How do you give new impetus to your artistic life after completing a project as intense as recording Johannes Brahms' complete piano works? Geoffroy Couteau's answer was to climb an Everest. For to perform Bach's Goldberg Variations is to undergo an exceptional musical and human experience. It is also to grasp the expressive power of polyphony and it's extraordinary force of attraction.

With Every Petal Tells a Story, guitarist and composer Tiago Lageira presents an intimate musical portrait of love, commitment and the transformation of becoming a parent. Rooted in personal memory, the album unfolds like a sequence of emotional chapters: from the first spark of romance to marriage, from expectation to birth, and from uncertainty to the overwhelming discovery of a love growing beyond oneself. Lageira's music carries the imprint of several worlds. Born in Portugal and shaped by the traditions of Fado and Brazilian rhythm, he later immersed himself in Amsterdam's jazz scene, absorbing the language of improvisation, harmony and storytelling. His playing combines melodic sensitivity with rhythmic fluidity, bringing together Portuguese lyricism, modern jazz colours and a deeply personal sense of narrative. Across seven original compositions, Every Petal Tells a Story invites a rich cast of voices and instrumental guests. The album features Vanessa Torrens Juaneda, Anna Serierse, Hermine Deurloo, Jina Sudemi, Iris Feijen and Marisa Petraglia, each adding a distinct shade to Lageira's musical world. From the atmospheric opening of 'Under the Shadow of the Lotus' to the reflective closing piece 'Futuro Incerto,' the album moves through tenderness, wonder, doubt and devotion. The title reflects the album's essence: every moment, every memory and every fragile detail carries meaning. Like petals gathered from different seasons of life, these compositions form a story of love in bloom: vulnerable, resilient and profoundly human. Every Petal Tells a Story is both a personal dedication and a universal invitation: to listen closely to the quiet turning points that shape our lives, and to hear in them the music of becoming.

Two of the most distinctive voices on the contemporary Danish jazz scene, chromatic harmonica player Mathias Heise and guitarist Pelle von Bulow, join forces on Repertoire, a duo album built on interplay, shared intuition, and a carefully selected body of songs spanning jazz standards, soul, pop, and contemporary material. At it's core, Repertoire reflects the long-standing musical familiarity between Heise and von Bulow. Working as equals in a stripped-down duo setting, the two musicians treat each piece as a flexible framework for improvisation rather than a fixed arrangement. The music unfolds in real time through dialogue, contrast, and a finely tuned sense of balance between structure and freedom. The repertoire draws from a wide range of jazz and pop standards. It includes So Tender by Keith Jarrett, Besame Mucho by Consuelo Velazquez, and Beatrice by Sam Rivers. From the pop and soul canon, the album features Overjoyed by Stevie Wonder, Rock with You by Rod Temperton, popularized by Michael Jackson, and One Day I'll Fly Away, alongside Angel Zoo by Danish band Phlake. Further repertoire threads include Velas, written by the great Brazilian composer and singer Ivan Lins. Always and Forever is part of the broader soul repertoire associated with Heatwave. The album closes with Bluesette, one of the defining compositions in the jazz harmonica tradition, also by Toots Thielemans, and a natural reference point for Heise's instrument. Mathias Heise has established himself internationally as one of the most original voices on the chromatic harmonica. In 2013, he won the Chromatic Harmonica World Championship, followed by the Danish Crown Prince Couple's Stardust Award in 2016 and the Ben Webster Prize in 2017. He was the first musician admitted to the Rhythmic Music Conservatory with chromatic harmonica as his main instrument, and has since released a series of critically acclaimed albums, including his 2023 Storyville quintet album, Mouth Games. Heise is a true virtuoso with a harmonic curiosity and stylistic openness. He can play anything! Guitarist Pelle von Bulow is an established figure on the Danish jazz scene. He is one of a generation of guitarists who are inspired by the legacy of Doug Raney, who lived in Copenhagen. Pelle von Bulow is also a virtuoso and has, among others, incorporated influences from legends such as George Benson as well as the Brazilian jazz guitar tradition. Coming from a family with a strong jazz tradition, Pelle von Bulow is the son of acclaimed alto saxophonist Christina von Bulow, and represents a younger generation of Danish jazz guitarists rooted in both tradition and contemporary expression. Repertoire shows how contemporary jazz continues to evolve through a new generation of musicians.

