A Western is Michael Gordon's extended musing inspired by the legendary 1950s film High Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. It's about the Wild West, the way of the gun, classic American TV fantasies, and of course the good guys versus the bad guys. Caroline Shaw's How to fold the wind is a mesmerizing choral work that expands on the vocal acrobatics the composer has explored with her Grammy-winning ensemble Roomful of Teeth. The piece is inspired by Japanese origami, using speech, inhaled notes, wordless melodies and innovative vocal effects to fold individual voices together into a complex whole. Released together as a "split album" on CD, the two works mirror each other in a compelling array of contrasts and similarities. Each was recorded by one of Denmark's premier vocal ensembles -�A Western by Theatre of Voices, How to fold the wind by Ars Nova Copenhagen -�with each performance conducted by Paul Hillier. And although the lyrical forms of each piece couldn't be more strikingly different, somehow they elevate each other into a revelatory listening experience that expands the scope of modern choral music.

CRASH! and BANG! and BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! Noise levels rise when four very-very-very special people get together to party. Gordon Kampe has illustrated Brigitte Werner’s bestselling picture book WUM und BUM und die Damen DING DONG with the sound of music, and the interpretive contributions by the fabulous Sunnyi Melles and the spirited and vibrant Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn under the conductor Dirk Kaftan create magnificent, top-quality fun for young and old alike! The instrumentation of Kampe’s score is highly original: pot lids and pieces of fabric, boxes and bottles, tin cans and balloons, and even a tuneful saw are deployed – a challenge not only for the two percussionists, whose arms and hands are kept more than busy. When the corks pop at the end, the entire orchestra is invited to join in the fun – with plenty of pep and pizzazz! However, before the two ladies scuffle with the two gentlemen, each of the four gets a chance to show her or his stuff. Mr. WUM raises a racket in his house, Mr. BUM turns his march music up to the decibel max, Ms. DING crams her hoard of cartons into the garbage dumpster, and Ms. DONG warbles her ditties from morning to night. Kampe characterizes his gang of four with plenty of respect and love for these protagonists, along with allusions from music history guaranteed to tickle our ears. Sunnyi Melles lends the characters dazzling appeal. Her fascinatingly versatile voice enables her to bring the picture-book heroes and heroines to life, each in her or his own way – and let’s not forget the “Fly Poop at Four-Thirty.” From “Lascivious but youthfully free” to “Tearily operatic,” from “Super-marvelous” to “Indignation meets Bummsfallera,” Melles in her speaking role and the orchestra quite evidently very much enjoy performing Kampe’s score, to the delight of the many young participants from Bonn grade schools and to listeners everywhere!

Normally when Dexter toured in Europe back in the sixties and seventies, it was as a solo musician picking up local rhythm sections in each city along the way. But in Holland, he had a “working band” with Rein de Graaff on piano, Henk Haverhoek on bass and Eric Ineke on drums. The main reason for this was that their booker Wim Wigt managed to find gigs in Hilversum, Leiden, Veendam, Venlo, Zwolle, Den hag, Heemskerk, Amsterdam, De Woude, Rotterdam, and Eschede. When Dexter would tell people about all the towns he had played during his time in Holland, they were incredulous. He would tell them that there were jazz lovers in all these places in a country the size of the state of Maryland. Dexternity is a tribute by ‘the working band drummer’ Eric Ineke. This tribute includes some of Dexter’s signature compositions including Fried Bananas, The Panter, Tivoli, Boston Bernie, Sticky Wicket, and more. They have also included the classic Body and Soul, the composition that “must” be played every night, according to Dexter Gordon.

GORDON BRISKER QUINTET: My Son John

Four Parts Five is a quintet tour de force that takes virtuosic rhythmic ensemble playing to a new level. It's a densely harmonious, frequently hair-raising, and deeply groovy piece of music which gives nods to such varied composers as Gyorgy Ligeti and Count Basie. New York-based composer Gordon Beeferman has created a diverse body of adventurous work spanning opera, orchestral, chamber, and vocal music, avant-jazz, free improvisation, and collaborations with dance and other arts. Performed by an ensemble consisting of Beeferman, Peter Hess, Anders Nilsson, James Ilgenfritz, and Adam Gold, the album's four pieces showcase tight, disciplined ensemble playing that spans the sparse, punctuated spaces of Part 1 and the spiraling, expansive curls of Part 4 with equal facility.

PentaTone presents the World Premiere recording of Gordon Getty's 'Plump Jack'. Following the pattern of literary inspiration in his song cycle 'White Election' which features the poetry of Emily Dickenson, Getty now uses as his muse Shakespeare's beloved character, Falstaff.

