GIVEON CORNFIELD, Ph.D.

My love affair with recorded music began at age eight, when my parents took me for afternoon tea to the house of a friend of theirs. This friend had a collection of records - all 78 rpm's which occupied an entire wall, and a huge gramophone with louvered doors to control the sound. He was kind enough to ask me what I'd like to hear, which happened to be Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik I had never heard such "high fidelity" before, and vowed then that someday I too will be the proud owner of a record collection, and be able to listen to anything I wanted, anytime.

Fast forward a few decades, when in 1960 I started Baroque Records Co. Of Canada in Montreal, specializing in out-of-the-way Baroque music that other labels had overlooked. This worked out well, and after moving to Los Angeles, I launched Orion Master Recordings incorporating the best of the Baroque Records catalog and adding - over the next 20-odd years - a few hundred more albums.

After retiring to Hawaii I donated the entire archive to the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where it is in the process of being catalogued.

Cliff Coleman, who had been reviewing all new releases from Orion since 'way back when' invited me to share in The New Recordings. As you may have guessed, my specialty is Early Music, progressing back from the Baroque to Renaissance, Gothic and even earlier music. A couple of years ago, I started a musical group - the Orion Early Music Ensemble - devoted to the performance of Ye Erlie Musicke - obscure works by composers you've never heard of, some of which you'll hear in my segment of The New Recordings.

Aloha