albums
Album cover art by Janis Bunchman
Elizabeth Gyring was a rising star in the world of Viennese composers. She studied with Arnold Schoenberg, and their friendship—along with that of his student Alban Berg—is documented in surviving letters. She was praised for her talent and her music was performed by many notable ensembles, including the Vienna Philharmonic. First oboist of the Vienna Philharmonic Alexander Wunderer wrote that her work “exploits to the full the possibilities of wind instruments” and counts her compositional style as “original, modern, and not atonal.” Unfortunately, after she fled Vienna in 1939, she was not able to achieve success in the United States, though she composed until her death in 1970.
This album features Gyring’s Suite for Oboe and Piano and Concerto for Oboe, and Wunderer’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano. It was released in 2025 on WSU Recordings. For more detailed information on theses works, please see my program notes:
Four of the five works on All Are Welcome (WSU Recordings, 2022) were created through a consortium effort between Double Reed Dish podcast hosts Galit, Jacqui, and podcast listenership. Utilizing a pay-what-you-can model, the Double Reed Dish Consortium created opportunities for over 120 double reed players to collaborate on the creation of several new chamber pieces for oboe and bassoon. Mason Bynes’ Pong references the 1970’s Atari game and is scored for oboe and bassoon alone. Kaunitz and Wilson are joined by Fabio Menchetti (Assistant Professor of Piano at Washington State University) on consortium pieces Connor Chee’s Trio for Oboe and Bassoon, and brin solomon’s Dances for Tangible Water, as well as Romantic composer Clémence de Grandval’s Trio de Salon, a work suggested to Kaunitz and Wilson during a podcast interview with Jeffrey Lyman (Professor of Bassoon at the University of Michigan). Katherine Pukinskis’ The Stretch features Aaron Agulay on a text setting of the poem of the same name by lyricist Kendra Leonard.
