Following her first recording of concertos for Channel Classics (CCS47825), the Franco-Hungarian pianist Suzana Bartal pays tribute to her Hungarian roots with a programme that showcases a variety of styles, from Liszt and his Gypsy influences to Bartok, who, through his campaigns to collect folk songs, immersed himself in folk and peasant music. Erno Dohnanyi's Ruralia Hungarica, composed in 1923, is more post-Romantic in style, although the composer himself also occasionally turned to folk music.

Christoph Graupner had spent five years as an opera composer in Hamburg before the Landgrave Ernst-Ludwig called upon him to take up the position of Hofkapellmeister in Darmstadt in 1709. He became the best-paid music director of his time and would continue to define the musical style of the court until his death in 1760. His relative isolation there apparently enabled and allowed him to develop a personal style that does not exactly conform to the norms that had been set during the past centuries through the reception of Bach's monumental oeuvre; the slow rediscovery of Graupner's music has also meant that he was not included in the musical picture we now have of that era. This album presents a varied sample of Graupner's musical activities during his almost fifty years in service in Darmstadt - we hope that it will spark the listeners' curiosity to discover more of this extraordinary composer.

Irish violinist Darragh Morgan, a tireless advocate for new music, here presents four concertos written for him over the past two decades by Frank Lyons, Brian Irvine, Bill Campbell and Ryan Molloy. Recorded with the Ulster Orchestra under David Brophy, this compelling programme reflects the richness of Northern Ireland's contemporary voice. Electronic transformation, folk-inflected rhythms and lyrical introspection coexist with passages of dazzling virtuosity, each work revealing a distinctive sound world. Together they form a vivid, cohesive portrait in which solo brilliance and symphonic imagination are fused with striking assurance and colour.

A festive classic, including some of Tchaikovsky's - and indeed, the classical ballet canon's - most instantly recognisable tunes, Peter Wright's production of The Nutcracker has been enchanting children and adults alike since it's first performance by The Royal Ballet in 1984. Julia Trevelyan Oman's designs bring the story wonderfully to life, from the 19th-century German home of the Stahlbaums - which features a Christmas tree that transforms beyond one's imagination - to the Kingdom of Sweets, where everything is sugar and sparkle.

The 15 romances from Ludwig Tieck's Magelone represent Johannes Brahms' only true song cycle. With his reputation as an ideal accompanist it is clear that Brahms was extremely familiar with the examples of his predecessors Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, and as such was able to convey an authenticity of feeling with this work. Set in medieval times, Die schone Magelone is a wonderfully epic yarn in which Count Peter falls in love and elopes with the fair Magelone, leading to disaster and dramas equaling that of any romantic opera.

Matthew Martin stands among Britain's leading composers for choir and organ. Performed by The Choir of Canterbury Cathedral under David Newsholme, with Jamie Rogers at the organ recently rebuilt by Harrison & Harrison, this programme reflects Martin's close association with Canterbury. The album spans the jubilant Psalm 150, first heard in Manchester, and the direct, concentrated writing of the Coventry Missa brevis, to the stillness of Ave verum and the dramatic narrative of When David heard. An Evensong sequence reveals Martin's instinct for liturgical form, while the organ work concludes the collection with clarity and purpose. Several pieces are recorded here for the first time, offering a focused survey of a distinctive contemporary voice.

With A New Beginning In This Cold Season, Belgian vocalist, composer and performer Natashia Kelly presents a poetic and deeply atmospheric album about transition, resilience and renewal. Across seven original compositions, Kelly turns toward landscapes, weather, animals and natural forces to explore inner movement: fear and hope, darkness and clarity, fragility and strength. Rooted in jazz yet open to soul, gospel, spoken word and contemporary groove-based music, the album creates an intimate sound world in which lyricism and improvisation meet. Kelly's warm, expressive voice is supported by Benjamin Sauzereau on electric and acoustic guitar, Yannick Peeters on double bass, and Dre Pallemaerts on drums and kanjira. Together they shape music that feels both delicate and grounded, moving naturally between hushed reflection and subtle rhythmic energy. The album's title track sets the tone with the image of a cold season as both a literal and emotional landscape. Throughout the record, recurring images of wind, wings, clouds, horses, moonlight and storms become symbols of change and endurance. Rather than confronting the turmoil of the world through slogans, Kelly searches for meaning in nature, finding beauty, movement and quiet strength in the face of uncertainty. Concise yet rich in ideas, A New Beginning In This Cold Season offers seven songs in just over half an hour. It is a focused, refined and emotionally resonant statement from an artist whose music balances vulnerability with power, and whose storytelling invites the listener into a shared space of reflection, healing and hope.

