This is a first-rate group of modern arts songs, sensitively sung by Carol Lines.

This new release features three orchestral works by Richard Strauss written when he was a young man. His brilliance can already be heard in these early pieces, and these pieces have been far too rarely recorded. Grigorios Zamparas has received critical acclaim for his versatile performing career as recitalist, orchestra soloist and chamber musician in Greece, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, former Yugoslavia, Russia, and the US. He is a frequent guest at numerous festivals worldwide, having performed several times at the prestigious Newport Music Festival, the Mainly Mozart Festival, among others. He is joined here by the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra with Jon Ceander Mitchell at the helm.

This album features seldom heard concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. + Viva Vivaldi, an American ensemble that specializes in performances of Vivaldi’s music, here features an hour-long program of seven concerti highlighting the efforts of violinists David Ehrlich and Bendict Goodfriend.

Italian composer Benedetto Vinaccesi (1666-1719) wrote the bulk of his music in Venice. While he wrote more than 450 works, few of them have survived. These works show just how much we must be missing!

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47), a Musician Much-Beloved By His Many Contemporaries in the German-Speaking World and Beyond, and a Composer of Consistently Pleasing Works of Often Overlooked Depth, Is Given the Sole Spotlight on These 1978 and 2013 Recordings By Pianist James Johnson and, in the Two Piano Concerti, Afro-American Conductor Paul Freeman and the Royal Philharmonic. The Variations Serieuses, Op. 54 Is the Later Recording, Is a Solo Work of Considerable Virtuosic Content.

Classical Music

This release features two of the greatest classical-era works for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, in superb performances. Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a career that continues to extend across five continents. He also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn Competition, as well as a bronze medal at the 1998 Marguerite Long Competition in Paris. The New York Times described his playing as “meltingly beautiful.” Pompa-Baldi founded the Todi International Music Masters Festival, of which he is artistic director and faculty member, and sits on the juries of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world. Violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv has quickly earned a reputation for performing with “distinctive charm and subtle profundity” (Daily Freeman, New York) and a “crystal clear and noble sound” (Culture and Life, Ukraine). Known for her work as a soloist and chamber musician, Solomiya Ivakhiv has performed at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, CBC Glenn Gould Studio, Curtis Institute Field Concert Hall, Italian Academy in New York City, Pickman Hall in Cambridge, MA, San Jose Chamber Music Society, Old First Concerts in San Francisco, Astoria Music Festival (Portland), Tchaikovsky Hall in Kyiv, and at UConn’s Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts.

Janis Mercer is an American pianist/composer living in San Francisco. She was the founder and former artistic director of schwungvoll, a new music chamber ensemble, with whom she performed for several years. Her compositions have been for single instrument, chamber music and/or voice, and use serial techniques and structured improvisation, but now she composes electro-acoustic works. Some of her compositions feature social issues and leftist political views in their structuring. Quilt, Ms. Mercer’s second Centaur release, features works written 2003-14.

Classical Music

Born in China in 1953, Chen Yi is a prolific composer who blends Chinese and Western traditions, transcending cultural and musical boundaries. Kennesaw State plays sections from Chinese Folk Songs, Vol. 1 and Vol. 3. Recorded from 2010-2014 in Morgan Concert Hall at Kennesaw State University, featuring the orchestra, chamber ensembles and wind ensemble.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Respected as both a soloist and chamber musician, Ashley Sandor Sidon is the Briggs Endowed Professor of Cello at Drake University and Executive Director of the Zenith Chamber Music Festival. As an invited performer and clinician, Sidon's credits include international solo performances across China, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, France, Poland, and Brazil. Nationally, her performances as a chamber musician and as an orchestral soloist have taken her to the leading universities, chamber music festivals, and concert stages from Maine to California. On her new release, all of the works but one have been arranged by Sidon. Pieces include works ranging from Dvorak and Bruch to contemporary composers David Popper and Miguel del Aguila.

Du bon du cueur is a courtly chanson of the early 16th Century. The poem hearkens back to 15th Century life, but the melody that resonates throughout this recording was first set by Jean Mouton, a contemporary of Josquin DePrez and court composer to the French Kings. Capella Alamire was formed in 1984 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the purpose of exploring the repertoire of the Renaissance. The word Alamire is a solmization term for the pitch A, sung as la, mi, or re; it was also the pseudonym of a Flemish music scribe employed by the Habsburg court at the beginning of the 16th century in the region of present-day Belgium and northern France, an area that produced many of the greatest composers and singers of the time.