ARKADY LEYTUSH

• Hampson Sisler: Faiths, Cohabiting - Hebrew

FEATURE ARTICLE IN THE ORGAN - SPRING 2015 [ISSUE NO. 371] Hampson Sisler is a highly prolific composer, with a growing catalog of more than one hundred works for solo instruments, organ, voice, choir and orchestra. His music has been performed in the continental United States and Hawaii, and internationally in Argentina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Israel, Portugal, Russia and Ukraine, under the direction of conductors including Marlon Daniel, Arkady Leytush, Kirk Trevor and Samuel Wong. Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1932, Sisler began to show a prodigious talent at an early age and by age five was able to play keyboard by ear. By age 12, he was taken under the tutelage of David McK. Williams and Norman Coke-Jephcott and began performing professionally on organ, and conducting choral ensembles. He earned a licentiate in Organ and Related Subjects from the Trinity College of Music in London at age 16 and achieved the fellowship rank in the American Guild of Organists at age 17 – the youngest ever for this distinction. Today, in addition to composing, Sisler maintains a career as an organist and choral director. He has held positions at 17 churches, most notably the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York, where Abraham Lincoln was an occasional attendee, and the Central Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where Charles Ives served in the same position in the early 1900s. Currently, Sisler is the Music Director at the historic St. James Episcopal Church in Elmhurst, New York. The highly successful premiere of Faiths, Cohabiting in Rishon LeZion, Israel, in 2012 resulted in a  commission for a new piece, which resulted in the Israeli-American Festival Overture. At the premiere performance, Sisler was presented with a bronze plaque, stating a message of appreciation for his compositions on behalf of the State of Israel. His music is published by H.W. Gray Co., Jos. Fischer & Co., Belwin Mills, World Library, Laurendale Press and Morning Star Music Publishers.

One of Russia’s most gifted conductors, Arkady Leytush has directed orchestras in the United States, Europe and Russia to great acclaim. Described as a conductor of the “grand Russian tradition”, his interpretations have made him an audience favorite. Leytush’s artistry is known throughout the former Soviet Union, but it was not until 1994 that he gained recognition in the United States upon a stunning debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, replacing Yuri Temirkanov with a week’s notice. Since 1980, Leytush has worked with numerous orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic and New World Symphony in the United States, and abroad with the Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Plovdiv Philharmonic, Kremlin Orchestra, Sofia Philharmonic, Orquestra Filarmonica de Buenos Aires and Orquestra Nacional do Porto. Leytush is currently Artistic Director of the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra in New Jersey, conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Music Director of the Interfaith Committee of Remembrance and Music Director of the Nathan Rakhlin International Festival in Yalta. A gifted orchestrator, Leytush has transcribed music by composers including Albéniz, J.S. Bach, Borodin, Buxtehude, Chopin, Cui, Czerny, Glazunov, Liadov, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov
and Shostakovich.
  HAMPSON SISLER (b.1932)
ISRAELI-AMERICAN FESTIVAL OVERTURE
for orchestra (2013)

CANTATA FOR LIVING
for vocal quartet, chorus and chamber orchestra (1974)
New Year, New Day
Interactions
Outcomes
Commemorations
Filiations
Maturity

JAPAN TRAGEDY 2011
for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra (2011)

FAITHS, COHABITING
for orchestra (2012)
Hebrew
Christian
Muslim
Finale
 



MSR Classics