About this Recording

The works presented in this recording showcase the New Zealand Symphony’s ability to play technically demanding music while maintaining its aesthetic beauty. These works reveal the orchestra’s ability to create emotional, alluring, and lyrical quality without deemphasizing other aspects of the music.

The lyrical and emotive passages combined with Scott Steidl’s propulsive rhythmic vocabulary create pieces that traverse a range of sonic styles. His music is rooted in the vernacular of his time representing the varied influences and rich imagination of current American culture. As compositions, they are a distillation of his varied career and life both inside and outside of music. Hs work strikes a balance among contrasting influences. In these works one hears a lover of popular music, jazz, music theater as well as western classical music. His mentors were also diverse and his musical experiences underscore this and include study with Ron Nelson, David Diamond Elliott Carter, as well as Peter Mennin and Vincent Perschetti. Scott’s musical point of view has been inclusive rather than exclusive and was described in the New York Times by John Rockwell as "All American.' Travels to southern India and Brazil added to his range of musical influences and heightened his desire for rhythmic drive. Propulsive syncopation and use of percussion with mounting textural densities are typical here. Allan Kozinn of the New York Times commented on this aspect of his music in a Merkin Recital Hall concert in New York City stating "the interplay and integration of the disparate elements were immensely persuasive."