Introducing ASO Media

A private label for the ASO
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The world premiere of On a Wire

ATL’s newest label—ASO Media—isn’t hip-hop, it’s the Atlanta Symphony. Their first recording comes out this month: Robert Spano directing Jennifer Higdon’s concerto On a Wire and Michael Gandolfi’s choral work QED: Engaging Richard Feynman. Two more releases are scheduled for 2011. The ASO has compiled a thirty-two-year, Grammy-winning discography under Telarc but hopes to expand its reach by partnering with Naxos, the nation’s top independent classical music distributor. “We want to use the label as a way to disseminate all of our materials to as wide an audience as possible,” says President Stanley E. Romanstein, Ph.D.

Higdon and Gandolfi are members of the Atlanta School of Composers, Spano’s ten-year effort to support contemporary music. The recordings were made here. “It’s fabulous to see the way they transform Symphony Hall,” says Romanstein. “They lay down sheets of plywood over the seats to change the acoustical qualities of the room. It looks like a big workshop.”
Photograph by Jeff Roffman

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