KNEHANS

UNFINISHED
EARTH
Tempest—Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
Unfinished Earth—for Orchestra
Gareth Davies, Flute
Brno Philharmonic Orchestra
Mikel Toms, Conductor

ablaze
RECORDS
ar-00036 New Classical
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These two works represent different views of how the external metaphors of wind and earth may be shaped to
reflect the more intimate internal worlds of the human heart and mind.

Tempest, my flute concerto, was shaped by the thought of wind—such an essential element to the flute and flute
playing—and how, in the natural world, this courses across the planet in different ways from benign to hostile.
The three movements reflect different wind patterns found around the globe and served as a departure point
for a three-movement work cast in a quasi-classical frame of fast-slow-fast structure. Each movement engages
a message, I hope, beyond mere tone painting, to reflect deeper aspects of the human condition, the human
experience, thought, reflection, psychology and emotion.

Unfinished Earth is a longer and deeper work, again cast in three movements, and delving into the constant
degradation and reformation of earth and sea. Just as the earth slowly changes and evolves, we ourselves are
constantly evolving through the deepening of our life experience, the processing of life’s joys and tragedies,
and the inner passage of our turmoils and triumphs. Tempering, the first movement, is about the formation
of earth and the molten rock that rises from the subterranean earthen smelter to become land. For me, this
is a movement about becoming, and through such becoming, firming our sense of self, just as earth does as
it becomes land. Eternal Ocean, the second movement, evokes the shifting currents of deep ocean, again as a
metaphor for the unfocussed and at times even conflicting currents of the inner emotional worlds of the human
experience. The final movement, Tearing Drift, is again a work with multivalent meanings: referring to the ripping
apart or fractures in the earth’s surface, as might happen in an earthquake, perhaps, and also referring to the
alternative meaning of the first word of the title not as being torn but as crying. This notion of an earth cry or
deep subterranean swell of grief was a central image and intent of this movement. The strident wind and brass
microtonal peals and screams against the strong percussive thrust of this movement were intended to reflect
such an earth cry—or even the Munchian silent scream of isolated man.

A Concerto
and a
Symphony?
T he concerto form has undergone various
reappraisals, rejections, and reinstatements in
recent decades, in line with the trajectory of the
late twentieth century, where musical revolutions
and counterrevolutions were waged in equal
parts. What is the current status of orchestral works
with a prominent soloist? Is the solo voice an
integral part of the society that it represents, or is
it an outsider? Protagonist or antagonist? Hero or
antihero? Is the concerto form inherently a political
act or statement? Could it really be only about
allowing a particular instrument to get a chance
to show its capabilities? In our current age, when
the possibilities are not quite limitless if almost so,
one may be surprised at how traditional solutions
can still be effective when placed in new contexts.
Moreover, is a symphony possible in the twenty-
first century? Is writing a symphony now a mere
act of obeisance, or is the symphony still a vital
concoction? Is the word “symphony” a shibboleth
to be avoided at all costs? Long is the list of living
composers attached to the word “symphony,”
even in cases where works given this name are
not, in fact, symphonies in any inherited sense.
By contrast, many other composers write works
on a symphonic scale without conceding that
they are indeed symphonies, either to express
a programmatic ambition or simply to avoid
the weight of history that the term “symphony”
bears. Douglas Knehans is in the latter camp here,
opting to avoid the word while conceding that
the dimensions of the work in question make it
one, after all. Is a symphony a matter of size or of
content?
The two works by Knehans on this CD are both
paradigmatic and atypical of recent engagements
3
with these genres that, along with the string
quartet, continue to be forms that composers,
however clever they may be, can scarcely avoid.
His flute concerto Tempest has three movements,
sure, yet it could never be confused with a classical
model in terms of content: the soloist is typically at
the forefront, but not always, and neither is the solo
part the most ear-catching melodic line; also, and
this point is crucial, the orchestra is never relegated
to mere accompaniment. In Unfinished Earth,
the symphony of a sort, the twentieth-century
invention of the concerto for orchestra could be
argued to be a better descriptive match, as the
orchestra’s four sections go in and out of focus.
Tempest
Tempest is consistent, in terms of duration, with
three movements more or less of the same length.

