San Francisco-based Cantata Collective continues it's exploration of J.S. Bach's major choral masterworks with a third in the ongoing series, pairing the composer's Easter Oratorio and Magnificat. Released in time for Holy Week, both works are lavishly scored and feature some of Bach's most festive and popular vocal writing. With celebrated baroque music specialist Nicholas McGegan on the podium, and a roll call of today's finest early music vocal soloists, this release is poised to build on the auspicious previous releases - a "bold and beautifully constructed" St. John Passion (BBC Radio 3 Record Review), and "an exemplary performance" of the Mass in B Minor (American Record Guide).

Award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel adds to his impressive catalogue of large-scale liturgical works with a double-bill featuring his Mass and Te Deum, composed concurrently and completed in 2022. As with previous works - including Requiem, and the seven-hour long oratorio The Gospel According to Mark - Chris' spirituality infuses his music with melancholy and meditative qualities. Haunting intimacy, a predilection for chant-like melodies and allusions to Medieval music, and plangent orchestral colours, give these two new sacred works a feeling of timelessness. Listeners will recognise Chris' penchant for unusual combinations of instruments - a quartet from the oboe family in both works, with the lesser heard oboe d'amore and bass oboe alongside oboe and cor anglais; and a pair of Wagner tubas in the Mass. Chris once again collaborates with soprano Catherine Redding, the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra under the baton of Clyde Mitchell - who on previous releases of Chris' music have delivered "emotionally stirring performances" (The WholeNote).

Pianist extraordinaire Anthony de Mare's landmark commissioning project, Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano, reaches Volume II with a diverse range of 14 tracks by a roll call of contemporary composers from the worlds of classical, jazz, film, indie, pop and musical theatre, including Jon Batiste, Stephen Hough, Meredith Monk, Max Richter, Conrad Tao, with the soloist himself contributing the title track "All Things Bright and Beautiful". Launched in 2015 on ECM Records with an acclaimed three-volume set - "a revelation. de Mare's playing superb throughout, a combination of lyrical reflection and extroverted pyrotechnics" (San Francisco Chronicle) - Liaisons II extends the ambitious endeavour that brings together the world's leading composers to re-imagine the legendary musical theatre composer's songs for solo piano. Sondheim, the ever-eloquent wordsmith, proclaimed he was "thrilled" with the music: "I think the new pieces are terrific,' he wrote in October of 2021, simultaneously praising de Mare: "I also like how they show off your piano-playing chops. " Timed to coincide with the 95th anniversary of Sondheim's birth, Liaisons II: All Things Bright and Beautiful stands as a celebration of the life and enduring legacy of the exceptional musical theatre giant.

Newly available on high quality heavyweight 180g vinyl. Bruce Wolosoff is a formidable pianist, lauded for his integration of classical, jazz, blues, and contemporary influences in his compositions. His new magnum opus, Rising Sun Variations, is an extended and innovative set based on the American traditional folk song, best known for a version recorded in 1964 by British rock band the Animals. Wolosoff's "Prelude and Theme" are followed by 39 Variations ranging from sonorous to serene, encompassing a multitude of styles united by the well-known refrain.

Themes of art song, poetry, and spirituality run throughout Poème Mystique, the second solo album by Korean-American violinist Danbi Um. Following Danbi’s acclaimed solo debut album Much Ado – a showcase for her virtuosity and gilded tone – Poème Mystique explores works of lyrical beauty and profound personal expression. Richard Strauss’ Violin Sonata, written in the year he met his future wife, is imbued with romance and intimacy. Ernest Bloch’s Second Violin Sonata, the title work of the album, is by turns ecstatic, spiritual, and fantasy-like. Inspired by a dream, Bloch incorporates a vast range of spirituality, including motifs from his Jewish-themed works, the Gregorian Credo, Mass Kyrie, and traditional Amen. Danbi weaves two shorter works amongst the sonatas. Gabriel Fauré’s Après un rêve (“After a dream”), originally a French art song, becomes an exquisite song without words in this transcription for violin. The album concludes with Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria, likewise originally for voice and piano, presented here in an arrangement by August Wilhelm. Danbi’s refined collaborator is Finnish pianist Juho Pohjonen. Together they deliver a performance that is at once technically virtuosic and emotionally nuanced.

Their names were Laura, Livia, and Anna. Together, they were known in the late 1500's as the Tre Donne di Ferrara - the three ladies of Ferrara. Their ensemble was praised by contemporary poets and won highest renown throughout Italy and Germany. However, women were not supposed to become famous for their professional achievements. And so, one of them was murdered by her husband - a count - who went unpunished. Thus, this is a tale of revolutionary women ahead of their time, living in an era when women had no protections. In this album, it has been my pleasure to collaborate with three extraordinary ladies of today - named Amanda, Amanda, and Amanda. The Amandas and I are proud to offer this homage to the unstoppable Italian women who broke the glass ceiling in 1580. We hope that their brilliance and boldness resound through this recording.

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen's star is rapidly in the ascendent, his voice "astonishingly beautiful" and "golden-toned" (The Guardian). He has been acclaimed as a "complete artist" by The New York Times and as "extravagantly gifted... Nussbaum Cohen is poised to re-define what's possible for singers of this distinctive voice type" (San Francisco Chronicle). Uncharted is Aryeh's solo debut album, and ventures outside typical countertenor territory into 19th and 20th century lieder never before recorded by his soaring voice type. Austro-Germanic lieder was Aryeh's first musical love and on Uncharted, he indulges in music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Clara and Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms - music that resonates profoundly with his family's German and Jewish heritage. The moving programme is heightened by the deeply sensitive playing of leading collaborative pianist John Churchwell, Head of Music for San Francisco Opera. The release of Uncharted coincides with a North American tour that takes Aryeh to Houston and St. Paul, with debuts at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and New York's Carnegie Hall.

