World premiere recording of a wedding oratorio by Andrew Earle Simpson.

Andrew Earle Simpson’s A Crown of Stars is a wedding oratorio celebrating the universality of human love and was commissioned by the Cantate Chamber Singers while Simpson was the ensemble’s Composer-in-Residence. This is the world premiere recording. Mr. Simpson’s music follows four principal threads of interest: humanistic music; music for silent films; theatrical music; and folk music. He has created a prodigious array of works for the concert and operatic stage, which have been performed throughout the U.S., Europe and South America. Russian composer Alfred Schnittke’s (1934-1998) Requiem evokes vivid images, perhaps because it began as a stage work. It is based on music from a piano quintet that Schnittke dedicated to his mother just after her death.