SUDDEN SUNSETS CD: Highlights of the BENSON AIDS SERIES. Visit DMP Store to hear and purchase. This DMP CD features the music of composers whom we have lost through the HIV/AIDS virus and have presented in our World AIDS Day concerts since 1990.

In the late 1980's and 1990's, AIDS swept across our cities and country with the ferocity of a modern day plague. It decimated thousands of victims, rendering them helpless. In the "sweep" were our most talented artists, mostly men in the height of their creative lives.

A long time East Village resident, pianist, conductor and activist, Mimi Stern-Wolfe, began presenting concerts of music by composers who were living with HIV/AIDS or had died. The result is a unique body of work, full of beauty and wonder, that vividly captures the tragedy of AIDS.

Music (click on song title to hear track sample):

1.   Sarah Young: Dear Sarah (mezzo-soprano, psaltery)
2.   Robert Chesley: Nobody Knows This Little Rose (counter-tenor, piano)
3.   Robert Chesley: Autumn (counter-tenor, piano)
4.   Chris DeBlasio: ALL THE WAY THROUGH EVENING: Disappearance of Light
5.   Chris Deblasio: Train Station (baritone, piano)
6.   Chris DeBlasio: An Elegy to Paul Jacobs (baritone, piano)
7.   Chris DeBlasio: Poussin (baritone, piano)
8.   Chris Deblasio: Walt Whitman in 1989 (baritone, piano)
9.   Calvin Hampton: I Will Be Your Mouth Now (mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, French horn, double bass, conductor)
10. Robert Savage: SUDDEN SUNSETS: Day Shift (vocal, flute, clarinet, French horn, double bass; conductor)
11. Robert Savage: Night Shift (flute, clarinet, French horn, double bass; conductor)
12. Michael Seyfrit: Bill (oboe, piano)
13. Deolus Husband: Here Are My Black Clothes (soprano, flute, piano)
14. Chris DeBlasio (Gilbert): Butcher (soprano, piano)
15. Lee Gannon: Echo (mezzo-soprano, piano)
16. Kevin Oldham: Not Even If I Try (baritone, piano)
17. William Turner: Rondeau Redoublé (vocalist, piano)
18. Nicholas Schaffner: Journey's End (vocalist, guitar, flute, clarinet, vocal)

The Performers & Musicians:

Track 1: Sarah Young, mezzo soprano, psaltery
Track 2, 3: Marshall Coid, counter-tenor; M. Stern-Wolfe, piano
Track 4-8: Gilles Denizot, baritone; Perry Brass, poetry
Track 9: Sarah Young, mezzo soprano; Downtown Chamber & Opera Players
Track 10, 11: Downtown Chamber Players; Mimi Stern-Wolfe, conductor
Track 12: Matthew Sullivan, oboe; Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano
Track 13: Veronica Burke, soprano; Andrew Bolotowsky, flute; Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano
Track 14: Veronica Burke, soprano; Ilsa Gilbert, poetry
Track 15: Sarah Young, mezzo soprano; Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano
Track 16: Gilles Denizot, baritone; Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano
Track 17: Lisa Solkolov, vocalist; Mimi Stern-Wolfe, piano
Track 18: Richard Barone, vocalist, guitar; Andrew Bolotowsky, flute; D. Hopkins, clarinet; Marshall Coid, violin; Boris Raiskin, cello; Charlie Tomlinson, bass; Nicholas Scarim, Arranger

Price: $15.00 (+ $5.00 for shipping and handling + any applicable sales tax)