Christmas has long been one of my favorite times of the year. The excitement, joy, and hopeful anticipation that stem from both the traditional and commercialized components of the season are feelings I never tire of. And, in most ways this album, Veni Redemptor Gentium, is a musical celebration of what Christmas was and has become. For many, however, the holidays are a complicated time filled with traditions that have the potential to both inspire and distemper. A sentiment of peace and goodwill-the supposed promise of the season-is shared by many during this time of year, and we see it reflected in an unusual sense of calm and random acts of kindness. Yet, for every such moment we also see examples of harshness and aggression, especially when we zoom outwards to view the world on a larger scale. Centuries of ill-will in the name of religion and politics trickle down to us through generations of learned and inherited bias, and politico-religious conflict remains problematic on a global scale, despite the annual holiday promises of an end to such suffering. The medievalist interested in showcasing the beautiful music composed for the Christmas holiday is hard-pressed to find song texts from the Middle Ages that do not at least glimpse this harshness, whether it be anti-Semitic rhetoric or judgmental accusation, a de/re/mis-contextualized or misappropriated quotation spun against a community of people, or an oppressive governing body working to quiet the voices of some while elevating others for it's own self-interests. Indeed, it can be disheartening to turn back these centuries and dive into difficult texts and repertoire with complicated contexts for a season whose meaning is joyous. These are shadows of the past that hold a mirror to our present.

The latest innovative release from The Orchestra Now and their founder-conductor Leon Botstein evokes the age-old practice of transcribing music from one set of instruments or voices to another. Transcription as Translation brings together two symphonic transcriptions by two major 20th-century conductors who were eager to perform from the podium some of their favourite non-orchestral works and present them to a wider audience. Turn of the 20th century Austrian composer and conductor Felix Weingartner had an illustrious international career that included the directorship of the Vienna Philharmonic and regular guest conducting of the Boston Symphony. He was at the vanguard of the era of acoustic recording and was the first conductor to make commercial recordings of all nine Beethoven symphonies. Weingartner's Beethoven credentials informed his orchestral transcription of Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Piano Sonata. The name of Hungarian-born conductor George Szell remains synonymous with the Cleveland Orchestra, where he was Music Director from 1946 - 1970, to this day. He had previously worked for many years in Prague where he developed a special affinity for Czech music which is attested to his orchestration of Smetana's String Quartet No. 1 ("From My Life").

The Suite for Two Oboes and Two English Horns (2017), consists of four movements that take their titles from the Christian liturgy. Each movement is an abstract representation of the overall spirit and emotion of each of these prayers. The movements consist of what I find to be four of the most poignant as well as contrasting of the prayers: the Kyrie, the Dies Irae, the Lacrimosa, and ending with the Gloria. Having played the oboe and English horn throughout my formative musical years through to my completion of university, I have an inherent love for these instruments and writing for them. Oboists lack a large selection of serious repertoire for choirs of their instruments and my hope is that this piece will help fill some of that need in additional to encouraging others to write for this fascinating timbral combination. The Symphony for Flute Choir (2017) is a larger scale work for standard flute choir consisting of four movements. In composing this piece, my goal was to give the flute choir a serious piece of music with the emotional breadth that comes in writing a piece of a symphonic scale. As with most of my music, there is no programme or narrative to this piece. Rather, the movements revolve around often angular ideas, many mixed asymmetric metres, and contrasts between slow, sometimes emotionally ambivalent sections and more driving and jagged movements of ever-increasing amounts of tension.

Elena Ruehr is one of today's most prolific and acclaimed composer of string quartets whose music has been described as "unspeakably gorgeous" by Gramophone magazine. This latest triptych of works for the genre takes inspiration from much-loved locales in the higher latitudes: the composer's Michigan home, a favourite spot on Cape Cod, and the capital city of Iceland. String Quartet No. 9, "Keweenaw" evokes the small rural town in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula where Elena grew up. This quartet explores various parts of that world, from native berries, early autumn blizzards, ghost towns and the majestic Lake Superior. String Quartet No. 10, "Long Pond" captures moments throughout the days on a beautiful small lake on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where Elena has spent much time and gathered precious memories: a brightly rising sun, a morning dog walk, sailing on the harbour, a "nor'easter" storm, a lovely yet mysterious full moon rising above and reflecting in the water. String Quartet No. 11, "Reykjavik", pays seasonal homage to Iceland's capitol city, with it's long winter nights, the sun peeking through the haze as spring approaches, greeted with celebrations of singing and dancing for the lighter days ahead. Quartet ES is a foursome of diverse and engaging individuals - Anton Miller and Ertan Torgul, violins; Rita Porfiris, viola; and Jennifer Kloetzel, cello - that come together to create cutting-edge programming, visionary projects and dynamic educational initiatives. A capacious catalogue of commissioned works includes these three by Elena Ruehr.

