Susan Kander

"The highlights...include ‘The Lyre’, which the violinist plucks out while 
simultaneously bowing a timeless lullaby against Lee Dionne’s lovely piano
surreally doubling the tune. By contrast, Kander’s study of Apollo, another
god of music, is raptly serene.

--Laurence Vittes, GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE

Hermestänze rises beautifully to the challenge of compressing
a lot of musical information into a small space…swift, evocative
pencil sketches. [...] A Garden’s Time Piece...is equally lovely
and evanescent – most of the songs take no longer than a minute
and leave you at once satisfied and waiting for more.

  -- Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle

MSR Classics has just released this album featuring three wonderful musicians: Jacob Ashworth, violin; Lee Dionne, piano, and Jessica Petrus, soprano. I am immensely honored to have worked with these extraordinary artists.

The title work, commissioned by Jacob Ashworth for violin and piano, is a 30-minute dramatic cycle based on the multi-faceted Greek god Hermes. Solo Sonata for violin-viola-violin was my first commission immediately following 9/11/2001; structured as a “feast-famine-feast” cycle, it features virtuosic outer movements for solo violin with a deeply felt Lament between them. A Garden’s Time Piece is a brief cycle for violin and soprano setting poems of Leslie Laskey.

Available wherever you buy or download music.  MSR Classics  |  Amazon

Program Notes  Hermestanze  |  Solo Sonata  |  A Garden's Time Piece

Sample the Album