Reentko Dirks is known for his genre-blending style, incorporating flamenco, jazz, and non-European influences, particularly from Arabian music. He has worked with artists and groups like Cirque du Soleil, Yo-Yo Ma, and Ksenija Sidorova, and has performed at iconic venues such as Carnegie Hall. In 2025, Dirks will release an Album featuring tracks dedicated to his late father, offering a reflective and emotional musical tribute. Dirks is part of the European Guitar Quartet and the ensemble Masaa, which won the German Jazz Prize in 2021.

This album celebrates a warm and close musical relationship between composer, conductor, and orchestra - and the extraordinary impact the Covid pandemic had on British cultural life. Sir Mark and the Hall� commissioned and premiered the works on this album between 2020 and 2025, with Huw Watkins writing with the specific sound of the Hall� in mind. Symphony No. 2 and Fanfare for the Hall� were born of the pandemic. The symphony was composed during Covid lockdown, and Watkins said this influenced the work's character, with a determination that it should end positively. This is uplifting music, crafted in a symphonic tradition whilst offering a fresh voice and skilful use of instrumental writing. The performance was awarded the South Bank Sky Arts Classical Music Award for 2022. The Fanfare for the Hall� was commissioned by the Hall� to celebrate the return of the orchestra to the concert platform following the first Covid lockdown. Scored for 11 brass instruments, the work moves from a tentative beginning to a confident and defiant conclusion - arguably reflecting much of the national mood during the pandemic. Following almost a quarter of a century as Music Director of the Hall�, Sir Mark premiered Watkins' Concerto for Orchestra in his first concert as Conductor Emeritus. The piece particularly reflects the qualities of the orchestra and it's musicians, and their longstanding relationship with Sir Mark. The work exudes positivity, with rhythmic deftness and highly effective orchestral colourations, displaying the musical strengths of all sections of the orchestra, in writing that is beguiling and joyous.

Bridging Tradition and Innovation: This album redefines lute music by blending the instrument's rich historical sound with electronic textures. A Fusion of Acoustic and Electronic: Bergmuller merges the lute's intricate, classical tones with subtle electronic layers?. For both contemporary and classical music audiences.

This release captures the January 2025 concert from Manchester's Bridgewater Hall. Rapturously received by the capacity audience and acclaimed by the critics, the Halle's performance of this monumental work marks a significant milestone in Kahchun Wong's tenure as Principal Conductor. Thought of as being the composer's most ambitious search for the meaning of life, the Second Symphony is conceived and delivered on an epic scale, featuring soloists, choir and an enlarged orchestra. The music offers a directness of expression which transports the listener through a series of climaxes and reflections, culminating in a Last Judgement in which the composer said, 'an overwhelming love illuminates our being'. The release is accompanied by a personal introduction from Kahchun Wong, reflecting on what the music of Mahler means to him, and a programme note by Mahler expert, composer David Matthews.

Composer Michael Hersch adapts the tragedy of Medea from Ovid's�Metamorphoses�in his new opera for soprano Sarah Maria Sun, the vocal ensemble Schola Heidelberg, and Ensemble Musikfabrik. With librettist Stephanie Fleischmann. Hersch's setting underscores the profound psychological trauma at the heart of the tale with a characteristically powerful, bracing score.

Flutist and composer Wilfrido Terrazas presents Trilog�a del Dolor (Trilogy of Pain), a collection of works blending music and poetry to explore the complexities of the human experience of pain. Going beyond common idealizations, the trilogy seeks to spark conversations and challenge taboos around pain, featuring poignant texts by Mexican authors Nuria Manzur-Wirth, Ricardo C�zares, Tania Favela, M�nica Morales Rocha, Nadia Mondrag�n, and the composer, in conversation with the unique visual imagination of artist Esther G�mez Rubio. The album features the vocal artistry of soprano Mariana Flores Bucio and tenor Miguel Zazueta, and the fiery talents of clarinetist Madison Greenstone, cellist Roc�o S�nchez, percussionist Camilo Zamudio, and Terrazas on flutes and narration.

This is the second album of the Saint-Saens series, with young talents?. All recordings were made with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, conducted by Howard Griffiths. The repertoire inludes: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in G minor op. 22, Morceau de Concert in F minor op. 94, Romance in F major op. 36, Romance in E major op. 67 and Suite for Violoncello and Orchestra op. 16b?

Bologna, Italy based American composer and pianist David Salvage releases�Dreams of Love and Travel,�works he composed for solo piano that engage with journeys physical, literary, and symbolic. A seven movement suite inspired by Marcel Proust's�In Search of Lost Time�occupies a central role in the collection, representing the large structural gesture on the album as it is surrounded by shorter character pieces.

Composer Kay Rhie releases�Cereus,��a portrait album of chamber works, two including voice, featuring soprano Leela Subramaniam, Winsor Music and the Aperture Duo. Rhie's music draws on her experience as a South Korean born artist living in Los Angeles, responding to the lived environment in outward ways through text setting and thematic context, as well as inward impacts on her compositional process.

Composer Daniel Strong Godfrey's�Toward Light�presents three quintets for string quartet and piano, guitar, and cello respectively, showcasing his expressive, finely crafted chamber music. Featuring performances by the Cassatt Quartet with guests pianist Ursula Oppens, guitarist Eliot Fisk, and cellist Nicole Johnson, the works on�Toward Light�are elegantly balanced compositions, cohesive conceptions that are deeply felt.