Dvorak stated elsewhere that he had always remained a simple Bohemian folk musician at heart. Born in 1841, the son of a butcher, he grew up in the countryside. He always heard Bohemian folk tunes, probably even in his mother's womb. Folk music was clearly part of Dvorak's DNA, and a Slavic folklore tone permeates the two works on this CD. 0028948677955 CAVM4867795.2 45383021 .00 17.99 .19 CAVI-MUSIC COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 10/31/2025 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/27/4445227-3422550.jpg 0 1 N BALLESTRA,JEAN-LUC CARRARA: VOCI DA HEBRON Cristian Carrara is one of the most original Italian composers of his generation. The opera Voci da Hebron ('Voices from Hebron') is set during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Carrara's expressive depiction of this scenario is one in which fear, anger and incomprehension sit side-by-side with the need for communication, at a time when dialogue is difficult and peace is, at times, a mirage. This land that is home to grief and misunderstanding is also a place in which love can survive and ultimately flourish. 730099060370 NXS8660603.2 45383519 .00 19.99 .21 NAXOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 10/10/2025 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/00/4445400-3422659.jpg 9 1 N TETZLAFF,CHRISTIAN ELGAR & ADES: VN CONS Star-violinist Christian Tetzlaff, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor John Storgards present in this album two major British violin concertos written between a century, in 1910 and 2005. Elgar's passionate violin concerto, completed in 1910, is a classical-romantic violin concerto in three movements. This huge and highly emotional work was in the wake of modernism neglected for several decades before entering into standard concerto repertoire. Here Christian Tetzlaff follows the model of the early recordings of Elgar's concerto with substantially quicker tempos compared to most modern recordings, and having a great influence on the impact of the piece. Ades' violin concerto 'Concentric Paths', is already a modern classic and no doubt one of the most important concertos written during this century. With it's very demanding violin part the work has all the elements of a true concerto, allowing the soloist to sing with his instrument. The beauty of this music lies that everything is written so clearly. 761195148020 OND1480.2 45383533 .00 18.99 .27 ONDINE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 10/03/2025 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/45/4445745-3422683.jpg 155 1 N LEE,WARREN GOUNOD: PNO WORKS During his time in Italy and later in Leipzig, Charles Gounod was drawn by the balance of sonic beauty and proportion to be found in the music of Palestrina and J.S. Bach. He developed an innate desire for simple directness as can be heard in the excerpt from the Messe solennelle de Sainte Cecile and the Meditation sur le premier Prelude de J.S. Bach, now better known as Ave Maria. Gounod's talents for melody and mood painting are demonstrated in his Romances sans paroles, while his sense of wit can be heard in the famous Marche fune'bre d'une marionnette. 747313453474 NXS8574534.2 45383472 .00 19.99 .16 NAXOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 10/10/2025 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/77/4446477-3422665.jpg 19 1 N BRIGGS,SARAH SMALL TREASURES In her first solo recording for AVIE in 2019, Sarah Beth Briggs' performances of music by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms were described as 81 minutes of pianistic Heaven" by International Piano Magazine. In her latest offering, Small Treasures, Sarah returns to two of those composers' greatest sets of miniatures: Schumann's piano cycle Waldszenen and Brahms's 4 Klavierstu�cke, Op.119, his final statement for solo piano. Alongside these, Sarah sets Schumann's much loved Arabeske from earlier in his composing career and the delightfully fleeting Impromptu by his wife Clara, together with her 4 Pie'ces fugitives, much lauded in her lifetime. The remaining 'Treasures' transport the listener to 20th-century France, comparing works by two members of Paris's composing circle 'Les Six' - Francis Poulenc's evocative 3 Novelettes (written across a 30-year time span) and Germaine Tailleferre's Sicilienne. As an encore, Sarah - a former International Mozart Competition winner - ends with a tiny gem by Wolfgang Amadeus: his 1789 Kleine Gigue in G in which light-hearted playfulness mingles with forward-looking chromaticism, miraculously seeming to find common ground with all of the works from the subsequent two centuries included on Small Treasures.