The composer shuns the current trend of using
other members of the flute family and gives the
soloist the single, standard instrument throughout.
Its three movements are named after winds, and
the music is straightforward in its earthiness.
The opening movement, entitled Ostro after
a southerly breeze from the Mediterranean Sea,
alternates propulsive tendencies with frequent
recourse to chamber-music transparencies: the
orchestra that the concerto requires has fewer
winds and brass than the norm, but a full section
of strings. Ostro allots a prominent supporting
role to bassoons and trombones, darker hues to
bolster the terpsichorean tilt of the flute. The harp
figures, too, though shades of Mozart are nowhere
to be found in the texture itself; indeed, French
influences would seem to be a more immediate
point of reference.
The middle movement Mistral ... Funérailles,
named after a chilly, northerly breeze found en
route from France to the Alps, aligns notions of
cold with the reality of impermanence. A dirge of
sorts, which low winds, low brass, and a pedal point
in the basses usher in, it nonetheless effervesces a
few times on its way. Exposed passages for oboe
and English horn, and later clarinet, viola, and cello,
with quiet harp chords, add a particularly plangent
tone to the solemnity. Here the solo part tends
to allow itself to be subsumed into the overall
sonority.
Etesian, the final movement, is a wind found near
the Aegean Sea and, true to the phenomenon itself,
is steady. The music is not untroubled, as snarling
interjections from the brass make manifest, but
the onward march, at a frenzied pace, with tom-
toms and xylophone for reinforcements, is both
ineluctable and jocose.
Unfinished Earth
The symphony-in-all-but-name Unfinished Earth
takes deeper breaths, gives its material longer
stretches to unfold, and occupies a huge timbral
and dynamic range, often veering toward the
tenebrous, questing side of the spectrum.
On a programmatic level, the work concerns
itself with the motions and processes of the Earth
and its bodies of water; in linking these motions
with an array of human experiences, the composer
also builds musical analogues in the way that
materials take shape, move around, and transform
themselves: The Earth is inchoate, so is man; his
music is too.
Though the work employs microtones and
a prepared piano, it is in no way meant to be
experimental. Rather, the composer here seeks to
expand the palette on offer.
Tempering opens in a state of suspended
motion, forlorn and hesitant, but soon becomes
“Blazing,” to quote from the score, a passing parade
that gradually thins out. An important presence in
4
this movement then makes its first appearance, an
off-stage trumpet. The parade and the trumpeter
thereafter jostle for supremacy. The composer
intensifies the tensions between an individual
powerless against the forces of nature through his
occasional use of quarter-tone variations in the
winds, brass, and strings. The relentless quadruplets
finally exhaust themselves.
A harsh, nebulous world opens Eternal Ocean,
with solos for bassoon, horn, and tuba atop a pallid
soundscape of strings, at once ever-changing and
yet seemingly ineffable. For a while, oboes and
English horn try a muted off-kilter dance atop
the string body. The strings, left alone, then get
absorbed into the orchestral equivalent of plate
tectonics, leading to what could be heard as a brief
reminiscence of the opening movement, now
slowed down. Serenity ultimately prevails.
The intentions of Tearing Drift, with the insistent
clanging of metallic percussion from the outset,
become immediately clear. The off-stage trumpeter
from the first movement returns here and there
to add its clarion call to a movement of churning
restlessness. In the midst of such tumult, quieter
moments take on special meaning: the lilting
Almglocken, for instance, shine with their muted
ostinato. The forward pull of music, and of life, and
of the planet that we inhabit, cannot ultimately be
denied.
— Daniel Albertson
 5

