POTSDAM -- A Crane School of Music faculty member's newest CD has been named one of the 2011 Best Recordings of the Year by MusicWeb International.

"Love is Everywhere: Selected Songs of Margaret Ruthven Lang, Vol. 1," by tenor Donald George and pianist Lucy Mauro, was released last year by Delos Music.

MusicWeb International reviewers released their top three recordings of the year recently, and Margarida Mota-Bull named "Love is Everywhere" one of her favorite CDs of the year. The CD features music by a respected but little-known American woman composer Margaret Ruthven Lang.

"Lang was nearly forgotten, largely due to herself as she destroyed many of her works, but she was a fascinating woman composer who lived nearly 105 years! It was a delightful, refreshing experience to listen to her music and to talk to the performers who had the brilliant idea of making this CD," Mota-Bull said. "Initiatives such as these deserve to be acknowledged in any possible manner. To me, the revelation of the year!"

Margaret Ruthven Lang was the first American woman composer to have works performed by major symphony orchestras in the U.S., beginning with the Boston Symphony under Nikisch. Her musical family associations included Liszt, Wagner, Dvorak and Paderewski. She studied in Munich with prominent teachers of the time, and in the U.S. with such figures as Chadwick, Paine and MacDowell. The CD "Love is Everywhere" features delightful songs that she wrote mostly in the Late Romantic tradition.

Donald George and Lucy Mauro continue to perform these songs internationally. For reasons that remain unclear, Lang -- a shy and unassuming lady -- stopped composing in 1919, and destroyed most of her unpublished scores, including her choral and orchestral compositions. This was despite the fact that her music was widely admired and critically acclaimed, even in an era when the musical establishment tended to scorn the creative abilities of women.

Donald George, tenor, is an associate professor at SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music and has performed at La Scala, Paris Opera Bastille, Théâtre du Châtelet, the Royal Opera of Brussels, the Kennedy Center, as well for the state operas of Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna and the festivals of Salzburg, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Perth and Blossom.

Lucy Mauro is an assistant professor at West Virginia University. During the 2007 to 2010 seasons, she and George have performed to much acclaim for colleges, universities, concert series and festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad.

The second volume of "Love is Everywhere" will be released by Delos Music in February.

To learn more about George and Mauro, visit www.duodrama.net.