At the Edge of Night is a program of superb contemporary vocal and instrumental works by Jon Pescevich. Pescevich has a personal voice that makes this music especially appealing. When composing an opera, Jon Pescevich creates tonal material to match the literary themes and characters of the drama he is setting. In his first opera, Hamlet & Ophelia (2014), the composer gave resonance to the themes of existence and transcendence, thoughtfulness and empathy. The tonal language he developed to reflect these literary themes is revisited and further explored in all of the chamber music introduced on this release. Ophelia (2017) is a set of three airs for solo violin, based on the opera Hamlet & Ophelia. The airs incorporate some of the most beautiful melodies from Hamlet & Ophelia and transform them by presenting their material within an entirely new abstract structure. American Transcendental (2012) is a cycle of four songs, based on poems by Poe, Emerson and Dickinson. Wie ein Bogenstrich (2014) is a work for violin, voice and piano, based on three poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. Rather than setting the poems as free-standing songs, the composer has woven them together into a through-composed work that tells a story. If music is sound searching for its significance, and if poetry is language searching for its freedom, then this album shows music and language finding and completing each other again and again in a tapestry of variations.

Classical Music

This new release is the eleventh volume in Centaur's Steven Staryk Retrospective collection. Steven Staryk is one of the greatest violinists that has ever lived. Here he presents a masterful program of caprices, etudes, and studies by composers such as Paganini, Wieniawski, Schubert, Locatelli, and more. This is an amazing guide to the playing and interpretation of the great solo violin literature. "The first recording of it's kind ever to appear," (1963). "Still the only existing recording of it's kind." (2014). This is truly an album that can't be missed, whether the listener is a violin virtuoso, a violin amateur, or a violin appreciator.

The Sundance Trio was formed in 2005 to explore and perform trios written for oboe, bassoon and piano. + Based in Utah, members of the trio include oboist Geralyn Giovannetti, bassoonist Christian Smith, and pianist Jed Moss. + Ms. Giovannetti and Mr. Smith are faculty colleagues at Brigham Young University’s School of Music; Mr. Moss is a much sought after solo and collaborative artist. + Summer Garden, their second CD, includes contemporary works by Jenni Brandon, Bill Douglas, Peter Hope, Gernot Wolfgang and Michael Head.

This album features great contemporary American works for piano.

David Finko is a Russian American composer who studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov School of the Performing Arts and the Leningrad Conservatory. He was a member of the Union of Soviet Composers and also wrote commissioned works for the Soviet Ministry of Culture.

Chamber Music for Horn, Violin and Piano finds three prestigious Michigander associate, adjunct and assistant music professors, one being a current prominent member of the Detroit Symphony, tackling a rewarding mix of 20th c. music written expressly for this type of ensemble arrangement by famed English composer Lennox Berkeley (1903-89), prominent American composer Eric Ewazen (b. 1954) and two works by the late 17th-18th c. French composer of importance for the horn, Frédéric-Nicolas Duvernoy (1765-1838) in editions revised by an important French horn figure of the 20th c. Edmond Leloir.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Greek composer Dinos Constantinides provides a great set of works for solo violin that Greek violinist Georgios Demartzis has a complete understanding of.

This is a first-rate set of modern etudes, beautifully performed by Alexander Schwarzkopf.

Armonia Celeste specializes in rarely heard repertoire from the Italian Renaissance and early Baroque. The three singers and two period instrumentalists create an unforgettable combination of varied vocal and instrumental colors, florid ornamentation, expressiveness, and a noticeable passion for this repertoire. Since 2008 the ensemble has offered many concerts around the country, and appeared in, and provided music for, an educational documentary entitled "Culture Wars of Venice and the Birth of Public Opera." Their new Centaur release, Lovers, Beware! Was recorded in 2012.

Welsh-born composer Hilary Tann lives in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York where she is the John Howard Payne Professor of Music at Union College, Schenectady. She holds degrees in composition from the University of Wales at Cardiff and Princeton University. Praised for its lyricism and formal balance, her music is influenced by her love of Wales and a strong identification with the natural world. Pianists Eunmi Ko and Albert Kim, violinist Sini Bartanen and cellist Andrew Barnhart are the featured performers on this new Centaur release of eight works by Ms. Tann.

Ukrainian cellist Natalia Khoma and Russian cellist Suren Bagratuni are the featured performers on these 1998 recordings of works for Cello Duo by Couperin, Telemann, Handel and Bartók. Ms. Khoma, an internationally renowned, Moscow Conservatory trained and prize-winning cellist has distinguished herself as a recitalist and soloist with orchestras thorough the former USSR, the USA, Europe, Canada, South America, Asia South Africa and the Middle East. Mr. Bagratuni, 1986 Tchaikovsky competition Silver Medalist, is Prof. of Cello and String Area co-chair at Mich. St. Univ.

The Three Paneled Mirror, a double-disc offering from Centaur Records, recorded in the warm, beautiful and sonically special interior of Cary Hall, the Dimenna Center, NYC between June, 2012 and May, 2013 features the singer-run Mirror Visions Ensemble (Warm tone, witty interpretive style... vital theatrical performances with histrionic touches that suited the score perfectly - The New York Times) giving voice to several new, contemporary works by American composers Richard Pearson Thomas, Christopher Berg and Tom Cipullo, whose Three Paneled Mirror supplied the title for this release.