Bootleg is a project from Russ Zokaites showcasing Appalachian inspired music based on fold music or elements of folk music. The six year commissioning project was premiered in February 2020 at Morehead State University, and is his debut recording. The project has received widespread critical praise. "Russ Zokaites shines in this diverse and colorful album made during one of the most trying times in modern history. From chamber music to fully orchestrated concertos, he finds a unique and warm voice that takes you on a musical journey into many different landscapes. I particularly enjoyed the lush interplay of cello, piano, and bass trombone in "Serenity" by Martin Hebel, and the funky looped beats and harmonies of "A Strange Wayfarer" by William Timmons." (John Romero Principal Trombonist Metropolitan Opera Orchestra)

This is a beautiful album of French impressionistic works for cello and piano. Along with some standards are some wonderful, less often played works by Lili Boulanger. American cellist Natasha Farny has performed with the Boston Symphony, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and several orchestras throughout New York. Solo and chamber music tours include appearances in Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Brazil, and nationally at Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts, Brooklyn’s Bargemusic “Here and Now” Series, and Florida’s BIG ARTS Sanibel series. Nationally, Ms. Farny has performed live on radio programs including Chicago’s “Live from WFMT” and is a regular guest at WXXI’s “Live from Hochstein” series in Rochester, New York. This season, her duo Ekstasis will perform at Merkin Hall, Bard College, and Saugerties Pro Musica. She has been appointed to numerous summer festivals including the Sewanee Music Festival, the National Music Festival (MD), and the Colorado Music Festival and during the year, teaches at the School of Music at SUNY Fredonia.

Fearful Symmetry is a collection of 24 art songs by American composer William Mac Davis, performed by soprano Lynda Poston-Smith and pianist Robert Carl Smith. William Mac Davis was born May 13, 1953. He received a B.M. and M.M. from the University of Mississippi, and a PhD in Composition from the University of Utah. Mac also continued postdoctoral study at the Eastman School of Music. Some of his teachers were Samuel Adler, Ned Rorem and Ramiro Cortes. He has worked at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. Lynda Poston Smith and Robert Carl Smith are a husband and wife duo who regularly perform concerts and have recorded several albums together.

If German Romantic composer, Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861) is remembered today, it is for his dark, supernatural operas. Each of these operas happens to feature a baritone in the title role, which was quite unusual for the time. He also composer 420 songs, and a shockingly large number of them were composed specifically for baritone. This recording demonstrates how masterful Marschner truly was in composing for baritone. Jeffrey Williams has been hailed by Baltimore Sun, as “very likable, a winning performance sung with much confidence, phrasing everything stylishly,” by Miami Herald as possessing a “commanding, sizeable, effortless, manly baritone” and by Opera News as a “versatile, fearless performer.” Williams has received numerous awards including an Arleen Auger Memorial Fund Study Grant, the Cynthia Vernardakis Award at the Orpheus National Voice Competition, a Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Mid-South Regional Finalist, the Baltimore Music Club Prize in Performance, and the George Castelle Award in Voice. He is currently the Mid-South Regional Governor of National Opera Association (NOA), on the Executive Board of the Tennessee Chapter of National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), and a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA).

This album is a collection of premiere choral works, all with a social conscience firmly in mind. Chorosynthesis Singers, a professional, project-based 12-voice choir, exists to involve world-class performers and composers in the creation and performance of music that connects the art with community, specifically through the lens of social consciousness. The ensemble performs in world-class venues, partners with other organizations as artists-in-residence and concert series guests, and annually provides new music reading sessions. Recently, the group started an online database of socially conscious choral music and internationally released through Centaur Records, Inc. “Empowering Silenced Voices,” an album of new, socially conscious choral music. They were awarded 2nd place for The American Prize 2018 in the Ensemble (Professional Choruses) Division with a special citation for Extraordinary Commitment to New Music. Chorosynthesis Singers are co-directed by artist-educators Wendy Moy and Jeremiah Selvey, who took 3rd and 1st places respectively for The American Prize 2016 in the Conducting (Professional Choruses) Division.

This is a beautiful program of works for viola and piano. These works all date from about 100 years ago, or a bit longer. As these works have been rarely performed and recorded in the last several decades, the name of the album is indicative of the program. These are wonderful works that are far too seldom performed, and they are all beautiful, melodic pieces. Violist Lauren Burns Hodges enjoys a varied career as a teacher and performer throughout the United States and abroad. She is currently Assistant Professor of Viola at the University of Florida where she also coordinates and teaches Music Appreciation classes. Passionate about promoting the viola and engaging with the community, she hosts an annual viola day at UF and serves as a board member-at-large for the American Viola Society. Hailed by Gramophone for her ‘characterful sparkle’, Jasmin Arakawa has performed widely in North America, Central and South America, Europe, China and Japan. A prizewinner of the Jean Françaix International Music Competition, she has been heard at Carnegie Hall, Salle Gaveau in Paris and Victoria Hall in Geneva, as well as in broadcasts of the BBC and Radio France.

