Most guitar recitals emphasise the vigorous Spanish and Latin American heritage of the instrument. This album takes a different approach, travelling round the fringes of Europe, with music from Albania, Estonia, France, Serbia, Greece and the British Isles, these largely lyrical works chosen because they were inspired by issues and events that underline the dignity of the human condition. They allude to a surprisingly wide range of subjects: peace-time reconciliation, love and loss, ethnic identity, personal courage, environmental degradation and bittersweet recollections of childhood - in music for calm reflection.

Finnish-Dutch cellist Jonathan Roozeman presents a programme featuring contemporary works for cello by Finnish composers. For some of the pieces, he is accompanied by pianist and composer Johannes Piirto. Centered around a sonata by music veteran Kalevi Aho, the program's six works reflect the diversity of contemporary Finnish music, all having been composed within the last fifteen years. Sauli Zinovjev's 'Sustained' appears as a ghostly, discordant, fragmented reflection of music from the Romantic period. Cecilia Damstrom's 'Aveo' was composed for people who suffer from long COVID and who have had to bid farewell to their normal lives. 'Recitativo' by Sebastian Fagerlund, a commission from a cello competition, challenges not only the cellists' mastery of their instrument but also their interpretative abilities. 'Sanasi, kiveen uponneet' by Outi Tarkiainen, a composer who brings to her music the perspective of someone born in the north, in Finnish Lapland, features powerful soundscapes inspired by natural phenomena as well as human themes touching on the deepest emotions of mankind. The programme concludes with 'We Lie Down Only to Get Up Again' by Lauri Porra, a composer who exemplifies the multifaceted nature of contemporary Finnish music. This work evokes the atmosphere of a summer morning with warmth, perhaps even with a touch of longing.

LEGENDS: Rebellion is the next installment in a series of recordings celebrating women as storytellers and bearers of cultural memory. Featuring world-premiere recordings, Grammy-nominated, long-time collaborative duo soprano Laura Strickling and pianist Joy Schreier return to add to the evolving legend of modern art song in an album exploring rebellion in many forms: political, emotional, erotic, maternal, and spiritual. From Afghan women's landay poetry composed in defiance of oppression, to mythic heroines reclaiming their own narratives, to an unflinching portrayal of new motherhood and a powerful meditation on love as resistance. Pushing against conventional expectations of what art song 'should' be, this album offers a kaleidoscopic array of harmonic and rhythmic languages alongside compelling, deeply human texts; a program that fascinates, challenges, informs, and delights - inviting both devoted listeners of art song and those less familiar with the genre into a richly expressive sonic world celebrating contemporary song as a space for courage, vulnerability, witness, and transformation.

Strange Loops presents clarinettist Mark Van de Wiel with colleagues from the Philharmonia Orchestra in three works spanning over two centuries of chamber music. The album centres on the first recording of Anna Clyne's Strange Loops, written in 2020 and exploring repeating and transforming musical patterns. It is paired with Ruth Gipps's Rhapsody, a single-movement work highlighting the clarinet's lyrical and colouristic qualities, and Carl Maria von Weber's virtuosic Clarinet Quintet, composed for Heinrich Baermann. Recorded at Garsington Studios in 2024, the programme reflects van de Wiel's longstanding commitment to both contemporary and established clarinet repertoire.

