This Signum Classics release presents four orchestral works by leading Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye, performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dane Lam. Recorded in February 2024 at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, the album features The Backyard of the Village alongside two concertante works: The Memories of Mount Jing Gang with violist Diyang Mei, and My Faraway Nanjing with cellist Guy Johnston, plus the overture The Loquat in Five Colors. Ye's music blends contemporary orchestral writing with Chinese history, landscape, and cultural memory, reflecting his distinctive international voice.

Vinyl LP pressing. The second installment of the Batiste Piano Series sees multi-Grammy and Oscar winner Jon Batiste reinterpret Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most beloved melodies as Black American classical music, infused with influences from jazz, rags, stride, blues and stomps. The result is a vibrant conversation without words - not about genre, but pure expression.

Vinyl LP pressing. Nonesuch Records releases The Wild Heart, the label debut from composer Dylan Mattingly, The Wild Heart, performed by Contemporaneous with conductor David Bloom and vocal soloist Iarla O Lionaird. The vinyl edition features two movements - 'Ulysses Dances' and 'Last Dance' - from the five-movement work The Transmutation Notebooks, as well as Sunt Lacrimae Rerum (these are the tears of things).

Why Francesco Geminiani is not mentioned these days alongside other great masters of the era of Baroque music is a bit of a mystery. Together with Corelli and Handel her was one of the composers who made a great career for himself in eighteenth-century Great Britain. Concerto Koln has not forgotten him, on the contrary: the ensemble pays homage to him as one of the true greats. And now the musicians have chosen their favourite pieces from his entire oeuvre and called it Geminiani's Quintessence. Concerto Koln has chosen works from all categories of his work for this project, with bassoonist Lorenzo Alpert taking a leading role in selecting those rare works "which we think are the loveliest and most accomplished of his compositions." The fact that Geminiani left a host of teaching manuals about playing technique and interpretation was decisive for the ensemble's interpretation of the works. "These rich sources of information made it possible for us to employ some surprising and unusual stylistic elements in our readings of his Concerti Grossi," explains Alpert. "They are what led to his special and very personal 'Quinta Essentia'" which will be available on CD and double vinyl.

Once again, Concerto Koln stands out for it's clever programming, which explores the underlying concept of the album from different angles. "As a violinist, the playing experience is not only musical but also physical: I can often quite easily guess the physical traits of the hands and arms of each of these composers. One had a strong pinky or a long middle finger, the other liked to play lightly or heavily in the right arm and so on", explains Shunske Sato. Concertos written for four solo violins by three different composers are featured on the album: The B minor (RV 580) and D major concertos (RV 549) by Antonio Vivaldi, as well as a concerto each by Giuseppe Valentini and Pietro Antonio Locatelli. The CD also includes solo concertos for one violin and orchestra by Antonio Bonporti and Pietro Castrucci (with Evgeny Sviridov and Jesús Merino Ruiz as soloists, respectively).

Jon Batiste - "Monk Meditations" [LP] On Monk Meditations (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 3), multi-Grammy® and Oscar® winner Jon Batiste expands introspective short form compositions by Thelonious Monk into longer form piano works imbued with classical structure and quiet grandeur. Verve; Classical Crossover.

The Piano Guys return with Unstoppable, a fan favorite album now on both CD & vinyl featuring their signature cinematic take on today's biggest hits. Includes stunning renditions of "As It Was," "When You're Gone," and "Easy on Me." Own the music you love in a beautifully packaged release from the viral sensations who redefine instrumental music. Don't miss this must-have addition to your collection!

The slyly absorbing new volume from Michigan-based musician Erik Hall understands the contemplative joy in repetition. Solo Three is the culmination of what Hall describes as a loose trilogy, following his radical reinterpretation of Steve Reich's minimalist masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians, and his subsequent rendition of Simeon ten Holt's Canto Ostinato, a winding work of Dutch minimalism. This time, Hall boldly reimagines works by four distinct contemporary classical composers: Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel, and, again, Steve Reich. It is a particular grouping that exists through Hall's singular lens for magnetic repetition and harmonic resonance. The resulting program unravels subtly but masterfully, each piece a kind of contrapuntal bliss a touch livelier than the last, all building to the Reich-ian reprise-an apt bookend to the series. Altogether, Hall has crafted a richly varied homage to four pillars of American minimalism, an elegant mix of accessibility and discovery. As ever, he performed and multitrack-recorded all the parts himself without loops, programming, or sequenced instruments, his solitary method still arguably novel to the classical canon. Meanwhile, within the context of modern production, this analog approach works as a gentle rebellion against a culture of faceless automation, instilling these recordings with a flesh-and-blood human touch. "It's just so much more interesting to actually play every note," Hall says. "You then get them directly juxtaposed, and as they repeat, all of those micro-differences between them create a sort of living, breathing magic." That living, breathing magic imbues every crevice of Solo Three, making it not just a stirring tribute to four giants of 20th-century minimalism, but a reflection of how their influence continues to reverberate today.