Hans Winterberg grew up in Prague where he was one of a whole cadre of composers in the new Czech musical tradition. He claimed to have been inspired by Schoenberg, but in reality, he cultivated a Central European Impressionism which he skillfully blended with complex rhythms. The two works presented on this CD mark high points in Winterberg's oeuvre. The circumstances in which they were composed could not have been more different. While the Second Symphony was written during the darkest moments of his existence, he composed the Second Piano Concerto less than ten years later, in what was probably the brightest moment of his life, the early 1950s, when his breakthrough as a composer, which he had been unable to achieve in Czechoslovakia, now seemed certain in the young Federal Republic of Germany.

It is impossible to imagine the modern bassoon without him: almost 200 years ago, Carl Almenrader, together with Johann Adam Heckel, founded the instrument-making workshop that continues to dominate the global bassoon market unchallenged to this day. Almenrader's skill on the instrument, his refined sense of tone, and Heckel's precision craftsmanship laid the foundations for the success that Almenrader carried out into the world as a travelling virtuoso with his own compositions. Michael Kaulartz and Carl Sonje Montag present Almenrader's duets in an impressively agile, virtuosic and yet surprisingly rich and varied manner.

On Mozart Horn Concertos, Ben Goldscheider joins the Munchener Kammerorchester in performances of all four concertos by Mozart, combining clarity, energy, and a strong sense of musical direction. Written for Mozart's friend, the horn player Joseph Leutgeb, these works remain central to the horn repertoire, balancing virtuosity, lyricism, with a uniquely conversational relationship between soloist and orchestra. For Goldscheider, these concertos have been a constant presence throughout his musical development, accompanying him from his early years as a horn player to major international solo appearances. This long familiarity informs an interpretation shaped by both experience and curiosity. Presented in reverse order, from the Fourth Concerto to the First, the album offers a fresh perspective on their overall arc. Ben Goldscheider makes his PENTATONE debut with this release, while the Munchener Kammerorchester appeared on the acclaimed recording of Four Seasons with Arabella Steinbacher in 2020.

Novus Ritus, a CD featuring percussion, voice, live electronics, and interactive video, has been released by Stradivarius. This project is part of MUSIC4D, an initiative of the "A. Scontrino" Conservatory of Trapani, funded by the European Union under the Next Generation EU program, with scientific coordination by Eugenio Catone. MUSIC4D is an innovative project created to explore the intersections between music and technology, redefining the boundaries of education, composition, and performance in the digital age. Conceived by Antonino Errera, Novus Ritus was brought to life through a collaboration between the "A. Scontrino" Conservatory of Trapani and Arizona State University, facilitated by Simone Mancuso and Gabriel Jose Bolanos, professors of Percussion and Composition, respectively, at the university. The tracklist unfolds through four tableaux vivants, animated by the pulse of percussion rooted in archetypal rhythms. The original music is performed by the composers themselves, with the vocal contribution of Irene Sciacca, a student at the Scontrino Conservatory and co-author, alongside Errera, of the vocal lines for the chants, which are performed in four languages: Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Sicilian. The instrumentation includes both ritual Mediterranean instrumentso typical of Morocco and Tunisia and instruments used in classical and avant-garde music, including the sixxen, microtonal instruments designed by the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis. In the album liner notes, Miriam Scotto di Santolo writes: "Filtering, reverberation, granulation, and sound spatialization 'transport' the audio from the present to the remote past, closing the magic circle like contemporary mechanai. Novus Ritus, as the Latin etymology suggests, points to the cyclical nature of an Hypostasis: Rites dedicated to the Moon, the prehistoric Great Mother who appears in the sky each month as a reflection of the Sun as a sickle announcing birth and death, wind and rain, sowing and harvest, in a mystical dance that has always inspired poets, mystics, and artists everywhere." It is an original project with broad geographical and temporal horizons, an evocative listening journey that suggests narratives, stories, and references to be identified and discovered within an intertwining web of auditory and visual impressions.