Divine Art is delighted to present Made in Germany, from Texas-based Olmos Ensemble, the first in an exciting series of albums catalogued by country, presenting rarely performed and unrecorded works for mixed chamber instrumentation. Originally formed by the principal players of the San Antonio Symphony, Olmos Ensemble has established itself as one of the premier chamber music organizations in Texas, and features leading musicians from across the United States. Made in Germany will be released as they open their 32nd Season. Each album in the series will feature a works of varied instrumentation, creating a unique collection of recorded chamber repertoire that only an ensemble like Olmos - through their remarkable access to top musicians around the United States - could bring together. The Ensemble's concert programming has won great acclaim for it's focus on showcasing neglected works by female composers, and Olmos is thrilled to bring this to their recordings as well, with each album in the series featuring works by women composers, including many premieres. Made in Germany features three composers of German origin: Richard Strauss, Rudolf Tillmetz, and Ruth Schonthal. The album includes the first recording of Laszlo Varga's highly regarded arrangement of Strauss' Don Quixote for six instruments: clarinet, French horn, violin, viola, cello and piano, which includes every core member of Olmos Ensemble apart from flute. As the original primary voices in the larger orchestrated work (all but piano), these six instruments work wonderfully together in recreating the thrilling tale of Don Quixote. Also included is the first professional recording of Rudolf Tillmetz's only chamber work, the Nocturne for Flute, Horn, and Piano, Op. 31. One of the few Romantic-era trios for this unusual instrumentation, the piece reflects the salon music tradition of late 19th-century Germany, emphasizing lyrical writing and equal interplay between instruments, and although not widely known is a valuable work in the horn and flute chamber music repertoire. German-born Jewish composer, Ruth Schonthal fled Nazi persecution early in her life, first moving to Mexico and later America to study with Paul Hindemith. Completing the album is a rare recording of her late-career Theme and Variations for Solo Flute, which distills her lifelong commitment to melodic expressiveness and emotional narrative into a unique work for solo flute. Future albums in this series will focus on the Czech Republic, America, Italy and Austria. 'We are excited to record music that has never before been paired together on an album and present to the classical music loving public a unique set of all-encompassing recordings that will range from solo works through nonets and possibly larger. With the group consisting of people living in entirely different parts of the US, Olmos Ensemble is unique in it's ability to maintain 31 (and soon 32) seasons of existence, all while presenting lesser known works in addition to insightful interpretations of the great standards.' Members of Olmos Ensemble on this recording are: Artistic Director Mark Teplitsky, Assistant Principal Flute of the Naples Philharmonic, previously second flute at Houston Symphony; violinist Eric Gratz, a soloist, concertmaster, chamber musician, and Artistic Director of the American Chamber Music Society in Chicago; Ilya Shterenberg, Acting Principal Clarinet of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (Canada), and Principal Clarinet of several orchestras across the US; cellist Julian Schwarz, first prize winner at the inaugural Schoenfeld International Competition 2013 and a founding member of the Frisson Ensemble; Jeff Garza, principal horn of the Oregon Symphony and the Bellingham Festival of Music; violist Colin Brookes, a founding member of the award-winning Ulysses Quartet, and award-winning soloist; soloist and chamber musician Elizabeth Dorman (piano), a regular guest Keyboard at the San Francisco Symphony, and faculty member of the San Fransisco Conservatory of Music.

Antonio Stradivari's 1700 'ex Cristiani-Stauffer' cello, considered to be one of the master's finest works, was purchased by the Walter Stauffer Musicology Center in Cremona. It is now on display at the Violin Museum in Cremona. The history of this cello, though at times uncertain, suddenly becomes clear when it comes to Lisa Cristiani, a Parisian cellist who acquired the instrument, definitively linking her name to Stradivari and the cello. Lisa died very young in 1853 at just 26 years old, a fleeting star on the musical scene of her time: in just a few years, she enchanted audiences with her extraordinary cello. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy dedicated his Song Without Words, Op. 109, to her. But today, you can hear 'The Voice of Stradivari,' the voice of this precious cello, on this CD released by the Italian label MVcremona. The excellent performers are the cellist Giovanni Gnocchi, born in Cremona like Stradivari's cello, and the pianist Alessandro Stella. According to the renowned Italian critic Angelo Foletto, on this CD, 'Gnocchi exploits with loving interpretative skill and virtuosic ease every quality of the 18th-century 'Stauffer ex Cristiani' Stradivari cello, constructing a listening adventure of intriguing poetic subtlety and an intelligent assortment of accents.' SUONARE news, dicembre 2025 This cd includes some pieces written by cellist-composers themselves (Popper and Klengel). Other pieces were transcribed by famous concert performers and cello virtuosos of modern and contemporary times (Piatigorsky, Schiff, Isserlis). Others were dedicated by composers to their cellist friends, as in the case of Dvorak and Hanus Wihan, Liszt and Bernhard Cossmann, the living composer Ducros and Jerome Pernoo and Mendelssohn, who dedicated his Romances sans paroles op. 109 to Lisa Cristiani, then owner of this beautiful Stradivari. The final piece is an Italian masterpiece composed by Gioacchino Rossini: 'Une larme, theme et variations'. The combination of elegiac cantabile and explosive virtuosity encapsulates the characteristics that have inspired the musical choices in this CD. Rediscovered only in recent decades, it belongs to the Peches de vieillesse, the 'sins of old age' as Rossini called the many compositions he wrote in his later years and never published because, as he said, 'I do not publish anything; I only write because I cannot do anything else'. Composed in 1858, it offers the musician all the most typical elements of Rossini's genial style.

