Music by Director of Composition, Coordinator of New Music and Associate Professor of Composition Jonathan Newman, M.M., is featured on the newly released Albany Records album “Halfway There,” which became available on June 5.

Newman composed the album’s title work, a four-movement song cycle set to poetry by Kate Baer. The recording features soprano Emily Martin, pianist Alan Johnson and the Tesla Quartet, bringing Newman’s expressive and text-driven composition to life through a collaboration of acclaimed performers.

The release marks the latest recording of Newman’s work to reach an international audience through a major classical music label.

“Kate Baer‘s poetry sings with a beautiful mixture of vulnerability, evocative imagery, celebration, and humor,” said Newman. “This set of songs was happily made for my longtime friend Emily Martin, with whom I’ve musically collaborated since we were (so very) young, and who was literally my first commissioner when I was 18 years old. The work — performable with piano, or piano and string quartet — is lovingly dedicated to her and to our long musical history.”