As is often the case in the vocal compositions of distinguished American composer Gordon Getty (b. 1933), many of the pieces collected in The Little Match Girl are based on, or inspired by, poetry from the 19th and early 20th c. This SACD starts with “A prayer for my daughter” for chorus and orchestra, based on the poem by William Butler Yeats. “Poor Peter” for tenor, chorus and orchestra follows, Getty’s self-penned lyrics inspired by Poe and again Yeats. The titular, heart-breaking Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The little match girl” is put to music more or less word-for-word in a challenging setting for the orchestra and particularly the chorus. The disc concludes with “Joan and the bells”, Getty’s own narrative of the trial of Joan of Arc. Asher Fisch and Ulf Schirmer lead the Munich Radio Symphony and the Bavarian Radio Choir respectively. The recording’s vocal soloists include tenor Nikolai Schukoff (“Poor Peter”), soprano Melody Moore (“Joan and the Bells”) and baritone Lester Lynch (“Joan and the Bells”).

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The Fidelio Trio return to Resonus Classics joined by the acclaimed clarinettist Julian Bliss to present this album of recent chamber works by British composer Michael Zev Gordon. Presenting a varied programme of instrument combinations, the trio and Julian present works stretching back over fifteen years, celebrating Michael's individual and idiomatic voice along with both the fascinating and wide-ranging influences within his music. The 'virtuosic Fidelio Trio' (The Sunday Times) is Darragh Morgan, violin, Adi Tal, cello, and Mary Dullea, piano. Shortlisted for the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards, the Fidelio Trio is an enthusiastic champion of the piano trio genre, performing the widest possible range of repertoire on concert stages across the world; it has broadcast regularly on BBC Radio 3, RTW Lyric FM, WQXR, and featured on a Sky Arts documentary.

Inspired by diaries, letters, and personal accounts from the 1860s, Rappahannock County is a music-theatre work which movingly and dramatically commemorates the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. The location of the Rappahannock River as a border between north and south is a metaphor for the region's many conflicts. Performed by a cast of five singers who play over 30 r�les, the piece brings this dramatic historical period to life in songs which express the devastating impact of the Civil War on all of the people who endured it.

Detours is inspired by the composer's personal memories and reflections concerning cars. It draws on sources and references of a distinctly non-classical nature, but cannot in any way be called "crossover" - more it is a fusion of genres, as are the other works, brilliantly performed by Psappha.

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Classical Music

When Michael Gordon's Timber, scored for six amplified wooden 2-by-4s, premiered in 2009, it brought the physicality and endurance of percussion performance to a new level. In the liner notes for Slagwerk Den Haag's recording of the piece, released on Cataloupe Music in 2011, Gordon described a connection to the work of shamanist author Carlos Castaneda, whose self-imposed spirit journey in the desert could wipe the brain clean and "bring on visions." Newly recorded by Mantra Percussion and reworked by an A-list of producers and DJs, Gordon's deep exploration into the extreme possibilities of rhythm gets the full electronic treatment on Timber Remixed. This album contains six key remixes by Squarepusher, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tim Hecker, Johann Johannsson, Fennesz and Hauschka.

Featuring limited edition packaging in a real wooden box with heat stamped cover design, Timber is composed by Michael Gordon, co-founder of Bang on a Can and Cantaloupe Music. Timber is an evening-length tour de force. Scored for six graduated wooden Simantras percussion instruments devised by French composer Iannis Xenakis the work brings the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level. In this new work, Gordon shapes the music in both polyrhythmic and dynamic waves of textures often each players' hands are in separate rhythmic 'worlds', each traversing a different dynamic contour from loud to soft to loud, similar in some respects to his solo for percussion, XY.

The Unchanging Sea is the latest collaboration in a long-running partnership between composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison. This is their fifth work for orchestra over the course of nearly two decades; starting with Decasia in 2001, the two developed a style that combined Gordon's haunting, hypnotic music with Morrison's artful manipulations of old, deteriorating film reels to craft a dreamlike experience that's by turns whimsical, nostalgic and inspiring. Co-commissioned and performed by the Seattle Symphony, The Unchanging Sea takes it direction from Gordon's electrified concerto for virtuoso pianist and multimedia artist Tomoko Mukaiyama. While the title and visual source material originate with a 1910 short film by silent era director D.W. Griffith, Morrison's film includes footage shot in Seattle in 1897, when the S.S. Willamette sailed out of Puget Sound loaded with 800 passengers and 300 horses headed for the Klondike, at the height of the Gold Rush. The album includes the companion piece Beijing Harmony, also performed by the Seattle Symphony. Inspired by a visit to the Echo Wall at Beijing's Temple of Heaven, Gordon "imagined that the sound would bounce off the stone floors and buildings to create a fanfare of echoes - an acoustical rebounding and ringing that would slowly grow in zeal and fierceness."