A recognised specialist in the music of Robert Schumann (he recorded the complete works for solo piano between 2000 and 2010 for Alpha Classics), the French pianist eric Le Sage has devised this programme as a tribute to those who loved Schumann and to the woman he loved: Clara Wieck, of course - who would go on to become Clara Schumann despite her father's opposition to their marriage - but also Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Faure and Camille Saint-Saëns. Alongside their Variations on a Theme by Schumann, we find music by Robert, who also wrote Variations on a Theme by Clara Schumann, as well as two piano transcriptions of his Lieder, including the famous Du bist wie eine Blume, completed the day before their wedding.

Tania Giannouli and Nik Bartsch have played together as a piano duo since 2023. Whilst they are both open to influences and traditions, their skill and passion are also nourished by chamber music from the classical tradition, by the true spirit of folk music, by a dedication to the ritual structures of sacred music and by the innovative creativity and need for freedom that jazz demands.  Their rhythmic energy is shaped by the legacy of Balkan music and by the rhythmic traditions developed on percussive instruments such as the cimbalom. The intellectual and musical backgrounds of these two artists have now merged naturally after long individual journeys and have created a shared sonic philosophy rooted in the present. The eight pieces on this album present an organic and effortless distillation of all of these aspects.

Japanese guitarist Koki Fujimoto presents a recital of evocative pieces from France, Spain and Japan. He begins with his own arrangement of Ravel's Alborada del gracioso, a work shimmering with Spanish guitar evocations, and continues with one of Sor's finest masterpieces, the Fantaisie et Variations brillantes. Miguel Llobet was one of the most influential guitarists of the 20th century and a prolific composer for the instrument. His mastery of harmony and melodic expressiveness can be heard in the exquisite miniatures celebrating Catalan folk music. They preface two expressive works from Japan - Fujimoto's Aki no Sankan Nigiri and Tropical Count by Sunao Isaji. Ansgar Krause's arrangement of Debussy's earliest known piano piece, Danse bohemienne, concludes the album.

This new MarchVivo release presents a live recording of the concert given by the Albeniz Jazz Quartet at the Fundacion Juan March on 10 June 2026. The project explores how the piano music of a classical composer such as Isaac Albeniz can inspire the transformation of his music into a jazz idiom. Albeniz opened new horizons for the piano in the 20th century through his refined and visionary writing, just as this recording reveals a previously unexplored dimension of his music. The chosen pieces, conceived as soundscapes of an imagined Spain, are reinterpreted here with rhythmic freedom and new harmonies for a jazz quartet, offering a fresh perspective on this classical repertoire with it's unmistakable Spanish stamp, transformed by the sonic palette of contemporary jazz.

Moonrise is the first album recording from young British composer Christopher Churcher (b.2004), bringing together works written between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one while studying at the University of Oxford and singing with Somerville College Choir. Performed by the choir under Will Dawes, the album presents both a cappella and piano accompanied pieces-from music for Advent to works celebrating queer identity, and secular settings reflecting on light and the passing of day. It is an intimate and assured collection, moving between moments of contemplative stillness and radiant, lyrical choral writing. Moonrise offers a compelling first introduction to Churcher's developing voice, alive with clarity, warmth, and immediacy of expression.

Reaching Farther: Clare College 1326-2026 marks the 700th anniversary of Clare College, Cambridge, with a programme of choral music commissioned for and closely associated with the Choir, performed under Director of Music Graham Ross. The recording spans works by composers with direct connections to Clare, from William Denis Browne's canticles composed as a student in 1911, through to world premiere recordings of new commissions including Nico Muhly's title anthem, Heloise Werner's canticles, and a setting by current undergraduate Thomas Alban. Also included is a rare first recording of a work by former Clare Organ Scholar Ayo Bankole, recovered after considerable research.

John Adams is a composer whose works are shaped by the full breadth of American music, while being equally grounded in Classical and Romantic traditions that inform his sense of structure, harmony, and expressive line. Both Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Road Movies combine this aesthetic with a distinctive rhythmic drive that has made these some of his most enduring pieces, while Roll Over Beethoven demonstrates how far Adams has been able to move away from traditional minimalism. With the lyrical eloquence of arias from his stage works, and the 'Satie meets Bill Evans' transparency of I Still Play, this program is a vivid reminder of what makes John Adams one of the most versatile and influential composers of our time.