Douglas Knehans
With a gift for extravagant color, beautiful melodic
style, clear musical form, and engaging, soulfully
dramatic work, the music of award-winning com-
poser Douglas Knehans has gained the attention
and warm appreciation of audiences and performers
around the world. Knehans’  two-piano work cascade
has been performed in Steinway Hall, New York; UIC
Recital Hall, Chicago; Tokyo, Japan; and Kiev, Ukraine
and recorded for worldwide CD release on Ablaze
Records by the virtuoso piano duo The Pridonoff
Duo in a recording hailed by Fanfare magazine as “
… effective … incisive … hauntingly beautiful … ”
A disc of his orchestral work titled Concertos was
released on Ablaze Records in th e fall of 2015 and
was called “ … music of tremendous imagination.
Knehans scores with a masterly hand, his sound
paintbrush unerringly hitting the mark.” by Fanfare
magazine. In naming this disc as winner of the GOLD
MEDAL—Best in Show, the Global Music Awards said:
“This complex album contains SOAR, that capitalizes
on the cello’s expressiveness and ability to constantly
evolve new and unique colorations; DRIFT, written for
solo oboe and strings, is an experiment with slowly
morphing musical shape and form; MIST, MEMORY,
SHADOW, for solo violin and strings, is an elegiac
work commemorating Tasmania’s fragile, timeless
environment and its people; and CASCADE, concerto
for orchestra, began as a work for two pianos but later
evolved into a wonderful and dazzling vehicle for

large orchestra. This sophisticated, wildly inventive
album is a masterpiece.”
In that same year a disc of his choral music, Lux Dei,
was released and was praised also in Fanfare as “…a
radiant disc of music by a composer who is blessed
with a tremendous imagination and who clearly has
great affinity with writing for choir. There is a huge
amount of beauty to be found here. Put simply, Kne-
hans locates and amplifies the spiritual within the
religious.,” while Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music
Review said it “... shows us a mastery of his craft and
an inspired result,” and Classical Music Sentinel said
“...his choral music comes across as well rooted and
accessible, and always seems to hit an emotional
nerve...”
Since 1980, Knehans has been the recipient of
numerous commissions, awards, and fellowships in
Australia and the United States. Most notably, the
inaugural $20,000.00 Victorian Council for the Arts
Composition Fellowship (1987–88), which enabled
him to write his first chamber opera, the ascension of
robert flau; a bicentennial orchestral commission for
the Canberra Symphony Orchestra (1988) from the
Australian Bicentennial Authority; over a dozen com-
missions (1986–1988) for various media supported
by the Australia Council Performing Arts Board; fel-
lowships from the MacDowell Colony (1989) and the
Leighton Artist Colony (1989), and a composer-in-res-
idence grant from Meet the Composer, Inc. (1990),
Knehans Photos — Tina Gutierrez Photography
6
The American Prize for Orchestral Music (2012), and
the Winner of the International Music Prize for Excel-
lence in Composition (2011), the Gold Medal-Best in
Show from the Global Music Awards (2016) for his
disc Concertos, among numerous others.
Douglas Knehans’s works have been broadcast
on ABC Classic FM and ABC Television (Australia);
National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting
Service (USA); RAI Radio and Television (Italy); and
HTKY, the National Television Broadcaster in Ukraine.
His music for television has been nominated for an
EMMY Award, and he composed evocative music for
the short film A Song of Air, which was invited to the
prestigious Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes
Film Festival (France). His music has been commis-
sioned and performed by some of Australia’s leading
ensembles and soloists, including the Canberra
Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony
Orchestra, the ELISION Ensemble, the Australian Boys
Choir, the Adelaide Percussions, guitarist Timothy
Kain, soprano Merlyn Quaife, Opera Australia, and
the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. He has been
featured in two books on Australian music (A Hand-
book of Australian Music and A Companion to Music
in Australia) as well as the International Who’s Who in
Music and Musician’s Directory.
In 2000, he was invited to participate in the
Czech-American Summer Music Institute in Prague.
During this three-week residency in Prague he also