"• Commissioned by the New Music Bassoon Fund. • Seven-piece Rushes Ensemble features the top bassoonists in the U.S., including Dana Jessen. • Performances booked for March 2014 in Boston (3/26), Philadelphia (3/28) and Montclair, NJ (3/29), with more TBD. • Extensive three-month marketing, press and social media campaign. • Promotional videos currently posted on YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=umhQdxwn26M) and Vimeo (vimeo.com/51771906). "

In his original program notes for Sonatra, composer Michael Gordon writes that he conceived of the piece for solo piano as a sideways tribute to Frank Sinatra, but with the sonata form as an equal and opposite force that tugs at the music from within. “I grew up playing, or mis-playing, the piano,” he notes. “When I started writing Sonatra, I decided that since I would probably only ever write one piano piece in my entire life, I wanted to use all the keys on the piano, and use them often. I constructed long chains or links of major and minor thirds that ceaselessly wind their way up and down the piano. Eventually they start cascading and intersperse with glissandos half the length of the keyboard, sounding to me like the performer has at least four hands." Sonatra is slightly more than 15 minutes in length, but when performed in both equal temperament and just intonation, as Bang on a Can All-Stars pianist Vicky Chow has done for her singular recording of the piece, it takes on the aura and personality of a two-part epic.

When Michael Gordon's Timber, scored for six amplified wooden 2-by-4s, premiered in 2009, it brought the physicality and endurance of percussion performance to a new level. In the liner notes for Slagwerk Den Haag's recording of the piece, released on Cataloupe Music in 2011, Gordon described a connection to the work of shamanist author Carlos Castaneda, whose self-imposed spirit journey in the desert could wipe the brain clean and "bring on visions." Newly recorded by Mantra Percussion and reworked by an A-list of producers and DJs, Gordon's deep exploration into the extreme possibilities of rhythm gets the full electronic treatment on Timber Remixed. This album contains six key remixes by Squarepusher, Oneohtrix Point Never, Tim Hecker, Johann Johannsson, Fennesz and Hauschka.

Dark Currents is the third full-length recording by Splinter Reeds, the West Coast's premier reed quintet featuring Kyle Bruckmann (English horn), Bill Kalinkos, Nicki Roman, Jeff Anderle (bass clarinet) and Dana Jessen. The album opens with Michael Gordon's majestic "Tall Grass," which cascades upwards into undulating waves of melody before spreading outward on a moody canvas that surges with tension and emotion. By contrast, Paula Mathussen's "Antenna Studies" combines ambient soundscapes and found sounds, while the musicians quietly tease their instruments with breath control and percussive pad strikes as a somber melodic figure gradually begins to take shape. Taken together, these two 20-minute performances propel the listener forward on an ever-changing journey, by turns hypnotic, ecstatic, surreal and spooky, that tests the pre-conceived boundaries of modern chamber music.

Precocious Addie Mills is smart and energetic, just like the mother she never knew. Addie has no idea why her father resents the holidays so intensely, refusing even to allow a Christmas tree in the house. But when she brings home a tree she won in a school contest, it paves the way for a miracle of sorts—her father’s broken soul is transformed. The House without a Christmas Tree, a new opera by Ricky Ian Gordon and Royce Vavrek that premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 2017, is based on the book by Gail Rock and the beloved 1972 television movie of the same name. Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956 in Oceanside, NY) studied piano, composition and acting, at Carnegie Mellon University. After moving to New York City, he quickly emerged as a leading writer of vocal music that spans art song, opera, and musical theater. Mr. Gordon’s songs have been performed and or recorded by such internationally renowned singers as Renee Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Judy Collins, Kelli O’Hara, Audra MacDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Andrea Marcovicci, and the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, among many others. Royce Vavrek is a Canada-born, Brooklyn-based librettist and lyricist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker) a “Metastasio of the downtown opera scene” (The Washington Post), “an exemplary creator of operatic prose” (The New York Times), and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His opera “Angel’s Bone” with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

The contact with Gordon Kampe's music is like - guided by suggestive sound impressions - the perception of an imaginary theater. Titelgebungen, set headlines and section names of his works refer for example to the world of cinematic science fiction designs � la "Star Trek" and "Alien". In other compositions, however, also quite different associations are conjured up. As "metaphors machines" used, indicate such designations the uncertainties of a pre-determined course, whose music filled time holds unexpected and unforeseen. A central compositional characteristic is the sudden turn, which manifests itself as an unusual action or instrumental solo and thus defies the common musical affect.

Formosa Seasons is based on a series of Haiku-like poems, and is dedicated to the celebrated Taiwanese-American violinistCho-Liang Lin.

Gordon Chin is one of Taiwan’s leading composers, and increasingly honored by commissions and performances from major ensembles in North America, Asia and Europe. Featuring an array of exotic Chinese percussion instruments, Symphony No. 3 ‘Taiwan’ is a dramatically powerful work cast in three movements that explore his native country’s turbulent history. Specific literary quotations from Shakespeare, Blaise Pascal and Samuel Johnson elucidate the expressive moods of the three-movement Cello Concerto No. 1.

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