The idea for a series of recordings devoted to the music of Robert Schumann arose from Pierre and Theo Fouchenneret's work on the Sonatas for violin and piano, and from a desire to expand the project by exploring the rest of his chamber music as well as his concertos - for Schumann treats the orchestra in a very chamber-music-like manner in his concertante works. Following the complete chamber music of Johannes Brahms, recorded on the same label, Pierre and Theo decided to launch this Schumann Collection, with the support of their long-standing collaborators in the field of chamber music: the Strada Quartet, Victor Julien-Laferriere, Florent Pujuila, Philibert Perrine, Felix Roth, Caroline Sypniewski, Sarah Fouchenneret, and Hortense Cartier-Bresson. All are soloists, quartet players and chamber musicians who also perform with orchestras, driven by a shared passion for Schumann's music, which lends itself particularly well to a series of live albums: there is a warmth, an urgency and a passion in the concert experience that are essential to performing this music well. Each concert was recorded by the b. records team with a view to this ambitious complete collection that you now hold in your hands.

Henry Purcell Reimagined: Baroque Songs of Fate and Freedom In this recording, the Vox Orchestra, conductor Lorenzo Ghirlanda and soprano Marie-Sophie Pollak explore some of Henry Purcell's most captivating songs from King Arthur, The Fairy Queen, and Dido and Aeneas. At the heart of the programme lies a theme that remains strikingly relevant today: the confrontation with the inevitable-war, love, duty, and loss. Rather than presenting these works solely as excerpts from Baroque stage music, the performers highlight their original character as songs. Purcell's memorable melodies emerge with remarkable directness and emotional immediacy, while instrumental interludes function like modern introductions and codas. Bold string playing, expressive continuo, and vivid contrasts of tempo create a sound world that feels both historically informed and surprisingly contemporary. Marie-Sophie Pollak brings the diverse characters to life with exceptional expressive clarity, favouring direct communication over excessive ornamentation. The result is a fresh and compelling interpretation that reveals Purcell's theatre music as a timeless collection of songs, bridging the distance between the seventeenth century and today's listener.

Palestrina's Song of Songs is one of the most beautiful and intimate collections of Renaissance sacred music and this album brings together all 29 settings performed by The Sixteen in one place. The cycle shows Palestrina at his most expressive and human, while still maintaining the balance, purity and clarity of text that he is famous for. Compared to some of his more formal liturgical works, Palestrina's Song of Songs have a more sensual and lyrical feel, reflecting the poetic and romantic nature of the text. Unusually for sacred music the Song of Songs are deeply romantic and sensual, yet Palestrina treats them with spiritual elegance, conveying the emotion through subtle harmonic shifts and melodic shaping.

Johann Daniel Pucklitz stands among the most remarkable and inventive composers of the late German Baroque. Under the direction of Andrzej Szadejko, the Goldberg Baroque Ensemble continues it's ambitious Opera Omnia project with world premiere recordings of Pucklitz's strikingly imaginative cantatas. Volume 2 brings to light music that has remained unheard for centuries, revealing the richness and expressive power of a composer whose sacred works bridge the grandeur of Bach's world with the emerging stylistic shifts of the Rococo and the Age of Sensibility.

Since it's inception in 2016, the Duo Kiasma has shared a common delight: to surprise audiences through the unexpected pairing of the cello and the accordion. Indeed, what could be more unusual than the combination of the 'little prince' of classical music with the accordion - the quintessential folk instrument, steeped in the memories, celebrations and melancholy of entire peoples? Unusual, certainly. Ridiculous? Certainly not. Rostropovich himself claimed that the bayan (the Russian accordion) was a better match for the cello than the piano. Who are we to contradict the great Soviet maestro? Actually, these two instruments share the essentials: bow and bellows - both breathe and sing, capable of both strength and fragility. After several years spent transcribing works by Bartok and Gluck, as well as Daft Punk and Ennio Morricone, the Duo Kiasma has gradually refocused it's exploration on a repertoire that has emerged almost naturally: Baroque music. POLARIS thus marks a decisive milestone in the Duo's journey. Like the star from which it takes it's name, this album serves as a landmark in a constantly expanding aesthetic universe, revolving around three leading Baroque composers: Rameau, Bach and Vivaldi.