Fratres is the new album of and first artistical cooperation by reclaimed pianist Kai Schumacher and cellist Benedict Kloeckner. The artists embark on a search for the mystical and minimalist in the current music scene and thus also encounter the pioneers of this musical style. The album contains works Arvo Part ("Fratres"), Olivier Messiaen ("Louange"), Gavin Bryars ("The South Downs"), Christopher Cerrone ("The Pleasure at Being the Cause"), Valentin Silvestrov ("Postludium"), Sophia Jani ("Sororibus" - World Premiere Recording) as well as by Kai Schumacher, J.S. Bach, Philip Glass, Georges Gurdjieff, and Franz Liszt.

Scott Wollschleger wrote�Lost Anthems�as part of The 20/19 project, violist Leilehua Lanzilotti's commissioning enterprise. The twenty five minute work is divided into fifteen discrete sections, what Wollschleger describes as "a melodic, song-like structure in search of itself." By titling the works "anthems," Wollschleger invokes a music that is inherently communal and symbolic of something larger than itself; by presenting music that is often introspective, he subverts the bombastic underpinnings of many anthems.

Cellist Louise Dubin's new collection of French cello works include pieces by masters Debussy, Faure and Koechlin, side by side with rarities by the lesser known Auguste Franchomme (1808-1884), and contemporary composer Philippe Hersant (b. 1948). Ms. Dubin's last award-winning album was devoted to the compositions of Franchomme. This new recording features both Franchomme's arrangements and original compositions.

The Concerto Koln goes on a journey of discovery and contrasts the famous Johann Sebastian Bach with the now unknown Johann Adolf Scheibe?. The ensemble is accompanied by the excellent soprano Marie Sophie Pollak. Together they present the two rivaling composers in a way, where instrumental and vocal composition by Bach and Scheibe alternate on the album?.

On Lines and Traces of Desire, composer Mischa-Salkind Pearl collaborates with cimbalom artist Nicholas Tolle on this collection of solo, duo, and ensemble works for the beguiling stringed percussion instrument. These mystical, reflective pieces celebrate the cimbalom's resonant qualities, and honor the eminent composer Gyorgy Kurtag, whose music provided Tolle the inspiration to dedicate himself to the instrument.

The 21st Century Orchestra�is a celebration of the evolution of symphonic writing into our current era through the lens of the work of four composers on faculty at Brown University: Wang Lu, Anthony Cheung, Joseph Butch Rovan, and Eric Nathan. Despite their diverse stylistic approaches, they share a decidedly contemporary approach to writing for individual instruments and for contextualizing the modern orchestra, heard in expert performances by one of the premiere symphonies devoted to modern music in the United States, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, led by Gil Rose.

The Silver-Garburg Piano Duo has been successfully performing together for over 20 years and touring in more than 70 countries. Their new album on Berlin Classics, "Great Fugue, " is set to be released on June 27, 2025, and features a unique combination of works by Beethoven as well as newly written and arranged workds by Austrian composer Richard Dunser. The piano duo is accompanied on the recording by the renowned Artis Quartet. The album offers an exciting juxtaposition of Beethoven's versions of the Great Fugue for string quartet and four-hand piano, as well as pieces by Schubert and Dunser, bridging tradition and contemporary music. With "Great Fugue, " Silver-Garburg deliver a powerful statement full of passion and artistic precision.

Composer Per Bloland newest releaase,�Shadows of the Electric Moon,�highlights his reliance on fiction as an impetus for compositional inspiration as well as his integration of custom designed electronic software into his work. Featuring Unheard-of//Ensemble, Wild Rumpus, Keith Kirschoff, Bill Solomon, and Stephen Marotto, Bloland's music captures his inventive spirit and keen ear for highlighting subtletlies of instrumental characteristics and developing them within the narrative of a composition.

The German star pianist Matthias Kirschnereitdedicates this album entirely to the piano cosmos of Richard Wagner?. Wagner himself wrote few works for solo piano, but he influenced many of his contemporaries and musical heirs with his work?. Matthias Kirschnereit presents a wide range of repertoire - Wagner: Sonata for the album M.W., Lied ohne Worte E major for Eduard Reitz, In das Album der Furstin M., Zurcher Vielliebchen Walzer, Polka, Notenbrief fur Mathilde Wesendonck, Ankunft bei den Schwarzen Schwanen; Wagner/Stradal: Schmerzen; Wagner/Rubinstein: Musikalische Bilder aus Siegfried; Liszt: Am Grabe Richard Wagners; Bizet: Premier Nocturne D Dur; Duparc: Aux etoiles; Langgaard: Stambogsblad; Bulow: Innocence; Bruckner: Erinnerung; Mendelssohn: Lied ohne Worte E Dur op.38/3?

Duo Gelland was founded in 1994 by the spouses Cecilia Gelland and Martin Gelland, bringing their individual perspectives on contemporary and early repertoire to the ensemble. This recording of their interpretations of four Vivaldi's Sonatas for Two Violins celebrates the Red Priest's physical, virtuosic approach to the instrument. Duo Gelland fills their performances with daring, lithe ornamentation and expressive subtlety and variation not often heard in contemporary readings of these works.