STRUM: MUSIC FOR STRINGS is the first album dedicated solely to the music of Jessie Montgomery and marks her debut as a leading composer and performer. Jessie has been recognized as an important emerging composer by the American Composers Orchestra, the Sphinx Organization, the Joyce Foundation and the Sorel Organization through generous grants and fellowships that support and promote her works.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Paul Ferguson is one of the leading jazz composer/arrangers of his generation. His four big band Cd�s include "Blue Highways"(with Jiggs Whigham, Claudio Roditi and the Berlin RIAS Big Band), "Friends" and "Live at the Bop Stop"(with his own orchestra) and "Jazz Vespers"(with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra). Paul is the 1995 recipient of the Gil Evans Fellowship in Jazz Composition. A veteran of the Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller Orchestras, Paul currently resides in Cleveland and performs with the Cleveland Pops and the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Paul has taught at Case Western Reserve University since 1988.

Grammy nominated composer, arranger and jazz pianist Bill Cunliffe is gathering nationwide attention with his innovative and swinging recordings and compositions He first fell under the influence of jazz by studying at Duke University with the great pianist Mary Lou Williams. He received his masters from the Eastman School of Music, and won several Down Beat Awards for his big band and orchestral pieces. After teaching at Central State University, in Wilberforce, Ohio, he toured as pianist and arranger with the Buddy Rich Big Band, and working with Frank Sinatra. He then played and toured with many legends of jazz, including Ray Brown, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Benny Golson, James Moody, and Joshua Redman. Currently, he plays with his own trio, his group Imaginacion, and duets with the great jazz flutist Holly Hofmann, with whom he has recorded five CD's. Bill was the 1989 winner of the $10,000 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Award, and has received stipends from the National Endowment for the Arts. His three albums for Warner/Discovery Records all charted in nationwide jazz polls. His books 'Jazz Keyboard Toolbox, ' and 'Jazz Piano Inventions' published by Alfred Publications, are fast becoming standard reference books in jazz, and his big band compositions are published by Kendor Music, and the University of Northern Colorado Jazz Press. His choral music is published by Santa Barbera Music Publishers. Bill is a Baldwin Pianos artist, and was Marian McPartland's guest on her famed 'Piano Jazz' radio show in June '98. As a composer and arranger, Bill has been performed by many orchestras, including the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic, the Reading (PA) Symphony, and the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra. Among his works are a three movement 'Romantic' Fantasy for piano and orchestra, a festive overture, 'Viva Mexico,' and numerous works for big band, orchestra, and choir. Recently, the Rodger Fox Big Band of New Zealand released a CD of Bill's jazz orchestra compositions. He is currently composer in residence at All Saints Episcopal Church, in Pasadena, California, and Associate Professor of Music at Cal State Fullerton. On the classical side, he performs his own distinctive arrangement of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," with orchestras, and performs with his group Trimotif, which he co leads with oboist Phoebe Ray, and featuring David Shostac on flute, often featuring his own works. Bill's latest projects include a groundbreaking audiophile recording, 'Live at Bernies', with bassist Darek Oles and drummer Joe La Barbera done both to enhanced CD and to 12 inch/ 45 rpm vinyl (!!!) at the famous Bernie Grundman mastering facility in Hollywood for the Groove Note label. In addition, his latest, which spent a month in the #2 position in the JazzWeek radio polls is "Imaginacion" an album featuring his Latin Jazz Nonet, on Torii Records. The arrangement "Do It Again" on the CD was nominated for a Grammy in 2006. Trying to define the jazz flutist is like trying to define the word jazz. The public's knowledge of the flute as a jazz instrument seems to range between the acquired taste of the avant-garde and the abyss known as pop-jazz. Holly Hofmann clearly defines the jazz flute.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

A 2020 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance!

The Dover Quartet, in their first release on Azica Records, have recorded the complete string quartets of Robert Schumann. The phenomenal Dover Quartet catapulted to international stardom following a stunning sweep of the 2013 Banff Competition, at which they won every prize. Named the Cleveland Quartet Award-winner, and honored with the coveted Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Dover has become one of the most in-demand ensembles in the world. The Quartet’s rise from up-and-coming young ensemble to occupying a spot at the top of their field has been “practically meteoric” (Strings). With its burnished warmth, incisive rhythms, and natural phrasing, the Quartet’s distinctive sound has helped confirm its status as “the young American string quartet of the moment” (New Yorker). The Quartet serves as the quartet-in-residence for the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, Chamber Music Northwest, Artosphere, the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, and Peoples’ Symphony in New York, and was recently named the first-ever quartet-in-residence for the Kennedy Center.

The Brentano Quartet, in their second release for Azica Records, present the Mozart String Quartets No. 19 in C Major, K. 465, "Dissonance", and No. 16 in E Flat Major, K. 428. Since it's inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and critical acclaim. "Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding," raves the London Independent; the New York Times extols it's "luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism"; the Philadelphia Inquirer praises it's "seemingly infallible instincts for finding the center of gravity in every phrase and musical gesture"; and the Times (London) opines, "the Brentanos are a magnificent string quartet... This was wonderful, selfless music-making." Within a few years of it's formation, the Quartet garnered the first Cleveland Quartet Award and the Naumburg Chamber Music Award; and in 1996 the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center invited them to be the inaugural members of Chamber Music Society Two, a program which was to become a coveted distinction for chamber groups and individuals. The Quartet had it's first European tour in 1997, and was honored in the U.K. with the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most Outstanding Debut. That debut recital was at London's Wigmore Hall, and the Quartet has continued it's warm relationship with Wigmore, appearing there regularly and serving as the hall's Quartet-in-residence in the 2000-01 season.

After emerging with the $100,000 Grand Prize at the 2017 M-Prize Competition, the largest prize for chamber music in the world, Russian Renaissance has firmly established itself as one of the most electrifying and exhilarating ensembles of today. Through stunning performances of everything from tango and folk to Classical and jazz, Russian Renaissance is redefining the possibilities of their traditional Russian folk instruments (balalaika, domra/domra alto, button accordion, and balalaika contrabasso) and capturing the attention of audiences worldwide. What makes Russian Renaissance truly special is their ability to both dazzle with breathtaking style and touch the hearts of listeners of all ages and backgrounds. In addition to their success at the M-Prize Competition, Russian Renaissance has also received a Gold Medal for Chamber Music at the 1st Vienna International Music Competition (2019), 1st prize at the 69th Coupe Mondiale in Russia (2016), and was named Musical America’s New Artist of the Month (March 2018).