Britannia

Donald Runnicles leads the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 'Britannia', a new Telarc recording of 20th-century British music. Recorded in Atlanta in April 2007, the album opens and closes with Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March Nos. 1 and 4, among the most beloved and famous of all British compositions. The other four works on this disc are Mark-Anthony Turnage's Three Screaming Popes; Sir Peter Maxwell Davis's An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise featuring bagpiper Scott Long; James MacMillan's Britannia; and Benjamin Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20. Principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Donald Runnicles is one of today's most consistently acclaimed conductors of opera and symphonic repertoire. He is also principal conductor of New York's Orchestra of St. Luke's, music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, and both music director and principal conductor of San Francisco Opera since 1992. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which begins its 63rd season this fall, is one of the few American orchestras with a continuing association with a major record label (Telarc). The orchestra has recorded more than 100 albums on Telarc, winning 26 Grammy Awards. During the 2007-08 season Telarc also plans to release Michael Gandolfi's world premiere Garden of Cosmic Speculation, which was recorded by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in May.