In Brief

You’ve got to give composer Jonathan Elias credit for gathering star-studded casts for his musical projects. He did it in 1990 with “Requiem for the Americas,” and he’s done it again with this project, which is being heard in ABC’s “The Century.” But don’t expect to hear Alanis Morissette, James Taylor, Salif Keita, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Linda Ronstadt and others in showcase settings. Elias’ work defines the concept of “sound design”--music created for atmosphere and setting--with solo voices emerging intermittently from lush, largely static choral and orchestral textures. What can be heard of Morissette (singing in French and Hungarian) and Keita, in particular, is impressive. More often, the album simply drifts off into soundtrack mode.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.