Seven Kings is the newest release from the Meridian Arts Ensemble. The group, which was founded in 1987, consists of a traditional brass quintet plus percussion. Music on this release is from composers David Sanford, Edward Jacobs, Robert Maggio, Dave Ballou, and the ensemble’s horn player, Daniel Grabois. All of these pieces were composed in the last twenty years. The Meridian Arts Ensemble is known for its versatility, performing music from the Renaissance until now. They have won numerous competitions in the last two decades, including the Concert Artists Guild Competition.

This release is the brainchild of Australian composer and clarinetist Brigid Burke and American composers and musicians Steve Hall and Mark Zanter. These three are some of the finest improvisers in the world. The project began during Dan Senn’s EchoFluxx 14 festival in the Czech Republic where Brigid and Mark performed as part of the EchoFluxx ensemble, and also presented individual sets. Steve Hall joined the team in 2015 while Brigid was in her residency at Marshall University in the U.S. The musicians are presented as equals on this album, no one instrument dominating the others. The lengthy improvisational sections show the musicians’ abilities to play and respond while they create.

Violinist Yuki Numata Resnick is an active performer with both the American Contemporary Music Ensemble and the Talea Ensemble. For this release, she has stepped away from chamber music to produce her debut solo album. For the programme, she has chosen to explore her obsession with J. S. Bach through the context of original works written for her by composers Caleb Burhans, Andrew Greenwald, Clara Iannotta, and Matt Marks. Resnick currently lives in New York City. The New York Times called her a violinist with “virtuosic flair and dexterous bravery.”

This is My Letter to the World is an exploration of music for trumpet inspired by politics and social concepts. In her second album, Kate Amrine chooses to address pressing topics facing each of us including gun violence, abortion rights, discrimination, climate change, feminism, identity, immigration, and more. In the liner notes Kate writes, "As an activist and storyteller, I created this album of different stories and viewpoints that I am excited to share with the world. Many of these pieces bring up issues that are extremely important to everyone and I hope that upon listening, you will act and inspire others to do everything they can to make this world a better place." The works are meant to start a conversation and inspire people to reflect. And yes, increase awareness of what is possible on the trumpet. While some of these pieces were written as early as 2018 with multiple performances completed, several were finalized very close to the recording session. However, with the subject matter, the pieces always feel fresh and timely - with another opportunity to connect performances to the incidents and moments we experience. In a review about Kate's first album As I Am, the International Trumpet Guild Journal writes: "An accomplished performer, educator, composer, music contractor, and commissioner of new works, Kate Amrine is the epitome of the 21st century renaissance artist." In addition to her work as a solo artist, Kate Amrine is an active freelancer and educator in New York City.

Artists are hardly strangers to working in the wilderness but this project made that a requirement. Student performers from Allendale, Michigan - home to the ever-enterprising Grand Valley State University (GVSU) New Music Ensemble - and fearless composers from across the nation, went back-a-bush to listen, explore, and respond to some of our great environmental treasures. "In 2014 we started an ongoing project in which we commissioned composers to respond to our national parks. We then travelled to these parks and performed the music in the lands that inspired it. To date we have commissioned twenty composers and performed in fourteen national parks. This album is a collection of eleven of those works, as diverse and engaging as the parks they were based on: Arches, Badlands, Capitol Reef, Grand Teton, Wind Cave, and Yellowstone. The music is deeply personal to the composers, who were each commissioned because of their strong connections to our natural environment. With performances in amphitheaters, visitor centers, lodges, and even deep in the wilderness, this music has reached thousands of park visitors and illustrated how incredible landscapes can impact creative artists." - Bill Ryan, Director The intrepid artists on this album responded in various ways to their park experiences; from being awestruck by the silence and grandeur, to the geological transformations, misty rivers, bird song, "perfect mountainousness," stargazing through rock formations, the resonance of caves, a "sonic time-lapse of the history of this land," and a close encounter with a bear. The range of accomplished composers also includes two former ensemble members, demonstrating the fertile breeding ground of Michigan as well as the wealth of creative resources across the land. Based in Allendale, Michigan, the New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley State University promotes the music of our time through commissions, tours, recordings, educational events, workshops, and videos.

AFTERWARDS... presents music that imagines a world different from the one we find ourselves in today, music that strives towards a sound that might be heard in a world where violence is no longer the ready answer to men's disputes, a world where reason prevails, a calmer world. On this album, the vehicle for this expression of hope is the string quartet, an ensemble about which composer Stanley Grill writes, "it is the string quartet that has mostly occupied my attention over the years, as the intimate sound of a small consort of bowed strings is the perfect medium to express the contemplative sound landscape I strive to create." The music presented on this album reflects the same themes that dominate much of Stanley Grill's work: an attempt to influence the minds and hearts of those who hear it in such a way as to encourage thoughts about the possibility of world peace, as well as music composed in an attempt to translate something about the nature of the physical world. About his music, Stanley Grill writes "I am driven by a strong desire to create music that does more than entertain, but moves people to think about the urgent problems all of us face today." This, his fourth album, takes that goal a step further, centered around quartets composed as part of his personal Music for Peace project, as well as works that are evocative of a quiet, interior, meditative space that provides a musical counter to the chaotic, passion driven world around us. The music is performed by string players of Camerata Philadelphia. About the players, Stanley Grill writes that "working with Camerata Philadelphia is always a great pleasure. They get my music completely - and perfectly capture the contemplative spirit with which it was written."

