Mark Simpson

Cappella Records is proud to present the world première recording of DANIEL KNAGGS’ TWO STREAMS, performed by the GRAMMY® Award-winning Houston Chamber Choir led by Robert Simpson, with string ensemble Kinetic and world-class soloists.

Kenneth Clark Loggins (born January 7, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His early songwriting compositions were recorded with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1970, which led to seven albums, performing as the group Loggins and Messina from 1972 to 1977. As a solo artist, Loggins experienced a string of soundtrack successes, including an Academy Award nomination for "Footloose" in 1984. His early soundtrack contributions date back to the film A Star Is Born in 1976, and for much of the 1980s and 1990s, he was known as "The Soundtrack King". Finally Home was released in 2013, shortly after Loggins formed the group Blue Sky Riders with Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman.

A work filled with ambition, Circlesong is a musical portrayal of the human life cycle as captured in the indigenous poetry of North America. Based on poetry from the Chinook, Comanche, Dakota, Eskimo, Iroquois, Kwakiutl, Navajo, Ojibwa, Pueblo, Seminole, Sioux, and Yaqui traditions, the thirteen movements, in seven parts, mark the different stages of life, from birth and childhood to adulthood, middle age and death. With energetic percussion accompaniment, climactic moments for tutti choir, tender unaccompanied passages and solo song, Circlesong is a work of impressive drama, variety, and depth, performed here by the Grammy® Award winning Houston Chamber Choir under Robert Simpson. Founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Robert Simpson, the Houston Chamber Choir received the 2019 Grammy® Award for Best Choral Performance for its recording of the complete works of Maurice Duruflé (also available from Signum). Other honors include Chorus America’s Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the American Prize, Professional Choir Division. Dubbed by Jamie Bernstein as “the choral equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters” the Houston Chamber Choir is as comfortable singing jazz with Christian McBride and Dave Brubeck as performing Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel with violist Kim Kashkashian, and Mass Observation by Tarik O’Regan.