Re(new)al
Higher Ground - Concerto for Tuba
Next Week’s Trees
Orbital
Released December 12, 2025
Viet Cuong, Composer | Sandbox Percussion | Justin Benavidez, Tuba
David Alan Miller, Heinrich Medicus Music Director | Albany Symphony
RENEWAL features four works by composer Viet Cuong, performed by the critically-acclaimed Albany Symphony. In Re(new)al, a percussion quartet performs on found and prepared instruments in a three-movement concerto inspired by hydro, wind, and solar energy. Higher Ground – Concerto for Tuba honors the bass voice through chaconne and canticle forms, exploring the act of rising as a central musical idea. The poetry-inspired Next Week’s Trees and Orbital, praised as “radiant, prismatic and fascinating” by Times Union, complete the collection, each showcasing Cuong’s compositional voice that The New York Times calls “alluring” and “stirring.”
“A syncopated yet hushed and entirely enthralling meditation for strings. The crowd loved it.
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Forgiveness
Suite for Spoken Word and Orchestra
Released August, 2025
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Composer | Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Librettist and Spoken Word
David Alan Miller, Heinrich Medicus Music Director | Albany Symphony
Composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and spoken word artist and librettist Bamuthi have been making work together for more than 15 years, often focusing on protest, social justice, morality, and freedom. Forgiveness was initially catalyzed in 2015, when a white supremacist murdered nine people at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and within days several relatives of the victims publicly forgave the gunman. That act of forgiveness struck Bamuthi as something that he himself would not have done, and perhaps as something that the families of the murdered should not have done. Yet the increased divisiveness of the country in the intervening years brought him to an acute and urgent question: can our democracy survive if we cannot forgive?
Forgiveness is the culmination of a three-year journey undertaken to explore that question. As an artist in residence as part of the Convergence Initiative with the Albany Symphony, Bamuthi spent two years visiting churches, high school classrooms, artist co-ops, and symphony rehearsals, leading conversations around this one topic. After speaking with hundreds of people, he crafted a libretto examining forgiveness from religious, political, and self-critical perspectives. Albany Symphony commissioned Bamuthi’s longtime friend and collaborative partner, award-winning composer DBR to build a score that uniquely asks its own questions about forgiveness, while centering Bamuthi’s language and performance.
““It was a powerful, enlightening and beautifully presented piece of musical theater…It was also dangerous…In Forgiveness, Joseph dominated the stage delivering painful truths about society, politics and religion…Roumain’s accompanying music often seemed like underscoring, but it was more. It set a mood that supported the words and often took flight on its own to add majesty to common sense observations…”
“[Joseph’s] delivery – which oscillated between a brilliantly inflected speech cadence and flurries of propulsive freestyle rhythms – demonstrated his well-cultured sense of pacing and phrasing.”
WMHT explored the process of creating Forgiveness as part of the Albany Symphony's transformative Convergence Initiative with Marc Bamuthi Joseph, celebrating music, culture, and community.
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and Marc Bamuthi Joseph are represented by Sozo Impact.
Press inquiries: annie@sozomedia.com
Booking inquires: bamuthi@sozomedia.com
Rental inquiries: https://www.sozomart.com/forgiveness
Albany Symphony inquiries: emilyfe@albanysymphony.com
Blue Electra
Last Dance at the Surf
To the New World
Released April, 2025
Michael Daugherty, Composer | Anne Akiko Meyers, Violin
David Alan Miller, Heinrich Medicus Music Director | Albany Symphony
This recording showcases three new evocative works by GRAMMY Award-winning American composer Michael Daugherty, exploring the triumphs and tragedies of flight. Blue Electra is a dramatic violin concerto inspired by the sensational life and mysterious disappearance of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart in 1937. Last Dance at the Surf is a one-movement dance symphony for orchestra that reflects upon rock ’n roll legend Buddy Holly’s final performance in 1959 at the Surf Ballroom in Iowa and his tragic death in a plane crash just hours after his show. To the New World for orchestra celebrates the triumphant Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969 and Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk. Under the baton of GRAMMY Award-winning conductor David Alan Miller, the Albany Symphony is joined by GRAMMY Award-winning violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, who performs Blue Electra with electrifying musicality and emotion.
“Much of the music has a cinematic quality, like the simple, undulating idea Daugherty uses to tie together the richly scored opening movement.”
“Daugherty (and the engineers) skillfully balance Meyers against a highly colorful orchestral background, superbly furnished by the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller.”
Water Music NY: More Voices 2024
Recorded September & November 2024
The Albany Symphony, in partnership with the New York Power Authority and the New York State Canal Corporation, presented a powerful commemorative and celebratory series of free livestreamed pop-up concerts taking place along the Erie Canal during the fall of 2024.
Between September 26 and November 2, 2024, there were five free, pop-up concerts featuring new music the most compelling composers writing today. Performed by small ensembles of Albany Symphony musicians and vocalists in unique Canal-adjacent spaces, these concerts explored stories of the 524-mile New York State Canal system’s past, present, and future.
Daniel Bernard Roumain: Agrarian and Liquid (world premiere)
Marc Bamuthi Joseph, narrator
Devony Smith, vocalist
Liz Silver, Violin I
Paula Oakes, Violin II
Sachin Shukla, Viola
Erica Pickhardt, Cello
Recorded September 26, 2024 in Lockport, NY
Francisco del Pino: Orenda (world premiere)
Britt Hewitt, vocalist
Liz Silver, Violin I
Mitsuko Suzuki, Violin II
Tina Chang-Chien, Viola
Erica Pickhardt, Cello
Luke Stence, Bass
Karen Hosmer, Oboe
Recorded September 27, 2024 in Little Falls, NY
Clarice Assad: Earth and Water (world premiere)
Britt Hewitt, vocalist
Devony Smith, vocalist
Liz Silver, Violin I
Paula Oakes, Violin II
JJ Johnson, Viola
Erica Pickhardt, Cello
Recorded September 28, 2024 in Schoharie Crossing, NY
Dai Wei: Canton Tea Man’s Tale (world premiere)
Dai Wei, narrator
Jamecyn Morey, Violin I
Mitsuko Suzuki, Violin II
Dan Brye, Viola
Erica Pickhardt, Cello
Recorded November 1, 2024 in Waterloo, NY
Juhi Bansal: Refuge
Britt Hewitt, vocalist
Devony Smith, vocalist
Jamecyn Morey, Violin I
Mitsuko Suzuki, Violin II
Dan Brye, Viola
Erica Pickhardt, Cello
Mark Foster, Drums
Recorded November 2, 2024 at Montezuma Audubon Center