Album Notes

SATORI is a mixed ensemble of winds, strings, and piano, and plays both traditional and contemporary chamber music. The group’s repertoire ranges from baroque to 21st century selections, often intertwined in a single performance. SATORI’s name is taken from a Zen term suggesting the coming together of separate parts to form a whole---a perfect metaphor for chamber music. This recording celebrates SATORI’s Tenth Anniversary season, and the music, excitement, laughter, twists – and Turns—those ten years have brought.

Composer Paul Salerni writes:
Like all good Italians, I love a celebration, so it was with joy and honor that I accepted the commission to write a piece for SATORI’s tenth anniversary. The architecture of Turns is simple – two lively outer movements in ritornello form surrounding a more gentle, aria-like middle movement – clearly and intentionally borrowed from Vivaldi’s concerti. The title of the piece can be interpreted in numerous ways. I myself was thinking of the traditional chamber music practice of each player in the ensemble taking a “turn” in the starring role, or the Stravinskian device of starting one musical idea and then taking a “turn” toward another before finishing the first, or of taking a “turn” on the dance floor (you will notice that the music often suggests various ethnic dances). But you may have other takes on Turns, none of which I hope will compromise your simple enjoyment of the music and its superb players.
Dr. Salerni is the NEH Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Music at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, where he teaches composition and directs a contemporary music ensemble. His music has been performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, ands China.

Information on purchasing the score and parts for Turns and other music by Paul Salerni is available through LFB Consulting, email LFB7@ptd.net.


SATORI performers include:
John Arnold, guitar
Rebecca Brown, violin
Marie-Aline Cadieux, cello
Johannes Dietrich, violin
Adriana Linares, viola
David Moulton, cello
Mary Ogletree, violin
Nora Suggs, flute