Otto Luening, "Lines from 'A Song for Occupations'"

Born in Milwaukee, OTTO LUENING (b. 1900) studied in Germany and Switzerland, notably with Jamach and Busoni, while earning o living as a flutist. He then returned to the United States in 1920 to begin a career as a composer, conductor, flutist and teacher at the Eastman School, University of Arizona, Bennington College, the Juilliard School, Bamard College, and Columbia University. He is one of the pioneers in the development of tape composition. His autobiography, The Odyssey of an American Composer, was published in 1980 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Lines from "A Song for Occupations" was written for Bamard Convocation in 1964 and is published by C. F. Peters. In 1984, The New Calliope Singers commissioned the composer ond premiered Lines from Blake's "Urizen" and "Vala. or a Dream of Nine Nights."

One of the aims of THE NEW CALLIOPE SINGERS, founded in 1975, has been to sing new music with the kind of energy, enthusiasm, and even abandon that characterizes performances of Messiah. The members of the group, amateur and professional, have been extraordinarily talented and patient as they pioneered this exciting and unfamiliar territory. The chorus, in annual recitals in major halls in New York, has presented premiere performances of over 40 pieces in a wide variety of composing and performing styles. Those on this record are ones which have lasted especially well. High points of the group's career, under the able management of Penelope Parkhurst Boehm, include a performance of Bach's St. John Passion with baroque orchestra, a performance of Webem's Das Augenlicht with Manticore, a guest appearance with the Group for Contemporary Music, a live broadcast of Schubert and Brahms on WQXR with New York Philomusica, the resuscitation of a rare oratorio by Anton Rubinstein, the premiere of a work with computer-synthesized tape by Charles Dodge, and a staged performance of Banchieri's madrigal comedy La Pazzia Senile in a comic translation by Maurice Wright. Members of The New Calliope Singers in the two seasons during which this record was made (each selection has between 12 and 25 singers):

Sopranos
Anne-Marie Bouche
Deborah P. Chodoff
Betsy Johnsmiller
Jacqueline A. Jones
Gwen Larron
Ellen Lerner
Robin Levine
Jennifer Miletta
Barbara E. Morgan
Margery Parker
Pearl Powell
Vicki Watson

Altos
Sally Durgerian
Lori Henig
Linnda C. Johnson
Karen K. Krueger
Marcia K. Miller
Anne Marin
Adria Mary Quinones
Marie Cawso Stauffer
Lisa Udel

Tenors
Bruce C. Johnson
Ronald H. Lee
Mukund Marothe
Dond Matarasso
Mitchell Morris
Elliot Schnopp
Gary Stephens

Basses
Hayes Biggs
David Chodoff
Michael Fine
Jonathan E. Fuller
Ed Kelly
Kenneth Livingston
John McDonald
Steven Silberblatt
John Uehlein

Rehearsal accompanist:
Michael Skelly