Michael Abels (b. 1962) has enjoyed a long and fruitful collaborative relationship with the Sphinx Organization. His Delights and Dances, written in 2007 in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Sphinx Competition, was premiered by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra featuring a group of Sphinx winners as soloists. Abels later revised the work for string quartet with Sphinx Virtuosi at Carnegie Hall in September of that year, and the piece is now regarded as the ensemble’s theme song. Recent winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music alongside Rhiannon Giddens for the opera Omar, Abels is best known for his award-winning soundtracks for the Jordan Peele films Get Out (2017), Us

(2019), and NOPE (2021). He is equally well-regarded for his concert music, which includes the aforementioned Delights and Dances, the Grammy-nominated Isolation Variation (2020) commissioned for violinist Hilary Hahn during the COVID-19 pandemic, incidental music for the film Chevalier (2023), and numerous orchestral works, including Global Warming (1991). Global Warming, commissioned and premiered by the Phoenix Youth Symphony, was written in response to the fall of the Berlin Wall and reflects the similarities between music of divergent world cultures. This work was one of the first by an African-American to be performed in South Africa after the election of President Nelson Mandela, and has been presented by over 200 of this country’s professional and youth orchestras. Originally written for a full orchestra, the work was rearranged by Abels for string orchestra and percussion in 2018. Global Warming begins with a call-and-response duet between violin and cello, laid over a backdrop of accented harmonics (“a desert scene,” in the composer’s own words), before launching into a jaunty 6/8 section recalling music and rhythms from Ireland, Africa, and Persia. Although written to celebrate the warming of international relationships that began in 1991, Global Warming has taken on greater meaning as our society confronts climate change. With this awareness, Abels writes that “rather than end happily, the piece suddenly returns to its original, stark, desert scene, leaving it to the listener to decide which version of global warming they prefer.”

Like Michael Abels, Venezuelan composer Aldemaro Romero (1928-2007) was a prolific figure in international cultural life. His profound dedication to his homeland and culture were not limited to composition. In 1979, he achieved a lifelong dream by founding the Caracas Philharmonic Orchestra. His concert collection, consisting of over 100 works, is currently available through the University of Miami’s Aldemaro Romero Archives. Romero’s compositions consist of concert music, popular music and works for film. Among his most celebrated contributions are the highly regarded 1955 LP Dinner in Caracas, featuring orchestral arrangements of Venezuelan folk music, and his creation of the Venezuelan “Ondo Nueva” (New Wave), a synthesis of traditional Creole music, the Venezuelan waltz, Brazilian Bossa Nova and jazz. In the commercial realm, Romero collaborated with artists including Dean Martin, Stan Kenton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nancy Wilson and Tito Puente, and composed many film scores for productions including Allesandro Blasetti’s The Saga of Simón Bolivar, which was featured at the 1969 Moscow International Film Festival. Romero’s Fuga con Pajarillo is the first movement of his Suite for Strings. Premiered in 1976 by the English Chamber Orchestra and dedicated to compatriot and fellow composer Juan Bautista Plaza, Fuga con Pajarillo is a riveting synthesis of traditional fugal form and the pajarillo, a Venezuelan dance characterized by accents on the second beat. With virtuosic string writing recalling the improvisation heard in performances by traditional Latin and Afro-Latin musical ensembles, this work is energetically connected to “El Negro Jose”, the first track on Romero’s 1976 LP Onda Nueva Instrumental.

Named Performance Today’s 2020 Classical Woman of the Year and highlighted as one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” by the Washington Post, Valerie Coleman (b. 1970) holds the distinction of being the first living African-American woman to have a piece both commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra. The success of Umoja: Anthem of Unity has resulted in a continued relationship with Yannick Neget-Seguin and the orchestra, with subsequent commissions including Coleman’s Seven O’Clock Shout and This Is Not A Small Voice, the latter a song cycle based on texts by American poet Sonia Sanchez. Coleman’s reverence for the human condition is keenly reflected in both Seven O’Clock Shout (inspired by the steadfast commitment shown by frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic) and Tracing Visions, which debuted at Carnegie Hall in a 2022 performance by the Sphinx Virtuosi. Both melancholic and celebratory, Tracing Visions was written to remind us of our shared humanity. The first movement, titled “Till,” is both a reflection on the domestic terrorism enacted upon Emmett Till, Ruby Bridges, and the children of the Uvalde massacre and, in the composer’s own words, the “fierce parental statement” that children should be protected. The darkness and rage of “Till” is followed by “Amandla!” (the Zulu word for “power”). Like Michael Abels’ Global Warming, this movement depicts world consciousness and cultural unity. To celebrate this global unity and the depth of the Sphinx Organization’s transformative work, Coleman craftily uses International Morse Code to spell “Sphinx,” with that rhythmic motive serving as the movement’s foundation.

GRAMMY-nominated composer Carlos Simon (b. 1986), currently composer-in-residence for the National Symphony Orchestra and Associate Professor at Georgetown University, captivates audiences worldwide with compositions honoring both his religious upbringing and the “musical activism” of telling the stories of the African Diaspora in the United States. Between Worlds (2019), commissioned for the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, is rightfully becoming a staple of the modern violinist’s repertoire. Notable performances include violinist and 2021 Sphinx Competition winner Amaryn Olmeda’s 2022 Carnegie Hall debut and New York Philharmonic violinist Audrey Wright’s 2021 performance on her self-curated “Beyond Bach: Solo Violin” Four-Part series. Inspired by the work of self-taught visual artist Bill Traylor (1853-1949), a man who lived through profound changes ranging from American slavery to the Great Migration, Between Worlds is filled with, in Simon’s words, “elements of mythical folklore, race, and religion.” Musically, this is a truly virtuosic and cinematic work. The plaintive and wandering opening becomes a restless, energetic, and almost phantasmagoric musical portrait of an ancestral spiritual conjurer.

