American Record Guide
FACE OF THE NIGHT, by Kenneth Fuchs
Thomas Stacy, English horn
Cala Records CACD 0511

This concert featured the world
premiere of Fuchs' viola concerto "Divinum Mysterium" …. And as an
ending point for Fuchs' tenure as ASO composer-in-residence, it was
entirely appropriate: well-crafted, imaginative, concise, and the
farthest along work of his that Adrian audiences have heard.

Sung also took center stage later in
the program in a piece written by Fuchs especially for her to play at
this concert, a work for violin and orchestra titled “American
Rhapsody.” When I first heard this piece at a rehearsal this week, I
very quickly became enamored of it, and that feeling was only solidified

he Daily Telegram, Adrian, Michigan, April
27, 2009
KENNETH FUCHS: INTO THE WILD, AMERICAN RHAPSODY
Adrian
Symphony Orchestra — John Thomas Dodson, conductor
Janet Sung, violin

he Daily Telegram, Adrian, Michigan, April
27, 2009
KENNETH FUCHS: INTO THE WILD, AMERICAN RHAPSODY
Adrian
Symphony Orchestra — John Thomas Dodson, conductor
Janet Sung, violin

Years ago when I was teaching in High
School in the West Country of the UK, I ran an Arts Association and
booked a visiting exhibition of contemporary art of which only one
painting remains in my memory, Andrew Wyeth’s evocative painting of
Christina’s World. A work with that title by Kenneth Fuchs gives the

These
quartets from the 1990s by composer-conductor Kenneth Fuchs, Director of
the School of Music at the University of Oklahoma, have a lyrical
spareness reminiscent of Copland. Open harmonies and disarmingly simple
melodies abound, but the structures are sophisticated and satisfying,
yielding a distinctly American sound. The American Quartet plays with

Bargain of the Month   Kenneth
Fuchs is fortunate indeed to have not one but two discs of his music
recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. The first, in 2003, was
nominated for two Grammys in 2005 and the second, recorded in 2006,

Exciting new Elektra!