Maria Newman, the daughter of nine-time Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Alfred Newman, is known as a composer of serious music in her own right. She has been presented with numerous awards and commissions from venerable organizations and ensembles around the globe for her critically acclaimed, scintillating and varied library of chamber music, vocal and choral music, music for chamber orchestra, concerti, symphonic music and highly discussed music for vintage silent films. She has served as Composer-in-Residence for many renowned ensembles and institutions. Newman is the adoring mother of five beautiful children, and she is happily married to conductor/violist Scott Hosfeld. As a violinist and violist, Newman has concertized around the world as a soloist, recitalist, and as a member of the Malibu COast String Quartet and the Viklarbo CHamber Ensemble. Newman was viola soloist for the Grammy Award-winning recording "Symphonic Hollywood," in her critically acclaimed performance of Miklos Rozsa's "Viola Concerto" with the Nuremberg Symphony. Hal Ott, master flutist, serves as a Distinguished Professor of Flute at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington where he lives with his wife and four children. Ott has chaired several international flute conventions and has published a number of books on flute pedagogy. Known for his great flair and agility, Ott has championed many works for flute and chamber ensembles of various combinations. He has commissioned and recorded works of numerous 20th and 21st Century composers, performing in recital, on radio broadcasts and in concert halls worldwide. The Malibu Coast Chamber Players is comprised of globally renowned musicians who perform in concert annually for the Malibu Coast Music Festival at the Montgomery Arts House for Music and Architecture in Malibu, California. Archiving each season's significant new music programming, the ensemble convenes at MAHMA during the winter to have fun, tell bad jokes, eat good food and record great music. "Pennipotenti" (2005), composed for the combination of flute, violin and viola, illustrates four musical pictures of birds. Commissioned by Los Angeles' Pacific Serenades, the work has enjoyed an extensive performance life. "The Dipper" portrays an ever-changing flight pattern that dips and soars. Imitating soft hooting through the use of harmonics and whistle tones, "The Snowy Owl" emerges in a contrapuntal chorale setting. "The Hummingbird" is presented as a musical miniature, depicting the agile and quick nature of its namesake. "The Falcon," intelligent and brave, reveals a raptor hovering above, spying its prey and dangerously swooping down to attack. "Sonata No. 1 for Flute and PIano" (1999) was commissioned by world-renowned pianist Delores Stevens and Chamber Music Palisades. The work reveals the flute in all of its lyricism and agility, and the piano as an equally ferocious and capable collaborator. Set in five highly contrasting movements, the emotion of the work ranges from mystery to purity to passion to resignation, in a wildly mercurial fashion. The sonata features flute alone in the expressive second movement, and the piano as the main protagonist in the enigmatically mad fourth movement. The Finale, frenetic and driving, races to a furious finish. "The Pied PIper" (2008) was first commissioned in 1998 by the Debussy Trio Music Foundation during the time when Newman was pregnant with her second child. Perhaps because of this maternal state, Newman was drawn to the Robert Browning text depicting the magical piper who rids the town of Hamelin of unwanted rats. In the story, the town refuses to make good its promise of payment to the piper. As punishment for this betrayal, the piper steals the children of Hamelin away forever, leading them through a magical door in the side of a mountain. In 2008, Newman added four short solo flute reveries to the existing four movements already scored for flute, viola and harp. The 20-minute result is a complete musical illustration of Browning's tale. "Colores de Mexico" (2007) was originally commissioned in 1993 by Marty Walker as a work for clarinet alone. Premiered in Guadalajara, Mexico at the Martes Musicales Festival, "Colores" was composed to celebrate the diversity of Mexico. IN 2007, Newman orchestrated the work for flute and percussion in order to present collaborative ongoing performances with the Malibu Coast Chamber Ballet. Set in five character movements, "Colores" describes the composer's vision of a light rain shower that in its indecision stops and starts; the hypnotic effect of the mysterious rattlesnake and the sound of its menacing warning rattle; a rushing, swirling river; a coyote howling its lament to a distant thunderstorm; and a little Mexican dance.