Northern Dawn reveals the music of Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707) through the intimate voice of the Baroque lute. In his transcriptions of keyboard and instrumental music, Elias Conrad traces a five-part, cantata-like journey of seeking, longing, pleading, hoping, and trusting. Emerging from the darkness of a war-torn century, this programme becomes a quiet, luminous counterpoint to the noise of our own time and casts Dieterich Buxtehude as a radiant light.

With The Empty Mirror, acclaimed Danish pianist Carsten Dahl presents one of his most distilled recordings to date: twelve spontaneous solo piano improvisations captured in a single uninterrupted creative process on a Steinway D grand piano in the historic Radiohuset in Copenhagen, now home to the Royal Danish Academy of Music. The album is due for release on October 2, 2026 on Exlibris Musik. The twelve-track album originated as part of recording engineer Jonas Eliyah Munch-Hansen's final project. Rather than placing Dahl in the controlled environment of a conventional studio, Hansen chose Studio 1 in the former Radiohuset, allowing the hall's remarkable acoustics and distinctive atmosphere to become an integral part of the music. The concept was deliberately simple: Dahl would respond freely to a text of his own choosing, with no musical instructions beyond allowing the process to unfold. Throughout the album, the spacious resonance of the hall remains ever present, giving the listener the sensation of occupying the same room as the instrument. Upon entering the room and seeing the piano, Dahl simply began to play. There was no rehearsal and virtually no soundcheck. The recording captures music as it emerged, moment by moment. For Dahl, the project reflects a central artistic conviction: that music already exists before the performer reaches for it. The musician's task is not to impose ideas upon the music but to become sufficiently open for it to reveal itself. This philosophy gave rise to both the recording and it's title, The Empty Mirror, a metaphor for a state of presence in which intention gives way to listening. Throughout a career spanning jazz, classical music and free improvisation, Carsten Dahl has established himself as one of Scandinavia's most distinctive musical voices. Celebrated for his extraordinary imagination, technical command and deeply personal approach to improvisation, he continues to challenge conventional ideas of composition and performance. The Empty Mirror strips his musical language to it's essence, presenting an intimate document of artistic presence in it's purest form.

A BBC New Generation Artist in 2022-24, violinist Geneva Lewis is also the recipient of a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant, a 2022 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, and has been Musical America's New Artist of the Month. For her recording debut on Delos, she revels in a high-flying all-American program, accompanied by Gemma New conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Starting with Samuel Barber's neo-Romantic violin Concerto - the notorious finale provides hardly any respite to the soloist - it is followed by the first recording of John Zorn's Partita for the Firebird, a solo violin work in which 'every note burns and demands your entire self' (Geneva's own words), and Philip Glass's Violin Concerto No. 1. Written to please his father, the work is less symphonic than operatic, befitting a composer then in the full flight of operatic composition. Recipient of the prestigious 2021 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, Gemma New conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in both concertos.