Alban Berg left behind a wonderful group of songs. These early songs were unpublished during Berg's lifetime. They deserve a serious listening. This album presents these songs in the excellent performances they so richly deserve. Steven Kimbrough is an internationally known operatic, concert, and musical theater singer (baritone), and recording artist, who has performed on the professional stages of North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. He has been described as a remarkable singer, with a cultivated, easily flowing baritone of fine quality and a rare command of words and rhythms. (The New Yorker) Margaret Jackson is a professionally trained opera singer who has traveled all over the world. She is also an expert in musicology and Western music history.

Pianist Duncan Cumming wrote a story for his children, nephews, and nieces in which his nephew and niece from Thailand travel through Europe to America to visit their grandmother. He accompanies his story with piano works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Schumann, Mozart, and others, along with story narration by Lucy Cumming. The album booklet includes beautiful illustrations by Hilary Cumming. This is a magical journey. Duncan J. Cumming has performed concertos, recitals, and chamber music concerts in cities across the United States as well as in Europe. The Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Merkin Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City, and the Wallenstein Palace in Prague, Czech Republic are among the concert halls in which he has appeared. Concerts outside of the New York Capital Region this season include a concert tour of the Boston area in March as well as the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland in May. A recent review describes his playing as technically flawless thoughtful, deliberate and balanced, without a wasted gesture or any histrionics, rather like Rachmaninoff.

Classical Music

This is volume 9 in Centaur's traversal of the Complete keyboard works of Couperin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has performed Couperin's works throughout his long performing life. He has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; performances and lectures in Beijing and Shanghai; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival. Mark Kroll has been one of the few harpsichordists to devote a significant part of his career to the contemporary literature for the instrument. He has commissioned and premiered a large number of works, and released several recordings of this repertoire.

This is volume 5 in Centaur's recording of the complete Pieces de Clavecin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has made a specialty of Couperin throughout his long and distinguished career. Mark Kroll has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival. This recording was made on a 1978 Franco-Flemish style double manual harpsichord by William Hyman and D. Jacques Way at the Harpsichord Clearing House, Rehobeth, Massachusetts.

Polish-born pianist Diana Jaworska presents this album of works by Schumann, Beethoven, and Liszt. The cornerstone of this release is Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9. The work, subtitled Scenes mignonnes sur quatre notes (Little Scenes on Four Notes) consists of 21 short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival that takes place before Lent. The individual pieces are connected by a recurring motif. The four notes are encoded puzzles, and Schumann predicted that “deciphering my masked ball will be a real game for you.” Born in Poland in 1968, Diana Jaworska now lives in lives in Southern France, where she teaches the piano, performs concerts, makes recordings, and composes her own works.

This is Volume 6 in Centaur's complete traversal of the keyboard works of Francois Couperin, performed on harpsichord by Mark Kroll. Mark Kroll has performed works by Couperin throughout his performing life. Recording the complete works is a passion of his, and it shows in these remarkable recordings. Mark Kroll has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany’s Regensburg Early Music Festival, France’s Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; performances and lectures in Beijing and Shanghai; two concerts for the Czech Republic’s Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome’s Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland’s Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija’s Radovljica Festival.

This is Volume 5 in Paul Kim's traversal of the complete Beethoven Symphonies, arranged for piano in his own arrangements. Kim began his musical training in southern California and continued his studies at The Juilliard School. At the Manhattan School of Music he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees, and went on to earn a Ph.D. from New York University. Among his teachers include Paul Jacobs, Gary Graffman, Solomon Mikowsky and Jerome Lowenthal. Besides his solo performing career as a concert pianist, Kim has also received attention for his performances with his musical family. With his wife Judith Jeon, a soprano, Kim has performed widely in lieder recitals. In 1995, he and his son Matthew Kim made their debut as a father-and-son piano duo with a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall. The duo has expanded with the addition of Kim's younger son, James. The trio of pianists, Paul Kim & Sons, has since performed throughout the world, often in benefit concerts for various social and charitable causes.

Jacques Charpentier is a French composer (b. 1933) who embraced a musical-philosophical aesthetic derived from his mentor Olivier Messiaen: magical, visionary, jubilant, “Eastern,” cosmic. His 72 Etudes Karnatiques is a manifestation of deep commitment and conviction; he worked on this enormous, three-hour cycle of passionate piano studies based on ancient Hindu scalar modes for nearly three decades (1957 to 1984). Performing this monumental cycle is Italian pianist Giusy Caruso. Caruso graduated with honors in piano in 1998 from the Italian Conservatory in Rome and was brought into the spotlight upon winning the Mondo Musica International Award that same year. Her inclination toward the contemporary repertoire was confirmed in 2009 when Ms. Caruso won the prestigious International Ibla Grand Prize “Special Mention” for the best performance of contemporary music with the Hult Preludes by Messiaen. She is concerned with spreading contemporary piano repertoire while transferring growing enthusiasm to the audience in her recitals, lecture-concerts, workshops, seminars, and piano masterclasses.