The best of new albums recently released by classical singers is Thomas Hampson’s “Songs from Chicago,” on Cedille Records, an unusual label that records only Chicago composers.
Hampson is America’s leading baritone and is not only a star of opera but also a dedicated singer and scholar of art songs. Here, with Kuang-Hao Huang on piano, he performs songs by five composers of the early 20th century associated with the city of Chicago: Ernst Bacon, Florence Price, John Alden Carpenter, Margaret Bonds, and Louis Campbell-Tipton.
