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Lyrical and passionate, with touches of humor. LOVE LETTERS is a major song cycle for voice, violin, and piano. The cycle contains 11 songs which are settings of excerpts from actual love letters that span a period of 2000 years from Pliny the Younger in the 1st century AD to John Steinbeck in the 20th century. The other authors include: Margaret Lawrence, Catherine the Great, Sgt. Bert Fielder, Benjamin Franklin, Ogden Nash, Mariana Alcoforado, and Gustave Flaubert. The letters were chosen to reflect the many different aspects of the universal emotion of love: from longing, exuberance, excitement, and playfulness to the heartbreak of abandonment. The work is singular in that there is no other song cycle which uses actual love letters as the texts. THE DISTANCES THEY KEEP, for two voices, flute, and piano, is a based on the poem Howard Nemerov, and it is a sensitive reflection on man s relationship to nature. In Sophokles tragedy Oidipous Tyrannos the protagonist was separated from his parents at birth. He unwittingly fulfilled a prophesy by killing his father in a quarrel and then marrying his mother when he became king of Thebes. IN DARKNESS, for voice, alto saxophone, and piano, is a narrative of the events that took place after the incestuous marriage became known. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, ROGER C. VOGEL, studied music theory and composition at the Ohio State University and earned the Ph. D. in 1975. A productive composer, Dr. Vogel has over 120 compositions and several journal articles to his credit. Since he joined the faculty of the University of Georgia in 1976, Dr. Vogel has written and published more than 100 original works. The performers are University of Georgia Faculty: Ellen Ritchey, soprano; Gregory Braughton, tenor; Stephanie Pierce, soprano: Levon Ambartsumian, violin; Kenneth Fischer, alto saxophone; Lisa Bartholow, flute; Anatoly Sheludyakov, piano; and Andre Lash, piano.