Storyville Records presents Between Then and Now, a new trio album by acclaimed American pianist Christian Sands, joined by Danish bassist Thomas Fonnesbaek and Swedish drummer Rasmus Kihlberg. An international collaboration that captures contemporary jazz at the intersection of American tradition and Nordic musical sensibility. The album features 7 tracks, balancing original compositions by Sands and Fonnesbaek with inspired reinterpretations of jazz standards and classic repertoire by Bobby Timmons, Luiz Bonfa, and John Coltrane. Recorded in the spirit of Copenhagen's jazz tradition it presents jazz as both a living art form of the present and a dialogue with it's past, hence the title Between Then and Now. The collaboration grew from Sands' relationship with the Copenhagen jazz scene, initiated when former Montmartre musical director Christian Brorsen discovered him online and invited him to Denmark. Like earlier generations of American jazz musicians, including Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon, Sands quickly became a compelling presence in Copenhagen, where attentive listening and subtle interplay guide every performance. Over the years, he has been a frequent guest in Denmark and loved by the audience here. Together, the trio represents a truly international jazz language. Sands is celebrated for his virtuosic piano playing, rich harmonic imagination, and improvisational energy. Fonnesbaek, one of Europe's leading bassists, offers melodic clarity and technical brilliance shaped by the Danish jazz tradition, while Kihlberg contributes a refined rhythmic approach marked by elegance, precision and responsiveness. Together they have a compelling sound of openness yet you always feel the classic American jazz tradition in the music. This is modern American/ Scandinavian music, not just jazz. Listen to Sands' inventive arrangement of Giant Leaves, which merges John Coltrane's Giant Steps with Joseph Kosma's Autumn Leaves, served as a tribute to legendary Danish drummer Alex Riel, who influenced both Sands and generations of jazz musicians in Europe. Original compositions such as Sands' Where Children Still Play and Where the Light Settles, and Fonnesbaek's Searching in Sahara reveal the trio's lyrical and exploratory approach. The Nordic hymn Til ungdommen / To the Youth (Kringsatt av Fiender) is another beautiful example of how this trio sound together. Enjoy this contemporary recording with three of the most interesting musicians on the Scandinavian and American jazz scene right now.

