Summer Shimmers

CD Details

About the Artist

Flutist Susan Glaser has been widely recognized for her colorful interpretations, virtuosity and glowing tone. Mountain Songs, her most recent release on the Koch International Classics label, was hailed as “splendid” by Fanfare. An accomplished piccolo player, Ms. Glaser has released one of the few existing piccolo CD’s of contemporary music, Bittersweet Music, garnering praise from Fanfare for her “strong and varied technique, supple and sensitive musicianship.”
Ms. Glaser has appeared as soloist in the Far East, Europe, Canada and the United States, performing at prestigious concert halls such as London’s Wigmore Hall, the John Field Room of Ireland’s National Concert Hall, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Chicago’s Preston Bradley Hall. Ms. Glaser has also performed at Merkin Concert Hall with the Lark Quartet.
As founder and artistic director of The Azure Ensemble, Ms. Glaser has championed new music throughout her career. The Azure Ensemble recently released a disc of music by Chen Yi and Karen Tanaka.
Ms. Glaser’s recitals and CD’s have been broadcast internationally on BBC London and CBC Toronto. In the United States, she has appeared in national syndication for NPR Performance Today and “Center Stage at Wolftrap,” as well as on WGBH Boston, KFDC San Francisco, WFMT Fine Arts Radio Chicago, and on New York radio stations WQXR and WNYC.
Ms. Glaser holds a doctorate from The Juilliard School; her principal teachers are Julius Baker, Geoffrey Gilbert, Walfrid Kujala, and Peter Lloyd. A recipient of a Fulbright grant for study in Vienna, Ms. Glaser is currently a flute professor at New York University. Early in her career, she was a prizewinner in the Society of American Musicians Competition and the National Flute Association’s Young Artist Competition. As a Powell Artist, her master classes and recitals are in demand in the United States and internationally, and have included the Toho Gakuen in Tokyo, the Longy School, North Carolina School of the Arts, University of Virginia, the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, the Mannes College of Music, Edinburgh’s Napier University, and the University of Hawaii.

Product Description

When flutist Susan Glaser was contemplating a new CD of contemporary music she turned to Jennifer Higdon, one of America’s most widely performed, most-recorded, and most popular composers today. Glaser was drawn to the variety and maturity of her writing. Not to mention that, not surprisingly, Higdon–who was trained as a flutist–had created a lot of pieces featuring that instrument. After delving into many scores and recordings, Glaser was so won over by Soliloquy that she decided to record an all-Higdon CD. But each and every piece here is compelling in its own way, she says, “…the expressive melodies and harmonic writing of Soliloquy, the rhythmic primacy of Zaka, the beautiful colors of Summer Shimmers.”