Christopher Tignor is a composer, violinist, lecturer, and software engineer. His emotionally charged scores and unique focus on live, performance-based electroacoustic practice has won acclaim within both the classical and experimental communities across 10 LPs on the Western Vinyl and New Albion record labels. He creates the live performance software he uses, shared freely. As a composer he has written and recorded work for ensembles including The Knights, A Far Cry string orchestra, and Brooklyn Rider string quartet, performing alongside them at premiere venues including Carnegie's Zankel Hall. As a collaborator he has worked with Rachel Grimes, Helios, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, John Congleton, This Will Destroy You and several other artists at the boundaries of popular music. Tignor holds a Ph.D in music composition from Princeton University, an M.S. in computer science from NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and a B.A. in creative writing from Bard College where he studied fiction and poetry with John Ashbery.

A landmark recording by the legendary Glenn Gould, this LP showcases his brilliant interpretations of Bach's Italian Concerto in F Major, BWV 971 and the first two Partitas (BWV 825 & BWV 826). Recorded in New York City in 1959, these performances reflect Gould's signature clarity, precision, and emotional depth. From the lyrical Andante of the Italian Concerto to the spirited Capriccio of Partita No. 2, this is Bach reimagined by one of the 20th century's greatest pianists.

Sometime in 2020 I listened to Canto Ostinato for the first time, and my enthrallment with the piece had begun. I was transfixed by it's particular amalgam of harmony, repetition, and pacing. By the spring of 2023 I had constructed and released my own solo interpretation, and I assumed at that point my working relationship with the composition had run it's course. But I underestimated it's magnetism. The following year I was back in it's grips, having been invited by Metropolis Ensemble's Andrew Cyr to expand on the foundation I had laid with the piece. Soon I was in Brooklyn, on a team of six with Cyr and the members of Sandbox Percussion, humbled and thrilled to be helping architect a brand new large ensemble arrangement of Canto Ostinato for a summer solstice performance at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. We did so, our cohort growing to include the students of The New School's Sandbox Percussion Summer Seminar, as well as composers David Leon, Ben Wallace, and Ledah Finck and the Bergamot Quartet. It was a day we will all remember-sweeping, dreamlike, and what felt like a quintessential culmination. But even then... The piece still beckoned, and it became clear this new orchestration called for the embarkment on a studio album. A permanent document of our now collective ardor. Refined over a year and recorded in New York, 2025, this performance recasts the piece anew in a towering framework of mallet percussion, woodwinds, strings, and piano. It is our truest attempt at conveying Canto's beauty and magnitude in all it's kaleidoscopic harmony, dynamism, tension, and release. I stand once again in awe of Simeon ten Holt's monumental creation; to be a thread in it's sonic fabric is one of the great honors of my musical life. I don't assume we might be so fortunate again... but who knows.

Critically acclaimed American producer Tomu DJ (Pitchfork, Dazed, NPR++) debuts on sound as language with her fourth album, 'antagonist.' Recorded in the artist's Oakland, California home throughout 2025 using only a digital piano, her intention for the album was to "free myself from conventional notions of electronic music". This is perhaps seen clearly on standout tracks "loose interpretation" and "careful deliberation", which in their cinematic splendor evoke the beauty and thoughtfulness of classical music. Even so, 'antagonist' is "not intended to be like classical music, rather a stream of consciousness akin to spoken word poetry". It is easy to see what she means on tracks like "antagonist" and "dance" which weave familiar elements into personal narratives of loneliness, perseverance and redemption. Despite it's specific sonic palette, 'antagonist' fits right in with Tomu DJ's discography, continuing to build on the musical ecosystem she has thoughtfully tended to over the course of the last decade.

With this vinyl edition, the Xenakis Trio refocuses on two major pillars of it's repertoire: Iannis Xenakis and Steve Reich. Two distinct visions of contemporary percussion, brought together in a dialogue of materials, rhythms and resonances. Taken from their first album Alliages, these works take on a new dimension here: the warmth of vinyl restores all the density of the instrumental gesture, the grain of the timbre, the raw pulsation of the percussive sound. This edition is a field of resonance - a space where the tectonic forces of twentieth-century music combine with the artistic demands of a trio in search of the limits of sound.

The piano duo Jonas Hain & Robert Gromotka are joined by cello and violin for added depth and color in this new release. It is a concept album exploring human relationships and the invisible spaces between two people, blending neoclassical clarity with cinematic intensity, creating emotionally resonant soundscapes. Each composition captures moments of closeness, distance, and reflection. For fans of Nils Frahm, Max Richter, and Ólafur Arnalds - intimate, poetic, and moving.

Baroque mastermind Jörg Halubek finishes his journey around the great historic organs of Germany. The final installment of his series Organ Landscapes on vinyl. Halubek plays the Silbermann organ (1710-1714) in the Dom St. Marien Church in Freiberg, the Hildebrandt organ (1746) in St. Wenzel Church in Naumburg, and in the St. Johannis Church in Lüneburg.