Evelyn Converse (Connie's mother): Is it sweet little ditties or is it modernistic? Connie Converse: It's got everything in it. I'm the one in the smoky gray button-down, gently disentombing a viola from it's case in the gauzy, late morning light illuminating this inviting Northcenter studio. In the freelance Classical (and Classical-adjacent) world, projects and their attendant rehearsals encompass the vibes and caliber spectrum, but managing the contents of one's tear ducts is not generally a required qualification. Maybe you can try to get word to the violist, currently encamping himself and his stand beneath a towering harp. That unwitting sap-the one who at this moment only knows that the pieces he's playing were originally penned by someone with an enticingly alliterative moniker-has no idea that this music is about to occupy a good deal of the rent-free space available in his head and heart long after the live broadcast, the 'gig,' wraps. It is, I'm afraid, a decidedly common reaction to an oeuvre of unquestionably uncommon music for those that encounter it some seventy-plus years since it was meticulously penned. Whether this is your first orbit or you already count yourself amongst the members of the How Sad, How Lovely devout-Connie's modest and also astonishing kitchen table recordings, most recently reissued by her fellow Michiganders Third Man Records-the sounds currently spinning through your synapses here offer an entirely unique perspective of an artist who not only scooped Dylan on coaxing folk music from the universal to the personal by a literal decade, but indeed ventured into a territory of art song he will never quite access. Her Only Light is a more dimensional, more expansive view of Connie Converse, a composer-performer-pacifist-scholar-activist who, like the story of her enigmatic departure, deserves a telling beyond an easy headline. Some orientation is necessary, though. Elizabeth Eaton Converse was valedictorian of her high school, a scholarship recipient at Mount Holyoke College, a songwriting hopeful in Harlem, and the Co-Editor of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (Center for Research on Conflict Resolution) at the University of Michigan. Was she, as is editorialized about so many of my favorite creators, maybe a little too smart to be happy? A more accurate assessment arrives by way of her nephew Tim Converse, who generously shared with me, 'I think that she saw so clearly the way things should be that she was constantly disappointed by how things actually were.' This was certainly the case regarding her years in New York, having absconded early from Mount Holyoke to pursue her songwriting and singing aspirations. Consider that the 1950's Greenwich Village folk revival-in full swing as she composed-for all it's posturing about political revolution and working-class authenticity, was structurally about as progressive as a debutante ball. Add to that the fact the (then) recording industry's almost unshakable insistence on genre conformity and, in the case of female performers, sexual magnetism, and it doesn't take much to understand how a path-carving artist more engrossed in her compositional brilliance than her appearance failed to break through to the monoculture. Though history is of course littered with unrecognized genius, this was actually not precisely the case for Converse. She was featured on CBS's The Morning Show hosted by no less than Walter Cronkite, and was championed by animator Gene Dietch who, in addition to her own efforts, we have to thank for the recordings found on How Sad, How Lovely. At this inflection point, when she seemed poised to, well, make it, Connie Converse pivoted her writing toward a far less marketable but perhaps more adventurous corner of musicmaking: 'art song.' If Connie's 'Guitar Songs' (singer-songwriter, folk-oriented) were slow to gain traction, what hopes could her 'Piano Songs' (art song, harmonically enterprising) possibly have in such an inhospitable industry? Jesus. We're halfway through these liner notes and I haven't even introduced you to the two remarkable interpreters of said songs-the thoughtful Converse evangelists behind Her Only Light: arranger Ronnie Kuller and vocalist Emmy Bean. Almost immediately in that aforementioned rehearsal, which I should clarify was in service of a live performance on WFMT after this album was mixed and mastered, I was scheming how I might stay in proximity to Ronnie's dextrous, insightful writing and Emmy's lustrous, utterly persuasive phrasing in the years to come. Like so many generative collaborations, theirs originated in an abiding desire for connection and a fascination with the sublime. It was also a creative lifeboat in the not-so-distant era of prolonged home confinement. Sparked by Bean's sharing the 2015 Anna and Elizabeth cover of 'Father Neptune'-the harmonizing of which would provide inspiration for the arrangement here-with Kuller (who had already taken Converse's music up on stage while in residence at beloved Chicago venue The Hideout) the latter describes her decision-making process with unguarded enthusiasm: 'I want a harp. I want two clarinets at the same time. I want a string section! I want Emmy Bean to sing to me!' Ronnie goes on to share what I consider an essential reason why Her Only Light is so riveting and unmissable: 'When Emmy is singing, I believe every word.' Given that Connie is often credited with originating the singer-songwriter genre, one in which vulnerability evaporates any dramatic or emotional partition between singer and lyric, Converse's songs can only truly thrive when delivered with such tender veracity. As the duo explored Converse's art songs, transcribed by Kuller from the hand-written original scores, the desire for immersion in and dispersion of these songs only deepened. Emmy describes her 'forever memory' like this: 'Once we got started on the art songs we began with 'Song for Old Wars,' and I remember singing it for the first time in a big cavernous room on an old piano. This was a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Hearing the final cadence of that song echo in the room-the "horns"-was incredible. It gave me something to honor in all the chaos of new/old wars; I felt like Connie was with us, grieving the losses.' The other partition in need of a wrecking ball-one of primary importance to both singer and arranger-was that of folk song vs. Art song. Not only is this boundary a fanciful one perpetrated by hierarchically-minded (i.e. misled or confused) listeners and record industry execs originating from preconceptions about formal education, 'rigor,' and, to get right down to it, vibratoin the context of Connie Converse it results from the reality that her art songs, the 'Piano Songs,' never made it on tape during her own and Dietch's kitchen recording sessions. They were written later, and composed for voices other than her own, sometimes soprano, sometimes baritone. Emmy found herself slipping into Connie's world without friction, but decisions on how to stylistically inhabit the 'Guitar' and 'Piano' songs only revealed itself once the project was at full tilt: 'I was surprised to find how Connie's songs invite another singer into them. Some songs belong so intimately to their writer's voice (especially folk singers or singer-songwriters) that it feels wrong to sing them or hear them sung by others. When I took on this project, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to find the access point, that I wouldn't be able to inhabit them, that I would find myself mimicking her or struggling to find myself in them. But the craft that Connie put into her art songs-the 'Cassandra Cycle,' 'anyone lived in a pretty how town,' etc-is also there in the songs she wrote on guitar. They are no less solid, no less fully realized than the ones she wrote on piano. They completely stand on their own, and they welcome any singer with the imagination and humility to hear them and be with them. The reward of singing them is to be inside of Connie's mind for a moment, to feel such great joy and such deep empathy, and to be able to smile at things that are so, so sad. I was also struggling to figure out how Connie's guitar songs and piano songs would exist together on the same record, in the same voice (mine). It wasn't until we got into the studio that Ronnie and I figured out that I could be the same singer throughout; there was no need to over-stylize the art songs or under-sing the folk songs. Together we were able to find an approach that honored the depth of her writing in both contexts, and that kind of broke the spell of genre over the whole thing.' As you traverse these Guitar Songs- 'Talkin Like You (Two Tall Mountains)' 'I Have Considered the Lillies' 'Father Neptune' 'One by One' and these Piano Songs- 'Vanity of the Vanities' 'The Rainmaker' 'Incommunicado' 'anyone lived in a pretty how town' (text by e.e. cummings) 'The Age of Noon' The Cassandra Cycle (excerpted) 'Cassandra's Entrance' 'Song for Old Wars' 'She Thinks of Heaven' 'She Devises a Lullaby' -relish as I do, if you will, Ronnie Kuller's orchestrational witticisms and delights, as with her leitmotif approach to 'Talkin Like You (Two Tall Mountains),' here and elsewhere gracious without unnecessary reverence or over-caution. Be carried off by Emmy Bean's sumptuous and entrancing delivery of 'Father Neptune,' but don't miss the cheeky wink in her voice as she alights on the song's more eyebrow-raising lines ('And it's still his creed that he has no need of a wifeexcept on shore'). Perhaps you're familiar with the melancholy pervasive in Converse's tunes, but her humor is equally nimble. And of course, don't disembark before you experience 'One by One,' the song currently making the hapless gigger unprofessionally bleary-eyed in the middle of a rehearsal. Loneliness has found it's most crystalline, most desolate voice in these verses, and to these ears at least, it is a one-of-one. That quote at the top of the page? It arrives by way of a recorded conversation between Connie and her mother concerning an in-processopera! This heroine of songwriting contained multitudes-a conclusion you are funneling toward as you make your way through this enchanting tracklist-and with Her Only Light, we are finally provided Connie Converse in full, resplendent resolution. -Doyle Armbrust