visited Terezin and Auschwitz-Birkenau. These visits Also in 2007, Knehans was commissioned by the music composition with Pulitzer Prize winning com-
gave rise to the composition of his shoah requiem Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for a new work for poser Jacob Druckman, Lukas Foss, and Jonathan
for soloists, choir, and orchestra, the Introit of which
was performed as part of the 2001 Incontri di Musica
Sacra Contemporenea events in Bari, Taranto and
Rome, Italy, and broadcast nationally on RAI Televi-
sion and Radio. In 2002, his work Seraphic Ride was
given its world premiere at the Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C., by soloists from the National
Symphony Orchestra and streamed worldwide from
the Kennedy Center. In 2003 his work Rive played in
Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Hobart, Australia
as well as in London for the American Music Center,
and in Athens and Thessoloniki by the acclaimed
Verdehr Trio. In 2005, Knehans was invited to return
to the 2005 Incontri di Musica Sacra Contemporanea,
where his work for mezzosoprano and orchestra In
Questi Giorni was given in L’Aquila and Rome. Prior
to this trip, his work Lamentation, for string orchestra
was premiered as part of the Ten Days on the Island
International Arts Festival.
In 2006, he was invited to the New Music—New
Faces Festival in Cracow, Poland, where he lectured
on new music and composition and his work Rive was
given its Polish premier by the Verdher Trio. Resulting
from this performance he was invited to the Music
Premieres of the Season Festival in Kiev, Ukraine, in
2007 and to lecture in electroacoustic composition
at the Academy of Music in Cracow, Poland, and the
Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in Israel.
solo violin and strings resulting in his …Mist, Memory,
Shadow…. His work Glow, a double concerto (for
violin and clarinet) had its world premier at the Aus-
tralian International Symphony Orchestra Institute
in Hobart, Australia. In 2009 his large orchestra work
Ripple was set to dance by award-winning Chinese
choreographer Jiang Qi and given in Cincinnati and
with the Ballet West (Salt Lake City); and his work
Seraphic Ride was given as part of the SPECTRUM New
Music Series at the Esplanade in Singapore, about
the composition of which the Washington Post said
“The piece tells an exciting story, ever-intensifying in
color, thematic ideas, texture and tempo.”
Douglas Knehans (b. 1957, St. Louis, Missouri),
received his initial music education at the Canberra
School of Music (Australian National University) in
Australia’s national capital, where he graduated in
1980 with a high distinction in music composition,
the only such awarded that year. In 1990 he received
scholarships and awards from Queens College, City
University of New York, where he gained his M.A.
in composition with Distinguished Professor and
renowned composer Thea Musgrave. Upon gradu-
ation from this institution he received the first Luigi
Dallapiccola Composition Award (1991) for outstand-
ing achievement in music composition. After grad-
uating from Queens College, Knehans entered the
Doctoral program at Yale University where he studied
7
Berger. He graduated Yale University in 1993, earning
the Woods Chandler Memorial Prize (1993) for best
composition in a larger form, receiving his Doctoral
degree from Yale University in January 1996.
In 1993, Knehans was appointed to the University
of Alabama School of Music, where he was chair of
Composition, Theory and Electronic Music and Direc-
tor of the SCREAM (Southern Center for Research
into ElectroAcoustic Music) Studio. Between 2000
and 2006 he was the Tasmanian State Chair, Federal
Board member, Chair, and Executive Director (Syl-
labus Development) Music Craft of the Australian
Music Examinations Board. In 2005 he created the
Australian International Symphony Orchestra Insti-
tute and from 2005 to 2008 he was the Artistic and
Executive Director of that Institute. He was Professor
of Music and Director of the University of Tasmania
Conservatorium of Music between 2000 and 2008,
and Dean of the College-Conservatory of Music
(CCM) at the University of Cincinnati from 2008 to
2010. He is currently the Norman Dinerstein Professor
of Composition Scholar at CCM.
Douglas Knehans’s music is available on New World
Records, ERM Media, Crystal Records, Move Records,
and Ablaze Records. His music is published under
the Armadillo Edition imprint and is available online
through Alexander Street Press.
www.douglasknehans.com

