Richard Pearson Thomas is equally at home writing works for the concert hall and the stage (including the Off-Off Broadway hit “Parallel Lives”) and “Ossessione” is his modern counterpart to the “standard” repertoire of 24 Italian Art Songs, with a re-examining of the texts casting them through a modern perspective. The first performance with John Muriello led to a collaboraton, including Thomas’ unique adaptation of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” displaying Muriello’s remarkable abilities as a singing actor. As a novel bonus, this CD also includes their sparkling interpretations of classic pop songs about love such as Arlen’s “That Old Black Magic” and Richard Rodgers’ “Bewitched.”