Richard Thompson, one of today's most artistically aware composers, offers here "two song cycles and six piano preludes, in a contemporary classical vein as well as an arrangement of the Spiritual, Wade in the Water, for jazz quartet." Thompson's work here helps to highlight the natural tendency of today's urban American composers who, not content to write in one style of music, work to remove the presupposed barrier between traditional classical music and contemporary jazz, thereby underscoring their artistic and spiritual kinship. Mr. Thompson, originally from Aberdeen, Scotland, has written compositions that combine European and African-American styles, so that the formal structures of European classical music develop ideas that are essentially jazz in nature. Thompson completed graduate studies in jazz at Rutgers University in New Jersey. While there, he studied jazz piano with Kenny Barron and classical piano with Ted Lettvin. He also holds a jazz diploma from the Berklee College in Boston.