Unexpected Passion Music by Hampson Sisler - heard by PATRIC STANDFORD '... the brooding is there, if not the power.'

Hampson Sisler is an organist and church musician, born in New York in 1932, who has held distinguished posts as organist in Brooklyn, New York City and, still at work, currently at First United Methodist Church in Westfield, New Jersey. His list of organ and choral works seems modest and varied, and the orchestral work that has already been issued (The Cosmic Divide, reviewed in 2008 -- not to be confused with a recent more stimulating CD with the same title by American artist and composer Robert Gray). Sisler's work at that time was a collaboration with conductor Arkady Leytush who orchestrated the pieces.

This later CD includes a more substantial four-movement Suite, Phoenix Forever, written and recorded in 2009 and the supporting booklet does not give details of any similar collaboration -- either by omission, or because Sisler has this time produced his own orchestrations...

MSR CLASSICS

NEW YORK

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC