The Outstretched Hand, New Choral Music by Lisa Bielawa, Colin Jacobsen, Aaron Jay Kernis. San Francisco Girls Chorus, The Knights

New US-American Music in World Premiere Recordings is the order of the day, starring the San Francisco Girls Chorus with the Trinity Youth Chorus and the chamber orchestra known as The Knights, all on the recent album My Outstretched Hand (Supertrain Records STR014). The works concerned are "My Outstretched Hand" by Lisa Bielawa, "Remembering the Sea--Souvenir de la Mer" by Aaron Jay Kernis, and "If I Were Not Me" by Colin Jacobsen.

Performances are enthusiastic and heartful, with youthfulness winning the day. All is conducted with sureness and sensitivity by Eric Jacobsen. The project was spearheaded by SFGC Artistic Director Valerie Sainte-Agathe. Lisa Bielawa (former SFGC Artistic Director) produced the album. Mention should also be made of Colin and Eric Jacobsen as the Artistic Directors of the Knights and Melissa Attebury as Associate Director of Music for Trinity Wall Street, the home of the Trinity Youth Chorus among other things of course.

All that having been said, what of the music? It is pronouncedly expression-oriented, tonal, lyrical and imaginative, with decidedly more of an emphasis on the "Post-" world than on vestiges of Romanticism. It's all about unabashed singing out, tone-weaving, feeling-life-exploring, the promise of youth captured in voice and instrumental musical combinations of real charm. The artists and their directors, the composers are to be congratulated in creating some of the most evocative music of the new releases this fall season. The glow of youth permeates all of this. Nicely done. It is a freshening. Perhaps it is a musical equivalent to "plain air" visual art? In its own way.