The 12 Sonatas for mandolino and continuo by Francesco Weber represent one of the most interesting collections of compositions for the baroque mandolino that have come down to us. Despite his German surname clearly suggesting German ancestry, Francesco Weber, was an Italian lutenist / theorbist / mandolinist and composer, whose career was mainly in England. My research started from his will - drawn up in London under the name of John Francis Weber on April 13, 1745 - and proved several months after his death on June 5, 1751, in which the 'Republic of Genova' is often mentioned concerning assets and family properties. The 5-course mandolin used for this recording was built in Genoa in 1717 by Andrea Weber (1658-1740). It is the only surviving example by this maker, and one of the very few surviving Genoese baroque 'mandolinos.' It is an instrument recently discovered in a private collection, therefore completely unknown even to early mandolin experts, before this recording. An even more extraordinary aspect that distinguishes this disc is the fact that it represents a truly exceptional case - perhaps unprecedented at least in the field of early plucked string instruments - in which the music of a composer is recorded using an instrument built by his father.

Bruce Heim was the Horn Professor at the University of Louisville from 1999-2021. He is an active recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and pedagogue. He has performed in Mexico, Venezuela, Poland, Belgium, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, and throughout the United States.

I made my first public appearance as a soloist the same year I graduated and pursued advanced studies in Copenhagen with Emil Telmányi and in Berlin with Willy Hess from 1919 until 1921, and when I returned home, I succeeded in securing a position as a violinist in the Royal Danish Orchestra." But already not long afterwards in 1923 he presented himself as a candidate for the leader of the Berlin Philharmonic, which after the death of Artur Nikisch in the previous year now had Wilhelm Furtwängler as it's chief conductor. He won the position over 14 competitors and relates himself: "That was quite something for an enthusiastic young violinist! From the last desk of the second violinists on Kgs. Nytorv to the highly responsible first desk in Bernburger Strasse, enjoying a close working relationship with such a great figure as Wilhelm Furtwängler.

This album brings together three major orchestral works by John McCabe, composed between 1970 and 2007, and reflecting key strands of his musical thought. Symphony No. 2 unfolds as a tightly integrated single span, notable for it's rhythmic energy, luminous orchestration, and structural clarity. Symphony No. 3, Hommages, acknowledges McCabe's lifelong engagement with the music of Haydn and Nielsen, blending quotation and allusion within a vibrant, tonal framework. The Cello Concerto Songline traces a continuous musical journey, combining virtuosity with introspective lyricism and a finely balanced orchestral palette.

SOMM Recordings is pleased to release their second recording with the Chamber Ensemble of London, a virtuoso group of hand-picked string players directed by violinist Peter Fisher, whom The Times counts amongst "a handful of the world's finest musicians." Following the ensemble's 2022 SOMM release, Eclogue - British Chamber Music, which Gramophone praised for it's "unfailingly sympathetic music-making throughout," this new release is Quiet Summer Evening - British Concertante Music, drawing on the rich tradition of light classical music. The programme opens with Rhapsody for Clarinet & Strings by Geoffrey Bush. He was initially taught by John Ireland and, on his advice, studied composition and classics at Balliol College, Oxford, emerging with degrees in both subjects in 1946. Bush's hauntingly beautiful rhapsody features the sought-after clarinettist Peter Cigleris, whose growing discography includes three previous releases with SOMM. He is also the soloist in 5 Pieces for Clarinet & String Orchestra by Clive Jenkins, CEOL's associate composer. Jenkins was born in Plymouth, and he shows his roots in many of his compositions-including these pieces, each of which has a name connected with Plymouth. Another work by Jenkins included here is Fantasy for Horn & Strings, featuring Alexei Watkins, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he was awarded the Dennis Brain Prize. Watkins is also featured in Orion (Serenade for Horn & Strings) by prize-winning conductor-composer Andy Meyers, as well as Lullaby, an expressive and programmatic piece by composer and BBC Radio 3 producer Luke Whitlock. Bassoonist Sarah Watts is a multi-instrumentalist who has become well known worldwide as a prolific composer of colourful and inspiring music. Here, she performs her composition Everywhere Is Somewhere Else. Additionally, she is the soloist for the contemplative Sunday Afternoon by notable arranger, conductor, and composer Nigel Brooks, excerpted from the broadcast series Stars on Sunday, and also A Little Waltz by the prolific mid-twentieth-century composer, arranger, and master orchestrator Gordon Jacob. Other pieces by composers from former generations include Canto popolare, extracted from Edward Elgar's concert overture In the South; Lennox Berkeley's single-movement Andantino, which he adapted from his Festival Anthem; and one of Frederick Delius's earliest surviving compositions, Romance. The soloist for Berkeley's Andantino and Delius's Romance is cellist Michael Mace, who pursues a wide and varied musical career as performer and teacher. Peter Fisher is the violinist for Elgar's Canto popolare and the appealing Vers le Sud (Towards the South) by Terence Higgins who, notwithstanding his early promise, decided against a full-time professional musical career and-like composers Wilfrid Josephs and Alan Rawsthorne-qualified as a dentist. Fisher also plays the CD's title piece, Quiet Summer Evening, a contemplative piece by composer-pianist Don Shearman, who enjoyed a long and distinguished career in light music.