This deluxe, 21st anniversary reissue of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's legendary recording of the character Irene's arias from George Frideric Handel's Theodora - plus the composer's cantata La Lucrezia and the evergreen aria "Ombra Mai Fu" from Serse - evokes vivid memories of the mezzo-soprano's galvanizing musicianship and opens the ears of a new generation of music lovers to appreciate the timelessness of Lorraine's poignant interpretations. Specially remastered for this CD and newly available digitally in Dolby Atmos, the longevity of these performances is a testament to Lorraine's unique voice and soul. Conductor and leading Baroque specialist Harry Bicket recalls the immediate musical connection he and Lorraine shared from the time they first met in 1996 during rehearsals for Theodora at Glyndebourne. When Peter Seller's staging of the cantata was revived in 2003, it seemed obvious to go into the studio to record Lorraine's Theodora arias. A maverick musician and a riveting performer, Lorraine died in 2006 due to complications from cancer at the far-too-young age of 52. This recording, one of her last, preserves her consummate musical persona for posterity. The New Yorker's classical columnist Alex Ross characterised the album as "pull-down-the-blinds, unplug-the-telephone, can't-talk-right-now beautiful. She's singing it again; I have to go."

Composer-pianist Bruce Wolosoff describes the essence of his new album, Blue Mantra, as an engagement in multiple dialogues - between music and visual art, between the blues and chamber music, and between various moments in his creative life. The title track was inspired by a painting of the same name by his artist-wife Margaret Garrett. Similarly, Matisse Fantasies arose from seeing a charcoal drawing by the celebrated French impressionist. Blues for the New Millennium, commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution to commemorate the turn of the century, expresses a "before" and "after", and marked a turning point in Bruce's compositional style as he embraced a more directly lyrical, melodic compositional voice. All three works are scored for clarinet, piano and varied strings, and revel in bluesy lyricism alongside Bruce's formidable pianism and the virtuosity of his collaborators: clarinettist Narek Arutyunian, violinists Deborah Buck and Michelle Ross, and cellist Clarice Jensen.

The age-old spirit of the composer-performer lies at the heart of the 10-year collaboration between cellist-composer Christoph Croise and composer-saxophonist Daniel Schnyder (pronounced SHNEE-der). This resulting album features two of Daniel's concertos, both commissioned by Christoph, alongside numerous world premieres of solo and chamber works. Christoph shines in the Concerto for Cello, Percussion and String Orchestra, whilst the two Swiss compatriots share the limelight in Concerto Populaire for soprano saxophone, cello, percussion and string orchestra, both backed by members of Christoph's hand-picked Beyond Modern Orchestra, an ensemble dedicated to the creation and performance of new music. Christoph brings in other close collaborators, including Alexander Panfilov for Jazz Sonata for Cello & Piano, harpsichordist Peter Gorobets for Cello BLU - another Christoph commission that explores the unique timbral relationship between the two instruments - and an octet of leading European cellists for Cubac - a fusion of Cuban rhythms and Bachian-counterpoint. Throughout, Daniel's compositions seamlessly fuse a melting pot of musical styles, including classical, jazz, Middle Eastern, African and Latin American. Christoph, who himself is rapidly gaining renown as a composer, says, "There is no more fitting way to celebrate contemporary music than by performing it alongside the composer himself."

Passing Fancy: Beauty in a Moment of Chaos, the AVIE debut by leading New York City early music ensemble Sonnambula, traverses music by several Renaissance composers who were forced to conceal their identities for social, religious or ethnic reasons. Yet their music transcended the disorder surrounding them, flourishing in the intersection of beliefs and styles. Disruption and displacement wasn't uncommon in 16th-and 17th-centuries Europe. During the Reformation, creative individuals, including composers, were often forced to conceal their identities - for reasons social, religious, ethnic, racial or otherwise. Yet despite - or perhaps due to - the disorder, musical styles and forms flourished, earning the era it's Renaissance designation and thus creating "Beauty in a Moment of Chaos". Sonnambula, an ensemble of New York City-based early music luminaries, bestow beauty on their AVIE debut, traversing an aural intersection of beliefs with northern and southern European styles. Here is the beauty of William Byrd and Richard Dering, two Catholics composing in Protestant England; of Leonora Duarte, a Portuguese-Jewish woman forced to live as a converso ("New Christian"), in Antwerp, and Parisian Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, whose lost works have re-emerged with a vengeance in our own time; of the Bolognese Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder who emigrated to England, and Salomone Rossi who unusually set Hebrew texts to Western-style polyphony from his relatively tolerant position in the court of Mantua. The release of Passing Fancy: Beauty in a Moment of Chaos coincides with Sonnambula's taking up residency at New York City's newly-renovated premiere museum, The Frick Collection.

