena.