Chamber Music Palisades is an organization based in Pacific Palisades, California (which just happens to be where I reside) headed by pianist Delores Stevens and flutist Susan Greenberg. They have been putting on chamber music concerts on the west side of Los Angeles for just over 10 years...by collaborating with some of the best players in Los Angeles. This is the first recording project that the ensemble has produced and it is a triumph both musically and sonically.

For their inaugural recording project, the co-artisitc directors selected the Shostakovich Piano Quintet Op. 57 in G minor written in the summer of 1940 as the focal point. Shostakovich played the piece at the premiere that same year with the Beethoven Quartet on November 23 of that same year. The piece is a fusion of elements and styles drawn from Shostakovich's experiences as a movie-house pianist during his time as a student and his familiarity with the works of other composers...especially Cesar Franck and Ludwig van Beethoven. Included among the five movements, which are group in three segments, are a Prelude and Fugue; Scherzo; Intermezzo and Finale.

The CMP (Chamber Music Palisades) ensemble enlisted the assistance of some of the finest string players on the west coast for this recording. Roger Wilkie, founding member of the Angeles Quartet, member of the Pacific Trio and principal of the Long Beach Symphony, is a Southern California native and graduate of California State University, Northridge (he was a student there at the same time that I was doing my undergraduate work in composition...small world!). A very fine chamber music performer, Roger plays the first violin in the Shostakovich and handles the beautiful melodies of the Intermezzo and Finale with equal skill as the bouncing Scherzo movement.

René Mandel plays the second violin in the Piano Quintet. He was the concertmaster for the Music Academy of the West and is currently the principal second violinist for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Jeffrey Kahane. His playing in the Shostakovich lays in perfect relief to that of the first violin and is aptly powerful in the opening movement and Finale.

Paul Coletti was born in Scotland to Italian parents and played viola internationally for many years before settling in Southern California. He is on the faculty of the Colburn School for the Performing Arts and will be the guest of the Beijing Conservatory during 2008. Mr. Coletti's viola playing is absolutely first rate. He manages to bring a richness of tone and singing quality to his playing that is highly prized and captured on both the Shostakovich and Debussy tracks.

Peter Stumpf spent 12 years as the Associate Principal Cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra before becoming the Principal Cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2002. A dedicated chamber music musician, Peter's playing is exemplary on both the Shostakovich and the Brockman. He seems equally at home playing the singing, high register lines of the quintet as he does the percussive, pulsating rhythms of the contemporary work.

Delores Stevens, the pianist for CMP and pianist for the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Society Summer Music Festival, played on the very first AIX Records recording back in 2001. I first met her during her tenure at CSU Dominguez Hills, where I am the head of the recording arts program. Her work on the Brahms 7 years ago and her crafted playing of the Shostakovich is clear and concise yet full of emotion when necessary.

The Shostakovich Quintet is a 20th Century chamber music masterwork and the performance on this first every HD Surround music rendition brings the piece into new relief. There is none of the over-hyped artificial reverberation that weakens so many chamber music recordings. The sense of space and envelopment that the "stage" perspective mix brings to the work allows the listener to experience the complex interplay of the Fugue movement as never before.

Debussy's Trio for Flute, Viola and Harp was composed very late in the composer's life and was premiered less a year before his death in 1918. The three movements are a quixotic blend of tender melodic interplay over constantly shifting tempos and melancholy motives that permeate the entire work. The Sonata is essential Debussy in style and character but at an intimate level.

Susan Greenberg, co-artistic director of CMP. is a frequent soloist and chamber musician in Southern California. She is currently a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and is high demand in the studios of the city. Susan Greenberg's opening melodic turn is continually echoed by the other instruments throughout the opening movement. The balance on the tracks between her delicate tone and the viola and harp are captured in great detail through the unique stereo miking technique employed by AIX Records. It is this special attention to detail that allow the surround mix of the works to immerse you in the textures. The harp part, played by harpist JoAnn Turovsky, principal of the LACO, is captured with clarity throughout its full register using 2 pairs of stereo microphones. The detail produced by this unique method of recording makes this track especially engaging.

Jane Brockman is California-based composer familiar with composing for the concert stage and for the film industry. Her Feast of Fives trio for Flute, Piano and Cello is a tightly unified exploration of the number 5. It defines the primary melodic motive, the rhythmic structure and even the formal structure. Her single musical gesture contains three discrete sections. The tonality of the work is an example of extended functional harmony without the dissonance that has dominated so much contemporary compositions.