REFERENCE RECORDINGS proudly presents a landmark recording, the first commercial project to feature Joel Thompson's music exclusively, which brings together this ascendant composer and the Kansas City Symphony led by Michael Stern. The career of composer Joel Thompson has seen a meteoric rise since the premiere of his breakout choral work Seven Last Words of the Unarmed in 2015. Each of it's seven movements sets to music the last words of an unarmed Black man before he was killed. Joining them are some of the most important performers of today focused on the same crucial topics: cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, and the Sphinx Organization's vocal ensemble Exigence, led by Eugene Rogers. This is powerful music of profound insight and uncompromising conviction, brought to life by the passion and artistry of eminently skilled collaborators.

Outside Italy-perhaps beyond the shores of his native Sicily-the name of Eliodoro Sollima (1926-2000) has not traveled widely, beyond the accomplishments of his five musical children, and in particular the cellist Giovanni Sollima. On a previous Brilliant Classics album (96287) from 2022, Giovanni paid a touching tribute to his father's memory with a collection of chamber music. "This album is a winner!" reported Fanfare magazine, and noted how the "compositional style of this substantial and serious composer developed significantly" between 1945 and 1995. This new album of Eliodoro Sollima's orchestral music covers a similar period, between the Aria for cello and strings (1945) and Attesa (1997). Attesa ("Waiting") is the most substantial piece on the album, scored for the unusual combination of piano, horns, strings, and percussion: a powerful seven-movement suite inspired by the suffering of a man given the death penalty in the US state of Virginia and executed in 1997. Sollima worked within a tonal framework to evoke, in his words, "the frantic sequence of images, memories and emotions that torment the last hours of a condemned man's life." The pianist and musicologist Anna Maria Sollima (sister to Giovanni) supplies insightful annotations, which trace the course of Eliodoro's life and career through the works recorded here. World premieres on record include the early Ouverture da camera (1948/50) and Rondò burlesco (1951) for piano and orchestra, carried forward by strong, cinematically flavored melodies. From 1968, the Concerto per archi (Concerto for strings) is another work with a political subtext, inspired by the shock arising from the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. But Sollima always stayed true to his Sicilian roots and continued to translate the idioms of local folk music in his own contemporary style: a commitment exemplified by Nenia e recitativo, a concertante piece for cello and strings. Seekers of 20th-century tonal voices will find in Eliodoro Sollima a distinctive and compelling personality, to which these performers do full justice.