In a career that flourished during both the Harlem and Chicago Renaissances, Florence Beatrice Smith Price (1887-1953) gave the world more than 300 compositions in genres ranging from large orchestral works to art songs, choral music, arrangements of spirituals, concerti and works for small ensembles. Her Second String Quartet (1935) is one of three known string ensemble works by Price – though ongoing scholarship being undertaken by musicologists Douglas Shadle, Kori Hill and Michael Cooper may uncover more. Opening with ethereal stillness, the Andante Cantabile begins like a cradle song as the simple, contemplative melody evokes images of profound love. That opening placidity is soon interrupted by melodic and harmonic turns characteristic of Black musical idioms and chromaticism, reflecting Price’s understanding of early twentieth-century modernism. After a series of searching arpeggios, the opening material returns: While at first uneasy, the opening stillness reappears, and the movement ends in an air of deep spiritual satisfaction.

In November 2021, New York Times music critic Joshua Barone described Jessie Montgomery as the architect of “a new portrait of American sound.” Currently the Mead Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Symphony, Montgomery is an integral player in the Sphinx Organization’s twenty-seven-year history. A 2020 recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, she is also a two-time laureate of the annual competition and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi.

Montgomery’s compositional style is a true synthesis of classical and vernacular music, improvisation and, through her childhood experiences, social consciousness. These elements are all apparent in Divided, a work written for solo cello and strings that was premiered by Thomas Mesa and the Sphinx Virtuosi at Carnegie Hall in 2022.

One cannot listen to Divided without thinking of Ernest Bloch: his Schelomo: Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra (which premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1917) is Bloch’s interpretation of King Solomon’s tormented thoughts. In her own words and with similar sentiment, “Divided " is Montgomery's response to the “sense of helplessness that people seem to feel amidst a world that seems to be in constant crisis.” This helplessness is first expressed in the opening statement, a tense gesture based on half-steps (B-flat –A – B natural – B-flat – A). As the orchestra joins, helplessness becomes a combination of rage and profound questioning – echoed through aggressive interjections from the orchestra and an unrelenting rhythmic urgency Against this backdrop, Montgomery overlays intense pyrotechnics and an improvised cadenza that support the fundamental question contained in the piece: “How do we regain control and find beauty among the chaos?”

Composer Ricardo Herz is credited with having “recreated the Brazilian violin” through a compelling combination of Western violin technique, jazz improvisation and synthesis of West African and indigenous Brazilian rhythms. The Sphinx Virtuosi have worked with Herz on more than one occasion, including their 2021 performances of his Mourinho and an exciting 2022 collaboration during their time in Sao Paulo, where the ensemble made its international debut. Herz’s Sisifo na Cidade Grande takes us to northeastern Brazil, a region known for the pernambuco wood used for stringed instrument bow-making and a deep connection to Western Africa. In this work, Herz displays his incredibly thorough understanding of these elements. According to his own notes, the ricochet bowing heard in the opening is incorporated alongside displaced accents to imitate the percussion instruments found in the region’s traditional Brazilian maracatu ensembles, along with elements of music carried across the ocean by enslaved Africans. The displaced rhythmic punctuation immediately recalls Stravinsky and the changing meters found in his Rite of Spring; however, Sisifo is written with a consistent time signature of 25/16 (4+4+4+4+3+3+3), the conquering of which is no mean task. The challenging time signature, combined with melodic material hovering between the keys of C Major and C minor, is used by Herz to convey the futility of the mythological Sisyphus’ struggle to reach a pinnacle.

This album ends with a stunning string orchestra arrangement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9, Op. 47, commonly known as the “Kreutzer.” This sonata was originally dedicated to the biracial violinist George Polgreen Bridgetower (1778-1860). Bridgetower held a prestigious position in European society for a time, regularly performing for royalty and on series including a highly regarded 1789 Parisian Concert Spirituel (placing him in Paris during the life of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de

Saint-Georges). Of Bridgetower’s playing, literary journal Le Mercure de France said that “his talent, a genuine as it is precocious, is one of the best replies one can give to the philosophers who wish to deprive those of his nation and his color the faculty of distinguishing themselves in the arts.” It was during an 1803 visit to Vienna that Beethoven and Bridgetower met, and the two formed an instant bond. Beethoven, being bowled over by Bridgetower’s playing, agreed to play in concert with the violinist and write a piece for him (which they performed unrehearsed). That work was later inscribed with the dedication: “Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer, gran pazzo e compositore mullatico” (“Mulatto sonata composed for the mulatto Bridgetower, great lunatic and mulatto composer”). Sadly, their relationship later soured, prompting Beethoven to remove the original dedication and publish the work with the known dedication to Rodolphe Kreutzer. Ironically, Kreutzer never played the sonata – he disliked Beethoven’s music – and this irony is accentuated by the fact that Kreutzer’s Forty-Two Studies are foundational for violinists today. With this arrangement of the sonata’s final movement, violinist and arranger Ruben Rengel fittingly returns the dedication to Brigdetower while maintaining the movement’s spirit through the lens of a string chamber orchestra.