Milina Barry Public Relations

INDUSTRIOUS AMERICAN COMPOSER
MICHAEL TORKE LAUNCHES NEW LABEL:
ECSTATIC RECORDS

Licensing Agreement Made
with Decca/Universal Music Group

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE… Michael Torke's music can now be widely heard on disc again, thanks to the release of a comprehensive collection of recordings on his own label, Ecstatic Records, which will become available on September 30, 2003.

Ecstatic Records was formed after a successful licensing agreement was made with Decca/Universal Music Group to re-release the complete Argo recordings of Torke's music (1989-1998), produced by Grammy Award winner Andrew Cornall.

Michael Torke was only 28 when he signed an exclusive recording contract with the British label, Argo, a division of Universal Music's Decca recording company. After nine releases devoted to his music, the label folded and the discs eventually went out of print. Intent on preserving his existing discography and keeping his music in circulation, Michael Torke decided to establish an independent label.

In Billboard, Steve Smith notes, "While labels may be unwilling or unable to keep recordings in print, industrious composers are finding ways to do it themselves, increasingly under their own imprints. The latest to join this vanguard wave is American post-minimalist composer Michael Torke."

Torke is calling his label Ecstatic Records after his well known orchestral score Ecstatic Orange. The special retrospective set of six releases (ER 092201 - ER 092206), titled simply "one" through "six," brings back into circulation all of Torke's music that was recorded for Argo along with several pieces previously issued on multiple-composer recital discs. Torke had the recordings re-mastered and the music has been reconfigured thematically. Each CD is newly packaged and includes newly commissioned liner notes. The set of six, accompanied by a comprehensive overview by Steven Swartz, is now available through the composer's Web site, www.michaeltorke.com.

The Ecstatic Records catalogue centers on definitive Torke recordings with performers including the London Philharmonia, London Sinfonietta, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Balanescu Quartet, Present Music and the Apollo Saxophone Quartet. Conductors on the discs include Kent

Nagano, David Zinman, Edo de Waart, Lothar Zagrosek and David Allan Miller. Torke himself can be heard in the roles of composer, pianist and conductor.

The first disc brings together his orchestral "color" pieces, while the second disc pairs Four Proverbs and Book of Proverbs. Popular concert openers such as Javelin, commissioned for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, are featured on the third; the fourth showcases large ensemble works like Adjustable Wrench; the fifth groups together works featuring keyboards such as Vanada; and the sixth compiles smaller chamber pieces including Telephone Book.

Reflecting on the launch of Ecstatic Records, Michael Torke comments, "The painful adrenaline spike a composer gets when someone wants his music and it isn't available, has been replaced by my pride in this series, which acts as a kind of retrospective of the first decade of music I have written."

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To request press copies, photographs and further information on Ecstatic Records:

Contact: Milina Barry PR
212.420.0200 or info@milinabarrypr.com

Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes
212.358.5300 or www.boosey.com

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