Bruce Wolosoff is a formidable pianist, lauded for his integration of classical, jazz, blues, and contemporary influences in his compositions. His new magnum opus, Rising Sun Variations, is an extended and innovative set of improvisations on the American traditional folk song, best known for a version recorded in 1964 by British rock band the Animals. Wolosoff's "Prelude and Theme" are followed by 39 Variations ranging from sonorous to serene, encompassing a multitude of styles united by the well-known refrain.

Award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel scales heights and plumbs depths with his novel new recording of concertos, for piccolo and for four Wagner tubas. Following his recently released Requiem, last year's epic seven-hour Gospel According to Mark, and concertante works for all ranges for his own instrument - oboe, oboe d'amore and bass oboe - Chris' new recording includes a dazzling Concerto for Piccolo featuring principal piccolo player of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Sarah Jackson, paired with an astounding assemblage of four players of the Wagner tuba, a hybrid tuba-French horn instrument commissioned by the namesake composer for his opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Both Jackson and the four Wagner tuba soloists - Oliver de Clercq, Laurel Spencer, Valerie Whitney, Holly Bryan - are superbly supported by conductor Clyde Mitchell and the Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra.

There Is Sweet Music is the idyllic title of the first AVIE release by the eight-voice Proteus Ensemble and their conductor Stephen Shellard, which surveys a selection of relatively rare part-songs by Sir Edward Elgar. Elgar maintained his dedication to composing part-songs throughout his life and imbued each of them with an inimitable character. Like the composer's celebrated "Enigma Variations", his part-songs bear an array of inspirations and dedicatees, including his wife Caroline Alice who penned the poem of the album's closer, "O Happy Eyes", shortly after she and Elgar were married. This early work became a companion to the song "Love," written eight years later and also dedicated to Caroline Alice. Elgar turned to famous poets and peers - Lord Byron for "Deep in my soul", Percy Bysshe Shelley for "O wild West Wind!", and Alfred Lord Tennyson whose poem "The Lotos-Eaters" provides the album's title track. English translations of Russian poems lend themselves to "Death on the Hills", "Love's Tempest" and "Serenade". Elgar frequently found inspiration in Italy, where he composed "Angelus', a song dedicated to his close friend Alice Stuart Wortley whom he called "Windflower" and whose spirit is enshrined in his Violin Concerto. Stephen Shellard's Elgarian epiphany began in 1990 when he joined Dr. Donald Hunt's choir at Worcester Cathedral as an Alto Lay Clerk. Dr. Hunt's inspired and devoted expertise in performances of works by Worcester's most famous musical son cast a life-long spell on Stephen that manifests itself in these beautiful performances with his Proteus Ensemble.

The Young Schumann, the new release by British pianist Charles Owen, is a musical narrative of Robert Schumann's early career, featuring works written in the 1830s when the composer was in his 20s. His first two published works, Abegg Variations and Papillons, the impetuous six Intermezzi, Op. 4, and the characterful Carnaval, Op. 9, are all fuelled by some of Schumann's compositional hallmarks: his imagination and attraction to the fantastical, his love of ciphers and cryptograms, and his frequent quoting of each work within the others.

Pianist Benjamin Hochman's fourth album for AVIE, Resonance, literally resonates with music spanning six centuries. Two late Beethoven sonatas are the pillars of the program, with two Renaissance works by Josquin des Prez and John Dowland, plus a masterpiece by one of today's most heralded living composers, George Benjamin, in between. Resonance opens with Beethoven's Op. 109, followed by Josquin's serene motet Ave Maria, arranged for piano by American contemporary composer Charles Wuorinen, the stylistic contrasts nevertheless resonating with a common tonal centre and rich counterpoint. Dowland's Flow my tears, arranged for keyboard by Downland's contemporary William Byrd, is a lamentation akin to the third movement "Arioso dolente" from Beethoven's Op. 110. The penultimate track is George Benjamin's 2001 Shadowlines. Subtitled "Canonic Preludes", like Beethoven, Benjamin expands both sonic and emotional resonance to the limit.

A Lullaby Carol - Christmas at Christ Church

Bach's Coffeehouse brings together a selection of Apollo's Fire recordings - old and new alike - featuring repertoire that is believed to have been performed at Cafe Zimmerman in Leipzig, the city where Johann Sebastian Bach served as Cantor. Coffee houses were all the rage at the time, centres for socialising and musical soirees. Bach would have found respite from his formal duties as Cantor, by curating informal concerts at the thriving coffee emporium. Bach's Coffeehouse features new recordings of Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 with virtuoso soloists Alan Choo, the Singaporean violinist and Assistant Artistic Director of Apollo's Fire, and recorder player Daphna Mohr; the Double Concerto for Oboe and Violin with Debra Nagy and violinist Johanna Novom; and "Air on a G String" from Orchestral Suite No. 3. Rounding out the album, Apollo's Fire brings back catalogue favourites by two of Bach's contemporaries: Telemann's swaggering Don Quixote Suite, and Vivaldi's fiery "La folia", featuring Alan Choo and Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana.

Jeannette Sorrell, the celebrated founder-director of Cleveland-based Baroque orchestra Apollo's Fire, first fell in love with the harpsichord upon hearing three masterpieces by Johann Sebastian Bach: the composer's concertos in D Minor, BWV1052 and F Minor, BWV1056, and his Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 (for Harpsichord, flute & violin). Jeannette and Apollo's Fire recorded these works between 1999-2004, with the subsequent 2010 album release debuting on the Top 10 of Billboard's Traditional Classical Albums Chart. This 25th anniversary reissue brings together a new programme of Jeannette's favourite Bach harpsichord concertos.