Given the high energy and dazzling colors of Huang Ruo's musical interests, it is no surprise that his music traverses typical confines and explores new territories. Into the Vast World - the first collection of his symphonic works - does just that. Both fragmented and tuneful, wacky and solemn, Huang Ruo's vision brings a broad perspective to what an orchestra might do. The album bursts to life with an improvised vocal solo in a made-up language performed by Huang Ruo in the Chinese folk-rock style. This opens Shattered Steps, an energetic tour-de-force of frozen moments and ongoing motion. Like a puzzle with no beginning nor end, it carries the listener along helter skelter, one step at a time in the exhilarating rush of the now. Becoming Another likewise focuses on evolution and transformation, stillness and motion, yin and yang. Still / Motion takes these ideas even farther. Written in response to the 50-year-old Chinese classic "Butterfly Lover" Violin Concerto, Huang Ruo's work is a dialog with Chinese traditional musical forms, specifically Chinese Opera and Chinese Court Music. Folks Songs for Orchestra engage with his native country in yet a different way; not as arrangements of actual melodies but new compositions inspired by a variety of songs and dances familiar from his travels. Huang Ruo's music is inherently dramatic and the album features two excerpts from his opera, An American Soldier, with libretto by David Henry Hwang. It tells the story of Private Danny Chen, an American U.S. Army soldier who served in Afghanistan in 2011, whose death resulted in a military investigation and charges against eight US soldiers, ultimately with four being court martialed. The investigation found that Chen had been racially harassed and beaten by his fellow soldiers before his death on October 3, 2011.

These Wicked Things is the fourth release from the determinedly eclectic Boston-based band Beat Circus and the final installment in singer/multi-instrumentalist/composer Brian Carpenter's "Weird American Gothic" trilogy. The record bridges a number of disparate genres including experimental music, cowpunk, post-punk, Mexican folk music, mariachi music, and "spaghetti western" and giallo film scores. The cover and booklet include an 18-page graphic novelette by renowned Croatian artist Danijel Zezelj, best known for his live paintings, multimedia, and collaborations with DC Comics/Vertigo. These Wicked Things began after Carpenter was commissioned by the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley, California to compose music and lyrics for Dominic Orlando's play The Barbary Coast in 2014. Based on the true crime book by Herbert Asbury (Gangs of New York), The Barbary Coast detailed the violent rise of San Francisco in the late 1800s. The play centers around Joaquin Murieta, a Mexican who went on a revenge spree after his wife Rosita was killed by gold miners. Two versions of "Rosita" and some incidental music from the play are included. After recording These Wicked Things with Beat Circus at the legendary Q Division Studios in Boston, Carpenter flew out to Tucson, Arizona to mix the record with es-teemed producer Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Neko Case, Giant Sand.) Carpenter worked with Schumacher previously on his singer/songwriter outing The Far End of the World (2015, Accurate.) Special guests on These Wicked Things include trumpeter Jacob Valenzuela of Calexico, bass saxophonist Dana Colley of Morphine, and guitarist Stephen Ulrich of the NYC guitar noir trio Big Lazy.

Music forges strong bonds of camaraderie among it's creators, performers, and listeners. Maithree: The Music of Friendship does exactly that in proposing a harmonious coexistence between players from different cultures who share a common global dream of enthusiastic diversity. As the album's coproducer Gary Hines says: "These are more than just songs. They are a rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic convergence of many diverse souls and spirits into one expressive creation. What comes from the heart reaches the heart. The Maithree experience makes our hearts beat together as one." Maithree, the ensemble, was formed when Nirmala Rajasekar, Indian veena virtuoso, invited some friends to play music together. With visiting South Indian drum guru Boopathi, cellist Michelle Kinney, and brothers Pat and Tim O'Keefe, this is Minnesota-grown idealism at it's finest, where no barriers to musical or social Concord get in the way. Maithree, the similarly-named album, features original music, along with new arrangements of Indian, Irish, and Turkish tunes. Maithree, the composition, was originally written for a 1966 concert at the United Nationa, bringing a message of world peace and friendship across borders. What could be more timely?