With Love Letters, drummer and composer Joost Lijbaart has created perhaps the most personal album of his career, an album on which he let's go of many of his musical certainties. After 35 years in jazz, improvisation and world music, Lijbaart asked himself a simple yet confronting question: what remains when technique, virtuosity and musical complexity are stripped away? What happens when the only intention is to play honestly? The answer was rhythm, sound and the expressive power of words. Together with young New Zealand singer, bassist and songwriter Amelie Spinks and American bassist River Adomeit, Lijbaart formed the band Sunflower. In it's music, his long-standing love of country, folk and Americana comes clearly to the surface-genres he had listened to for years but had never previously explored in a project of his own. The age difference between the three musicians (Spinks is 23, Adomeit 29 and Lijbaart 58) did not create distance. Instead, it became a source of inspiration, shaping the songwriting, the lyrics and the musical concept. Their collaboration brought back the excitement of first experiences: making music without routine and without predetermined roles. For Lijbaart, Sunflower also required a radical new approach to drumming. Much of what he had developed throughout his career, extended percussion, complex rhythms and technical virtuosity had no place in these songs. Instead, he searched for something more essential: rhythm, texture and expression through simplicity, finding exactly the right balance between instrumentation, lyrics and groove. The songs on Love Letters draw attention to the places where life may reveal itself most truthfully: in small gestures, in touch, in waiting and in care. They open up a world in which quiet actions carry more meaning than grand statements, and where silence and listening can lead to greater understanding and wisdom. At the heart of the album is the idea of equality not as a declaration, but as a way of being. In 'If I Was a Woman, ' Lijbaart consciously attempts to step into a perspective that is still too often overlooked within a patriarchal society. 'Eight Hands on a Black Cat' explores the strange contrast between the tangible, truthful experiences of domestic life and the noise and superficiality of the outside world. For Joost Lijbaart, Sunflower is not a side project, but a new artistic beginning: music made without protection, in which virtuosity no longer determines what should be said. The song does.

A festive classic, including some of Tchaikovsky's - and indeed, the classical ballet canon's - most instantly recognisable tunes, Peter Wright's production of The Nutcracker has been enchanting children and adults alike since it's first performance by The Royal Ballet in 1984. Julia Trevelyan Oman's designs bring the story wonderfully to life, from the 19th-century German home of the Stahlbaums - which features a Christmas tree that transforms beyond one's imagination - to the Kingdom of Sweets, where everything is sugar and sparkle.

In a remote Spanish town, the free-spirited Carmen declares that any man she loves should beware. But even she is unprepared for what happens when she decides to seduce police officer Don Jose. Though initially uninterested in Carmen's charms, Don Jose - against the wishes of his mother and of Micaëla, the woman who loves him - soon abandons his respectable career for a life of danger with Carmen, joining her and her smuggler friends as they outrun the law. But Carmen quickly wearies of Don Jose's possessiveness, longing to return to her life of independence. When she turns her attention to the celebrated toreador Escamillo, Don Jose's jealousy and despair threaten to violently erupt. Damiano Michieletto's searing production casts scorching light on the lust, violence and passion of Bizet's ever-popular opera.

East meets West: Japanese-American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers pairs the world of French music with contemporary Japanese works on her AVIE Records debut. Sonatas by the fathers of French impression - Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel - foreshadow Olivier Messiaen's Theme et variations, whose chordal structure evokes Toru Takemitsu's Distance de Fee. Anne gives the world premiere recording of Birds in Warped Time II by Japan's most prominent living composer, Somei Satoh, whose work she is closely associated with, having also performed and recorded his Violin Concerto. Newly reissued: repackaged artwork and remastered audio in HD stereo and Immersive Audio, we're excited to be releasing this stunning programme on 180g Vinyl LP for the very first time.

East meets West: Japanese-American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers pairs the world of French music with contemporary Japanese works on her AVIE Records debut. Sonatas by the fathers of French impression - Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel - foreshadow Olivier Messiaen's Theme et variations, whose chordal structure evokes Toru Takemitsu's Distance de Fee. Anne gives the world premiere recording of Birds in Warped Time II by Japan's most prominent living composer, Somei Satoh, whose work she is closely associated with, having also performed and recorded his Violin Concerto. Newly reissued: repackaged artwork and remastered audio in HD stereo and Immersive Audio, we're excited to be releasing this stunning programme on 180g Vinyl LP for the very first time.

John Dowland's Songs and Ayres are among the most important song collections of the European Renaissance. They combine a distinctive musical language with an extraordinary poetic expressiveness: intimate love songs, profound melancholy, subtle humor and moments of unexpected lightness unfold into a richly varied panorama of human emotion. 400 years after Dowland's death, the Lautten Compagney Berlin turns to this unique universe in a carefully curated selection drawn from his five songbooks presented on their new album Behold a wonder here. Iconic works such as Flow my tears, Come again, Time stands still and the title piece Behold a wonder here are placed alongside less frequently heard songs, revealing the remarkable breadth and depth of Dowland's art. The richly colored ensemble - vocal consort, Renaissance lute, theorbo, Renaissance guitar, cittern, orpharion, viol consort as well as organ and harpsichord - creates a multi-layered sonic world in which every nuance of the music becomes audible. With their distinctive sense of timbre, clarity of text and stylistic precision, the Lautten Compagney Berlin brings these masterpieces to life with freshness, elegance and expressive power. Behold a wonder here presents John Dowland as a composer of timeless modernity, whose songs continue to move listeners through their emotional depth, melodic beauty and immediate expressive force. This recording reveals the richness of the English Renaissance in all it's colors.