Tempest—Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
The title of this work refers to rough wind. When
I was approached about a new flute work, with
utterly no technical restrictions, the idea of a wind
player, and especially a virtuosic wind player, set my
imagination to types of crazy, unrestrained wind.
This led me to look into the natural occurrences
of wild, unpredictable wind patterns around the
world. This then produced the titles and character
of the three movements: Ostro—the traditional
name of the southerly wind in the Mediterranean
Sea; Mistral—a cold northerly from central France
and the Alps to the Mediterranean–this movement
I have also allied to the notion of a type of funeral
march, hence the title Mistral … Funerailles with
the cold wind perhaps summoning the notion of
death and impermanence. Finally, the last frantic
and virtuosic movement is titled Etesian which
references a strong, dry north wind of the Aegean
Sea that is most of the time a good, steady sailing
wind. The well-contained and metrical virtuosity of
this movement seems to align with this welcome
and sustaining wind that is good for travel. In
artistically interpreting all of these types of global
wind patterns I have tried to invest a dramatic and
virtuosic element to the corresponding wind music.
I was asked for a piece without restrictions and so a
concerto seemed the obvious vehicle for this. The
works real birth is thanks to the dedicated virtuosity
and brilliant musicianship of flutist Gareth Davies, the
principal flute of the London Symphony Orchestra,
who agreed to record the work with Mikel Toms
and myself in Brno. In one, almost literally breathless
day, Gareth laid down this extremely demanding
work in intense embouchure-busting sessions in
which he never broke a sweat. He is a tremendous
musician, brilliant professional, and deeply powerful
soloist, and this work owes everything to him and
his peerless musicianship.
Unfinished Earth
Unfinished Earth is a symphony in all but name.
The three movements all refer to large geological
motions of earth and sea, yet, like most of my
recent work, also use such natural phenomena
to analogously point to the the large internal
landscapes of the human heart and experience.
The first movement, Tempering, refers to the
formation of earth’s structure and surface but
likewise is also about the structural interplay
between individual and group. This plays out in
a number of ways: the offstage trumpet solos
throughout the movement act as a kind of call of
the distant heart to which we all seek to listen and
follow; the convention of pitched and even tonally
centric music that collides and twists to microtonal
8
music of expressive inflection; and finally the overall
timbralexpression of this music that is thick and
powerful.
The second movement, Eternal Ocean, is referential
to the many currents of human emotions, as reflected,
perhaps, in the many different speeds and tidal currents
of the colorful, tumultuous, and vast open ocean.
The final movement, Tearing Drift, refers externally
to continental drift and how parts of continents shift
or break off—this shifting and breaking off is a type
of sectionalized structural approach I have adopted
in this movement. But further, and again, this music
is about the internal life of human experience
and how life experience acts on us like a type of
continental drift that repositions our attitudes over
time and in relation to our life experience.
This work was written for my son Joshua, who
is learning the French horn, and this is the reason
why this instrument features rather prominently
throughout this work—I wanted to show him the
power and beauty of this fantastic instrument
within an orchestral context. The piece is dedicated
to Maestro Mark Gibson and the terrific CCM
Philharmonia, who requested the work. This current
recording is thanks to the brilliance of maestro
Mikel Toms, the tremendous virtuosity of the Brno
Philharmonic, and the terrific recording team of
Jaraslav Zouhar (Brno) and Silas Brown (New York).
 9

Gareth Davies, flute

Gareth Davies is one of the finest flautists of his
generation. He studied at the Guildhall School
of Music and Drama. Shortly after graduating, he
was appointed principal flute in the Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra at the age of twenty-three.
During his time on the south coast, he recorded
the Nielsen concerto with the orchestra. In 2000,
Gareth was invited to become principal flute with
the London Symphony Orchestra, where he has
remained ever since. During his time there, he
has played and recorded with many of the great