For his tenth Avie release, Daniel-Ben Pienaar advocates for the little-known French composer Gaspard Le Roux, by re-imagining his exquisite "Piece de clavessin" from 1705 (his only publication) for it's first ever recording on the modern piano. By turns pleasing, witty, brilliant and affecting, the complete collection makes for a diverting and balanced recital. For his tenth Avie release, Daniel-Ben Pienaar advocates for the little-known French composer Gaspard Le Roux, by re-imagining his exquisite "Piece de clavessin" from 1705 (his only publication) for it's first ever recording on the modern piano. By turns pleasing, witty, brilliant and affecting, the complete collection makes for a diverting and balanced recital.

Creative collaboration is central to American composer Joel Puckett's career, a spirit that unites the three works on this recording. Each work represents a partnership between Puckett's vibrant creative imagination and a particular musician, or group of musicians. Puckett's new Trumpet Concerto (2024), his second for the instrument, was written for the distinguished jazz trumpeter Sean Jones. It's a homage of sorts to another American classic conceived for a great jazz musician, Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto, which was commissioned and premiered by Benny Goodman. The work is a personal response to Jones's artistry, showcasing his dazzling high register and individual articulations and inflections that are unique to his playing. The orchestral song cycle There Was a Child Went Forth was created for Grammy Award winning tenor Nicholas Phan. The music is accessible and inward, much like the verses by Walt Whitman. It's a work of celebration, composed in 2023 for the 225th anniversary of the United States President's Own Marine Band. Inspiration came from Phan's love of Whitman, and synergy from Whitman's written reviews of the Marine Band.' The album's title track Short Stories is a string quartet concerto, which has been widely performed since it's 2013 premiere. Principal players of the London Symphony Orchestra shine as the soloists, at times playing as individuals, at others as a unit with their orchestral colleagues providing a resplendent accompaniment.

'I was drawn to an approach of dealing with the history of slavery within one's family, the ownership of a name and it's 'rebranding' - reflecting on the American Slave and how Black Americans deal with creating a sense of pride, familial storytelling and lineage in contemporary America. This notion of 'rebranding' extends to the 'Negro Melody' My intent with these arrangements is to acknowledge the impact of those melodies on current popular culture, and reflect that influence onto the orchestral stage - to create moments where listeners may participate vocally, with movement, or rhythmically clapping along - to maintain a sense of belonging and recognition - to create community around this music in the classical concert hall - to embrace where all contemporary American Concert music extends from, in my belief - America's mother-music: the Blues.' - Curtis Stewart

Play, Music! Songs from Shakespeare's Plays

GRAMMY� Award-winning American soprano Susan Narucki is one of today's most committed advocates of the music of our time. Her deep and lasting working relationship with Gyo�rgy Kurta�g dates to 1986, the year the Hungarian composer penned his iconoclastic chamber work Kafka Fragments. Susan instinctively imbues the work with the widely varied moods of anguish, longing and rage alongside humour, absurdity and ecstasy that the texts convey. Arranged over four sections, Kurta�g sets 40 extracts from the diaries and letters of the mercurial novelist Franz Kafka. Despite being his largest song-cycle, Kurta�g deploys his signature miniature style: many of the movements last less than a minute long. Joining Susan is one of today's foremost interpreters of contemporary classical music, violinist Curtis Macomber. Together they prove to be the perfect proponents of Kurta�g's idiosyncratic fusion of poetry and music.

Songs for Stephen represents a nearly three-decade collaboration between esteemed composer Elena Ruehr and celebrated baritone Stephen Salter's. Elena describes the time "a handsome and charismatic young man approached me after a premiere of one of my compositions at Boston University. He asked me to write him a song cycle for his debut recital with the Bank of Boston's Celebrity Series. I told him to send me a recording of his singing and I'd think about it. The first note I heard Stephen sing sent a bolt of energy down my spine: this was the singer I had always wanted to write for!" Stephen reciprocates, "What a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration has landed in my life both professionally and personally with Elena. From my first personal musical envelopment of her first song ever written for me, I truly fell in love with her creations for me, and thus we began this truly special and unique journey." Elena evocatively sets some of America's most notable poets, including Cuban-American and National Humanities Medal recipient Richard Blanco who read his own work at the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, himself a subject of Five Men in Guggenheim Fellow Elizabeth Alexander's encapsulation of two centuries' worth of multiple African-Americans experiences. Leading light of the Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes and feminist-activist Adrienne Rich lend their lyrics to poetry for children, both dark and light. The addition of the four-minute bonbon Lied, set to texts by Rainer Maria Rilke, is a reference to Elena's Germanic ancestry as well as the first song, by Schubert, that Elena heard Stephen sing. As with all of their collaborations over the years, Songs for Stephen brings Elena's evocative music to effervescent life by the baritone's sumptuous voice.