In the album Soul Doctrine, composer Zack Browning employs Chinese magic squares, feng shui, astrology, and historical quotes to construct a spiritual world of melodic patterns and harmonic spirals- all interwoven with a corporeal world of rock-inspired, driving rhythms. Time appears frozen, restructured, and propelled forward by applying esoteric workings to the birth dates of performers, musical visionaries, and dates of political events. But the effect on the listener is to entangle them joyfully in vigorous syncopations of vibrant musical material. In the title track, 'Soul Doctrine,' a pulsating piano pushes the distorted electric guitar and fiery flute into a powerful and emotional journey consisting of dynamic turns and colorful collisions inspired by the sixteenth century music of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The rich sound world of 'Silent Crackdown' reflects the tragic events of the 228 Incident in Taiwan and the compelling music played at Taiwanese funerals to awaken the dead. In Flute Soldier, a magic square from 1514 provides for a percussive palette of punchy melodic loops. 'Unafraid' combines quotes from Handel, the Holocaust, and Bob Marley with pounding rock rhythms to make a powerful statement about survival. 'Rock Furious' wraps up the album with a loud and relentless rush of pop-inspired riffs derived from the performers' ruling planets.

On Strange Paths, Justin DeHart dives head first into this challenging repertoire and performs the monumental compositions in a lucid and inspired fashion - with careful attention to sound, musical detail and inventiveness.

Alexander Berne and his Abandoned Orchestra have returned with their third multi-CD set. Berne's latest finds him further refining and deepening a tonal vocabulary that has garnered him spots on critics' Best of lists and found him compared to striking artists from across multiple genres including Kubrick Cage Schoenberg and Joyce.

On Sensorium: Music for Dance & Film-his third release for innova Recordings-Boston-based Ken Field brings together his music for Bridgman/Packer Dance and his soundtracks for the final animated films of his wife and longtime collaborator Karen Aqua (1954-2011).

Sonar pulses. Inventing the chronometer. Rotating gears. Vibrating machines. These are the inspirations behind the chamber works on Peter Van Zandt Lane's New Cartography. Boasting an illustrious roster of decorated performers, Lane's second album with Innova highlights what the American Academy of Arts and Letters describes as "driving rhythms, bold harmonic gestures, and whimsical melo-dies... Lane's music is as inviting as it is sophisticated." The opening track begins with a frenetic burst of energy, with electronic pulses entwined with the unique instrumentation of Mod[ular] Ensemble in a musical exploration of the title, /ping/: an IP network utility; a sonar pulse; and the onomatopoeia. Weaving lyrical patterns give way to angular, rocking outbursts. The quintet hits call-bells to signal virtuosic solos interspersed throughout the piece until they find connectivity, culminating in a lush texture of oscillating harmonies and fluttering electronics. Reaching further into the technological past, Piano Quartet: The Longitude Problem finds it's inspiration in 18th century maritime navigation. Before John Har-rison's invention of the marine chronometer, navigation and maps were all over the place. The device opened up a new way to determine longitude: clockwork-precision making sense of the incalculable sea. The album's title track, New Cartography, Lane relishes just such opposing pathways, pitting rigid clockwork against free lyricism in a surprising finale to Piano Quartet that both celebrates the Age of Discovery and mourns colonialism. Composed while in-residence at Aaron Copland's house historic home, this piece sets Lane's fascination with rhythmic process to a more sentimental sound world, brought to life by the exquisite musicianship of the Atlanta Chamber Players. Peter Van Zandt Lane is a composer with a particular focus on music for wind ensemble, chamber ensembles, electroacoustic music and music for dance. Recipient of the 2018 Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Lane is on the composition faculty of the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music where he also acts as Director of the Roger and Phyllis Dancz Center for New Music.

There is a zone of beauty between light and dark, where colors and transitions are at their most ephemeral. Nevada-based composer Jennifer Bellor reflects on some of those impressions as specifically inspired by the gorgeous sunsets in the Las Vegas area when overlooking the Whitney Mesa Trail. Far from the Strip and gazing at the expansive skies juxtaposed with the rocky terrain, Bellor meditates on the gently shifting lyricism where earth meets the sky. Well, usually gentle - the cover photo was taken during the July 2019, 7.1-magnitude earthquake when the tremors threw up a haze of colorful dust that suspended in the evening air. This album of six chamber works emphasizes shining sonorities - think vibraphones, harp, and wind chimes. Words like cerulean, amethyst, and indigo infuse the works' titles. And most of the pieces are performed by associates at UNLV where Bellor teaches composition and directs the Nextet new music series. If you're in the mood for something crepuscular, Reflections at Dusk will satisfy. Born and raised in northern New York, Jennifer Bellor earned a PhD in music composition at Eastman School of Music, a Master of Music degree at Syracuse University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in music at Cornell University. Her primary composition teachers included David Liptak, Bob Morris, Andrew Waggoner, Sally Lamb-McCune, and Steven Stucky. She is on the music composition faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.