Sheila Silver has written in a wide range of mediums, from solo instrumental to large
orchestral works, from opera to feature film scores. “Only a few composers in any
generation enliven the art form with their musical language and herald new directions
in music. Sheila Silver is such a visionary.” (Wetterauer Zeitung, Germany)
Silver’s honors include: Guggenheim Fellowship; two Opera America Toulmin
awards; Sackler Prize in Opera; Radcliffe Institute Fellowship; Rome Prize; Prix de Paris;
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Composer Award and numerous
grants and commissions. Her opera based on Khaled Hosseini’s international best-selling
novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was commissioned and is to be premiered by the
Seattle Opera. She is Professor Emeritas of Music at Stony Brook University. Her teachers
included Arthur Berger, Harold Shapero, Erhard Karkoschka, and Gyorgy Ligeti. She was
born and raised in Seattle, Washington and began studying piano at the age of five. Sheila and her husband, filmmaker John Feldman, make their home in the mid-Hudson Valley, New York. They have one son, Victor. For more information: www.sheilasilver.com

Beauty Intolerable [67:35]
A songbook based on the poetry of
Edna St. Vincent Millay

On Loving [13:40]
Three Songs for Diane Kalish,
in memoriam
Texts by William Shakespeare
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Kahlil Gibran
Performed by Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Gilbert Kalish, piano
Transcending [11:07]
Three Songs for Michael Dash, in
memoriam
Texts by W.B. Yeats
H.D. Thoreau
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Performed by Sidney Outlaw, baritone
Warren Jones, piano
Nocturne for piano solo [11:50]
Based on Raga Jog
Performed by Gilbert Kalish, piano

Chariessa [20:49]
A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments
from Sappho
Texts by Sappho (trans. Mary Barnard)
Performed by
Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano
Ryan McCullough, piano
Four Songs from the Beauty
Intolerable Songbook [15:29]
(arr. for contralto)
Texts by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Performed by
Stephanie Blythe, contralto
Kayo Iwama, piano
Total Time = 72:54

Artist(s): Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano
Risa Renae Harman, soprano
Dawn Upshaw, soprano
Deanne Meek, mezzo-soprano
Christopher Cooley, piano
Kayo Iwama, piano
Gilbert Kalish, piano
Timothy Long, piano
Ryan McCullough, piano
Recording Info:
Produced and engineered by Judith Sherman
Engineering and editing assistant: Jeanne Velonis
Most of Beauty Intolerable, On Loving, Nocturne, and Four Songs from the Beauty
Intolerable Songbook recorded September 20-23, 2019 in the Sosnoff Theater,
Fisher Center for the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York.
Piano technician: Mark Moriarty
The rounds and song #15 from Beauty Intolerable, Transcending, and Chariessa
recorded September 12-13, 2020 in Gilder Lehrman Hall of the Morgan Library and
Museum, New York.
Piano technicians: Ismael Cunha and Alex Markovich

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