Album Notes

The String Symphonies of G.S. Haynes display his eminence as one of the great contemporary composers. This treasure of beautiful and evocative symphonies are beautifully written and classical in manner. His compositions exemplify the power of music to give expression to our dreams and fantasies. Each passage is infused with his pure melodic style; each note is written and recorded with the utmost care.

The music was performed by members of the Orchestra of the Digital Age, under the direction of the composer. Recorded at Ivy Dawg Studio and mastered at The Pearl Factory, Hamilton, New Jersey, USA, this is the first recording to utilize the full resource of the June 2008 upgrade of the facility. This Libra Records CD is a first edition limited release.


American composer G.S. Haynes has been quietly working to enrich the quality of our musical culture for almost 50 years. If surprise and delight have a single word in the contemporary classical world, for decades it has been Haynes. Teacher, performer, conductor, writer and lecturer as well as prolific composer, Maestro Haynes has - and continues to - weave his golden thread through the fabric of our musical times and into history.

The music of Haynes has always been known for his remarkable gift of melody. His melodies always have energy and motion. They seem familiar, yet lead to unexpected places, like taking the family car on a trip.. to a new continent! There is a unique inevitability to his melodic lines, which marks his complete technical command of the musical art, but the reason for the music is emotion and humanity and never just technical mastery.

A musician by age 7, Spensser Haynes had quickly developed abilities at the piano and with several stringed instruments, including a powerful tone on the violin which first brought him wide notice and recital appearances across the country. But composition was his great passion almost immediately. Fifty years later, he still speaks of writing music as an act like breathing, and still steadily produces compositions and musical ideas in a wide range of styles.

Most musicians find his music playable and interesting. It has a foundation of the composer’s many years of performing experience, and is intended to reveal its full richness in live performances for live audiences. The excitement this combination of experience and theoretical depth creates also comes across in these recordings: each composition invites us in and entertains us in its own special way.

For anyone who enjoys classical music, the music of G.S. Haynes should not be ignored. It is the music of those who believe in the power of Love, and can appreciate the difference between the art and the commerce of Music. Here is the influence of Bach and Haydn, of Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn, of Pergolesi and Persichetti. Here is the tradition of the string orchestra, evolving into the next century. We also hear the influence of more contemporary artists reflected in these passages; Jean-Luc Ponty, Eileen Ivers, Jean-Pierre Rampal. Spensser Haynes is a musician who taps all the best that music offers, and distills a new and vital music for our time.