conductors including, Gergiev, Sir Colin Davis,
Haitink, Previn, Jansons, Rostropovich, Boulez, and
Rattle. A recording of a concerto by Karl Jenkins,
written especially for him, is available on EMI.
He can be heard on many LSO Live recordings,
including Daphnis and Chloe and Prelude a l’apres
midi, conducted by Valery Gergiev, as well as many
film soundtracks, including Star Wars, Harry Potter,
Rise of the Guardians, and the Twilight saga.
As well as performing, Gareth is in demand as a
teacher and regularly coaches woodwind students
at the London music colleges as well as giving
masterclasses in London, New York, Tokyo, and
Beijing. Every four years, he is one of the directors of
the LSO Woodwind Academy, an orchestral training
program for exceptional students. As part of the LSO
Discovery scheme, he also works in schools in the
East London Boroughs, working with young students
in anything from composition, improvisation to flute
performance. One of his favorite Discovery projects
ended with a performance with these young people
in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London
Olympics to a worldwide television audience of four
billion people.
10
Gareth also works as a writer and presenter. He
has written for the LSO and for BBC Music magazine
and as well as presenting a series of preconcert talks
and interviews with Sir Colin Davis, Nikolaj Zneider,
Gergiev, Pappano, and Michael Tilson Thomas, many
of which are available online. He has written and
presented a documentary for Classic FM and his
first book, The Show Must Go On, published by Elliott
and Thompson, is available in bookstores and on
Amazon. It was chosen as a book of the year in the
Financial Times and Classical Music magazine.
www.garethdaviesonline.com
 11

Mikel Toms, conductor

British conductor Mikel Toms has worked with many
orchestras and ensembles, including the Royal Phil-
harmonic Orchestra, the London Chamber Orchestra,
the Oslo Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, the Brno
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Janáček Philharmonic
Orchestra, the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra,
the New Prague Sinfonia, the Kazakhstan State Sym-
phony Orchestra, the Uralsk Philharmonic Orchestra,
the Czech Film Orchestra, and Elision (Australia’s
national contemporary music ensemble).
He has recorded over twenty-five CDs for many
labels, including Sony BMG (the world premiere
recording of Philip Glass’s Saxophone Concerto), Decca,
Métier, Quartz, and Ablaze Records. He was also the
founder of the independent CD label Quartz and is

the director of a successful film and music produc-
tion company (First Creative) working mainly in the
United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. He recently
appeared in the three-part BBC FOUR television series
Romance and Revolution—Musical Masters of the 19th
Century.
He has conducted for BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now
program; has broadcast on Italian, German, Span-
ish, and Irish radio; and has appeared at festivals in
London, Bath, Cheltenham, Huddersfield, Belfast,
Darmstadt, Innsbruck, Sligo, Almaty, Valencia, Dort-
mund, and Berlin.
Mikel read music at Oxford University, where he
conducted a complete performance of Messiaen’s
Des Canyons Aux Étoiles at the age of twenty. He
studied with Peter Eötvös as a member of the
International Eötvös Institute Foundation and at
the Darmstadt Internationales Ferienkurse, where
he won the Stipendium Prize for performance. In
1996, he was selected to conduct the Ensemble
Modern in a performance of Karlheinz Stockhau-
sen’s Mixtur, in collaboration with the composer.
12
From 1993 to 2001, Mikel was artistic director of the
contemporary music chamber orchestra Reservoir.
He is now closely associated with the Brno Philhar-
monic Orchestra, with whom he has made many
recordings of contemporary and classical repertoire,
as well as a number of TV and film soundtracks.
He has recorded over eighty new works for orches-
tra and has collaborated with major composers,
including Iannis Xenakis, James Dillon, Michael
Finnissy, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Harrison
Birtwistle.
Mikel is also well-known as a writer and broad-
caster about classical music. In addition to his well-
known conducting blog, his writing has appeared
in The Times, the BBC Music Magazine, and other pub-
lications. His book Written on the Sky—Five Journeys
with Great Composers is scheduled for publication
soon.
From 1997 to 2000, Mikel was director of the British
Youth Opera, the United Kingdom’s opera training
company.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.
 13

Brno Philharmonic Orchestra

The Brno Philharmonic (BPO) has an illustrious his-
tory of music making, its beginnings dating back to
the 1870s, when its first predecessor, the amateur
Czech Symphony Orchestra, was established under
the auspices of Leoš Janáček and housed in the
purpose-built Besední dům, the present orchestra’s
magnificent home. Formed in 1956 after the merger
of the Radio Orchestra and the Brno Region Sym-
phony Orchestra, the Brno Philharmonic has long
been regarded as one of the best orchestras in this
country.
The Brno Philharmonic has often been labeled
as Janáček’s orchestra, and rightly so. Brno, where
the composer lived and worked, has always been
a lively center for his music. Since its foundation
 14

