Coming off the immense success of the Billboard-charting Let me tell you — which received rave reviews from the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Wall St. Journal, and many more — Barbara Hannigan turns her attention to the work of Erik Satie as the musical world celebrates his 150th birthday. The disc focuses on one of the minimalist composer’s few elaborate masterpieces: the almost-forgotten vocal piece “Socrate,” on three Plato dialogues in French translation.

In celebration of Satie's 150th birthday, the venerable label Winter & Winter recorded a selection of works with the world-famous soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw, known for his outstanding Satie interpretations. “Socrate” is the central focus of the album, heard alongside “Trois Mélodies” from 1886, “Trois Autres Mélodies” from 1886–1906, and “Hymne” from 1891. Barbara Hannigan and Reinbert de Leeuw are two of the most important representatives of the contemporary classical music world.

James Weeks writes: "EXAUDI, long-established among the UK's leading vocal consorts, presents fresh readings of 19 of Gesualdo's madrigals from Books V and VI, combining rigorous stylistic understanding and tonal beauty with an overriding focus on the music's extreme expressive vision. The late madrigals of Gesualdo exert a strange and enduring fascination on the modern musical imagination. Listening today to these extraordinary messages of anguish and ecstasy, we are drawn back to his flame like lovers who can't let go, into the warp of chromatic harmony, the emotional hyper-intensity and mysterious otherness of this most tantalising early Baroque figure."

Featuring reinterpretations of famous jazz standards by artists like Joe Lovano, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, and his daughter Petra Haden on vocals, Paul Motian creates an audio film about scenes in New York City for closed eyes.