In July 2026 Metier is delighted to present Lieder Zyklen (Song Cycles) by contemporary Swiss composer Thomas Fortmann. Featuring settings for voice and piano trio of poetry and text by writers including Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Christian Haller, Prolitheus Pfenninger and Fortmann himself, these works demonstrate the composer's eclectic and unusual style that combines postmodern music, serial techniques, rock and jazz. The Swiss tenor Tino Bru¨tsch and Swiss soprano Nuria Richner perform alongside the Trio Accademia Amiata and a Trio of soloists Malwina Sosnowski, Donitille Jordan and Talvi Hunt. The album also includes Fortmann's Hommage to Schubert's Winterreise and his arrangement of this iconic song cycle for baritone and string quartet is given a powerful performance by Florian Prey, son of the great German baritone Hermann Prey alongside the Amar Quartet. Fortmann's setting of the intriguing poem Am Ende des Flurs (At the end of the hallway, 4th floor) by his close friend, Swiss Literary Prize Winner Christian Haller, is followed by The Hofmannsthal Verses. Composed in his early twenties as striking rock songs to poetry by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who became the librettist to Richard Strauss, the lyrics are a collage of Hofmannsthal poems Fortmann found moving for their linguistic power and their social and political statements. Geschichten (Histories) are concise, short songs that intertwine the timeline of a love relationship with that of human history and dimensions of the cosmos. The Prolitheus Songs are based on e-mails from the extraordinary visual artist Prolitheus Pfenninger, complex and often laden with double meanings and wordplays. Schubert was the favourite composer of Fortmann's mother, a well-known soprano - she often sang his songs to him and his sisters, and the music's sensitive emotions resonate deeply. The Hommage an Schubert's Winterreise, Der Su¨sse Ton (the Sweet Tone) is Fortmann's setting of a text collage from Joachim Ringelnatz who often referred to Schubert in his poetry, passages of text from Eduard von Bauernfeld on Schubert's funeral and excerpts from poetry of Schubert himself. The Homage opens with a typical rock riff, reminiscent of how Schubert drew on popular rhythms of his time, and the work refers to the songs of Winterreise in various ways, some of them hidden in contrapuntal forms. Despite the different compositional techniques throughout Fortmann shows his musical-emotional kinship with Schubert. Recreating Winterreise for voice and string quartet was a delicate task of reassembling the work while trying to stay as faithful as possible to the original. Fortmann sought to recapture the mood of the songs, their simplicity and touching directness, and to achieve this with a string quartet some modifications were necessary including extra notes that do not appear in Schubert's original. In the 1970s Thomas Fortmann had a very successful career as a writer of rock music - and also as an international golfing star! At age 26 he abandoned this career to study formal composition which laid the foundation for an extensive body of work that includes chamber music, operas and musical theatre, orchestral, choral, and organ works, as well as several song cycles. Fortmann's distinctly personal style often unites different - and sometimes opposing - impulses of modern music. Lieder Zyklen marks the sixth release of his music on the Metier label.

When Baroque Meets Folk Energy In 'folk baroque', the music of Georg Philipp Telemann encounters the vibrant dance traditions of central Europe. The program grew out of a collaboration between recorder virtuoso Erik Bosgraaf and the Italian ensemble filoBarocco during the Gottingen International Handel Festival, initiated within the European support programme EEEMERGING+. At the heart of the project lies the fascinating Rostock Manuscript, a historical source long associated with Telemann's fascination with Central European folk traditions. For Bosgraaf and filoBarocco, the manuscript offers the perfect point of departure for exploring the meeting ground between Baroque repertoire and living folk music traditions. The ensemble shares a deep enthusiasm not only for historical performance practice but also for music that retains the energy, spontaneity, and expressive freedom of traditional dance music. Telemann himself was renowned for his openness to musical influences from across Europe. During his travels he encountered Polish and Hanna folk traditions that left a lasting impression on him. In his autobiographical writings, he vividly describes the impact of this music: it's rhythmic vitality, it's improvisatory spirit, and it's powerful melodic expression. These qualities fascinated him and found their way, sometimes subtly, sometimes quite directly, into his own compositions. Yet reconstructing the sound world of the eighteenth century presents a unique challenge. Unlike music from the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, there are no recordings to tell us exactly how this repertoire once sounded. Historically informed performance with this repertoire therefore requires re-composition. Musicians must piece together clues from written scores, historical treatises, instrument research, and contemporary descriptions. On the recording 'folk baroque' the musicians expand this process further by drawing inspiration from living folk traditions. Many rhythmic patterns, ornamentations, and expressive gestures that appear in Baroque music still survive today in Central European dance music. These traditions offer valuable insights into how such musical gestures might function in performance. The goal is not to recreate a supposedly "authentic" past because that would be inherently impossible, but to create a musical interpretation that feels convincing, vibrant, and alive for modern listeners inspired by the timeless melodies of the Rostock Manuscript. For this reason, the program includes elements of improvisation and experimental playing techniques. While this approach may initially seem unusual in a Baroque context, it reflects the spirit of exploration that shaped the music of Telemann's own time. The musical notation in the Rostock Manuscript often provides only a framework rather than a fully fixed sound image. It invites performers to engage creatively with the material and rediscover it's inherent energy. The result is a concert experience that feels both historical and contemporary. The music is rooted in eighteenth-century sources, yet interpreted by musicians who are equally at home in the traditions of early music and in modern sonic experimentation. Ultimately, what connects this repertoire with today's audience is emotion. Instruments and styles may change over time, but the fundamental human passions expressed through music remain the same: joy, melancholy, longing, passion, and the irresistible urge to dance. When listeners begin to grasp the expressive language behind these works, the music suddenly feels remarkably immediate. It ceases to be merely a historical artefact and becomes a living experience, almost as if a sleeping frog had been awakened with a kiss