in 1956, the ensemble has given well over three

hundred performances of works by Janáček, at
concerts both in the Czech Republic and abroad.
It has also recorded Janáček’s complete symphonic
and cantata works.
The BPO has recorded extensively with Supra-
phon—a record company boasting a long and
distinguished history, and which is nowadays the
largest and most prestigious in the Czech Repub-
lic—and has also made a number of high-quality
recordings with Sony Music, IMG Records, and BMG,
as well as with a number of other well-known record
labels. Most recently, the orchestra has recorded with
Music Sales, Classic FM and Sony BMG, Channel 4,
Supraphon, the Royal National Theatre in London,
Ablaze Records, and Universal. In 1956, when it was
formed, the Brno Philharmonic began to collaborate
with Czech Radio, and this relationship has continued
up until the present day.
 15

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Maestro Mark Gibson and the CCM Philharmonia, without the
invitation from whom to write it, Unfinished Earth work would not exist.

Massive thanks, as ever, to the brilliance of the Brno Philharmonic in making

such a persuasive rendering of these works.

As usual, again, thanks to my friend and colleague Maestro Mikel Toms for such
a great and sympathetic reading and rendering of these works. Thanks, Mikel,
for your patience and calm and sheer artistry and skill! I thank you and the Retro
Consistorium thanks you!

Thanks do not seem adequate for the commitment, passion, technical brilliance,
utter professionalism, and complete kindness of flute soloist Gareth Davies,
whom the London Symphony Orchestra otherwise justifiably monopolize as their
Principal Flute. Gareth, you have been such a rock in bringing this tremendously
challenging concerto to life. THANK YOU!

And to my gifted and wonderful technical team: Jaroslav Zouhar for his brilliance
in recording and editing these works and my mixing and mastering engineer,
the ever patient and deeply and subtlety skilled Silas Brown. Thank you, guys!

And finally to my wife Josephine and my daughter Katarina, and to my son,

Joshua (to whom I dedicated Unfinished Earth), without the patience and
support of whom I could never have been absent for weeks at time undertaking
such projects.
Douglas Knehans — Unfinished Earth
1–3 Tempest Gareth Davies, Flute
Concerto for Flute & Orchestra Brno Philharmonic Orchestra
1. Ostro Mikel Toms, Conductor 7:03
2. Mistral … Funerailles 6:49
3. Etesian 6:49

4–6 Unfinished Earth Brno Philharmonic Orchestra

For Orchestra Mikel Toms, Conductor
1. Tempering 12:06
2. Eternal Ocean 11:55
3. Tearing Drift 8:13

ablaze
RECORDS

p 2018 ablazeRECORDS, Pty Ltd © 2018 ablazeRECORDS, Pty Ltd (ASCAP)

All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.
Cover Photo: Image taken by the Landsat-7 satellite. Source: NASA Goddard Photo and Video flickr photostream.
Courtesy of NASA/U.S. Geological Survey/Landsat-7/Goddard Space Flight Center.

Jaroslav Zouhar, recording and editing engineer, Brno, CZECH REPUBLIC

Mixing and Mastering Engineer, Silas Brown, Legacy Mastering, Westchester, NY, USA
Producer, Douglas Knehans
Design by Josephine McLachlan
Published by Ablaze Records, Pty Ltd
www.ablazerecords.net
Printed in the USA
 17

ablaze
RECORDS

ABLAZE Records is a new Australian/American company

specializing in classical and new classical music
from specialist composers and performers from around the world.

Audiophile Audition has said of ABLAZE:

“I also give my kudos to Ablaze Records for sound quality but, more importantly, the commitment to new music that their company
represents. Their website reveals that composers are openly solicited to submit scores and recordings for consideration on an ongoing
basis. Additionally, the company is presently accepting orchestral scores to put on a contemporary orchestral works CD! This is but one
of the creative ways that living composers can have their works heard without waiting to hear back from the conventional symphony
orchestra route. I look forward to more!”
— Daniel Coombs
© Audiophile Audition,
Published on February 18, 2011

http://www.ablazerecords.net
http://www.facebook.com/AblazeRecords