Many composers who wrote primarily for the English cathedral tradition have not had the recognition they deserve outside that cloistered world. Tony Hewitt-Jones (1926-89) is one such. Although the choral and organ works heard on this album naturally respond to the requirements of the performers for whom he was writing, they have a freshness, energy and individuality that transcend their origin, their sound-world overlapping with that of some of his close contemporaries, like John Gardner, Kenneth Leighton and William Mathias.

A consort of violins makes it's way through the Venetian night beneath the arcades of St Mark's Square. From the basilica to aristocratic salons, from the streets to the taverns, the violinists follow the rhythms of daily life; the violin, a relatively new instrument, gradually found it's place within 16th century musical life. Moving through the places where music permeated the city of the Doges, Sulla Piazza paints a vivid musical fresco that provides an accompaniment to prayer as well as dancing until daybreak.

On Disambiguation, guitarist and composer Christy Doran joins forces with Indian tabla player Imran Khan for a vivid, border-crossing duo album that brings together rock energy, blues feeling, jazz improvisation, Irish melodic traces and the subtle rhythmic flow of Indian classical music. Doran's guitar language is instantly recognizable: shimmering textures, sharp rhythmic accents, eruptive solos, intricate patterns and a fearless sense of movement. After six decades of musical exploration, he returns here with renewed clarity to the roots that have shaped his playing: blues, rock, Hendrix, McLaughlin, improvisation and, more recently, the Irish music of his family heritage. Echoes of Uilleann pipe melodies can be heard in pieces such as 'Ode to Johnny Doran' and 'Dark Slender Boy', where folk material is transformed into Doran's own highly personal sound world. Imran Khan's tabla provides both pulse and atmosphere. A distinguished player of the Delhi Gharana, Khan brings warmth, clarity and expressive depth to the music. His gently shifting rhythmic patterns open a space in which Doran's acoustic and electric guitars can move freely between drive, abstraction, lyricism and intensity. The album title points to a kind of artistic clarification. The ambiguities are not simplified, but illuminated. Across pieces such as 'Disambiguation', 'Haute Savoie', 'Taal Pravaah' and 'Mantra On An Irish Stream', the duo creates music that is fluid, forceful and deeply rooted, yet always open to surprise. Disambiguation is a meeting of two distinctive musical voices: Christy Doran's expansive guitar art and Imran Khan's refined tabla tradition. Together they create a sound that is direct, exploratory and full of depth.