This album presents a selection of chamber works that offers a compelling cross-section of the composer's musical imagination, as well as the fluency with which he moves across a richly varied stylistic landscape. The outstanding performers respond with complete assurance to the intentions of one of the most frequently performed composers of his generation. Adrian Robak explores unconventional instrumental combinations and a wide spectrum of sonorities, while remaining in meaningful dialogue with the aesthetic currents of earlier decades. His music impresses and moves through the sincerity of it's expression-an artistic voice that has earned him growing recognition on concert stages in Poland and abroad.

Folklore takes the listener on a musical journey throughout 19th- and 20th-century France, Georgia, Hungary, and Spain. Through different styles and soundscapes, the compositions are united by the spirit of folk traditions and national character, as well as personal memories of the performers-Swiss-French cellist Christoph Croisé and Georgian pianist Ana Bakradze. Works originally conceived for their instrumental combination sit alongside transcriptions that fit their sound world like a glove, a testament to the popularity of all the music on this album. Siete Canciones Populares Españolas, a set of seven traditional Spanish songs by Manuel de Falla, is his most-arranged composition and among his most popular. Béla Bartók's Six Romanian Folk Dances, originally composed for solo piano, were drawn from melodies the composer recorded of folk musicians singing in the countryside of his Hungarian homeland. Hungarian influences infuse Pablo de Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs), originally scored for violin and orchestra. Sulkhan Tsintsadze's Five Pieces on Georgian Folk Themes evoke childhood memories for pianist Ana, especially the fourth, a lullaby that her mother used to sing to her. The most substantial work on the album, Robert Schumann's Fünf Stücke i'm Volkston (Five Pieces in Folk Style), conjures the harmonies and rhythms of folk music. French national character imbues Nadia Boulanger's Trois pièces (Three Pieces) and works by her teacher Gabriel Fauré: his elegant Sicilienne-originally penned for orchestra but frequently adapted for cello and piano-and his ever-popular miniature "Après un rêve" (After a Dream) from his Trois Mélodies (Three Melodies). When asked about their own connections to this music and what they wish for the listener, Christoph and Ana agree: "Above all, joy! We share a love for the roots in these pieces and the inspiration they provided to the composers. For this album, we've selected our favourite miniatures. Some are well known, others are more personal, but they all connect to the spirit of folk traditions in some way. It's about the lasting pleasure of connecting through music we love."

All the works on this CD share a constant feature: the musical "gesture," which is at the origin of each piece. This "gesture" may appear in several ways. It may be brief and concise, as in the opening of ".a riveder le stelle," or more complex and extensive, as in the beginning of "Mosaico." In all cases, however, the "gesture" creates a "figure" and a "situation" that sets off a process of transformation. As in a theatrical scene, even a short one, the instrument is like a character who acts through this or that "gesture," expressing speech through articulated transforming figures. Just like a monologue or, in other cases, like a dialogue. A guitar, a violin, a harp, or a cello are not just musical instruments. They are "characters" with their own personality and a story to tell. Furthermore, each piece is a story where several situations occur and memories from the past return. "Narration" is another basic element of my way of composing. It can take different routes, reaching different destinations. The last part of "Youth," written for harp, rediscovers the vague memory of a 70s song that I loved when I was a teenager. The end of ".a riveder le stelle" and "Mosaico" are concluding moments of a journey where many things had happened, and where now, looking back, we can understand the sense of them and the sense of the journey itself. At no point are the direction and the destination set at the beginning. They are "found" along the way, for what is important is the journey. Simone Fontanelli

Milestones is a cross-genre project by violinist Hugo Ticciati and the O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra, bringing together music by Josquin des Prez, Igor Stravinsky, and Miles Davis. Conceived around shared anniversary years, the album reflects O/Modernt's practice of placing music from different periods and traditions into direct conversation. Instrumental arrangements and collaborative performances draw attention to common ground between Renaissance polyphony, early modernism, and jazz, particularly in approaches to rhythm, texture, and improvisation. Recorded in Germany and the UK in 2021, the project documents an ensemble-led approach that emphasises attentive listening, flexible roles for soloists, and collective music-making across stylistic boundaries.