Composer Yu-Hui Chang's Mind Like Water presents three ensemble works and one solo cello piece that all feature a dialogue between musical elements. Sometimes this dialogue unfolds between contrasting energies, such as the percolating rhythms of the opening movement of In Thin Air versus the dramatic gestures in its second movement. Other times the conversation is between smaller musical elements, like the cells in Germinate or the flowing, through composed unfolding of the title work. The recording features performances by the Lydian String Quartet, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, Composers Conference Ensemble, and cellist Rhonda Rider.

Composer Michael Hersch's epic setting of Poppaea turns the classic tale of Nero inside out, examining it from multiple angles and unearthing the powerful lessons it holds for contemporary society. Hersch, along with vocalists Ah Young Hong, Steve Davislim, Silke Gang, with Ensemble Phoenix Basel and Ensemble SoloVoices, delivers a wrenching version of the tale, challenging assumptions and forcing the listener to ask difficult questions about history and the inherent biases that are ingrained into its mainstream understanding.

Composer Osnat Netzer releases her debut recording, featuring performances by Ensemble Dal Niente in full ensemble and chamber settings, saxophonist Geoffrey Landman, Mivos Quartet, flutist Eric Lamb, violist Michael Hall, pianist Marianne Parker, and the ~Nois saxophone quartet. Netzer's music engages with various abstract concepts, including cognitive linguistics and the experience of physicality.

The album Intrecci New compositions and arrangements for Guitar, produced with the support of the MiC Ministry of Culture and SIAE as part of the 'Per Chi Crea' program, presents a singular listening itinerary that sees Giacomo Susani's two souls as an interpreter and composer dialogue in an original way. The program unfolds in four pairs of songs: four original compositions, accompanied by four repertoire arrangements created by Susani himself. "Mine was not an operation of transcription as faithful as possible to the originals - says Giacomo Susani - but I decided to move in an arrangement dimension functional to the narrative arc of the CD and therefore aimed at enhancing the intrinsically identifying qualities of the guitar." The first pair of songs that opens the album sees two works brought together and characterized by a fundamental contrapuntal architecture: a very short Fuga by G.F. Handel, taken from Voluntary X for organ, and the original piece Dialogo (homage to Lauro), born from a commission received by Pixaudio for an upcoming documentary on Antonio Lauro. With a change of interior landscape, we move on to Caprice 4 for solo violin by Pierre Rode, a composer and famous French violinist who lived between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, associated with the piece that gives the album it's title: Intrecci (homage to Paganini) by Susani, a work commissioned by the Paganini Guitar Festival 2024 and which pays homage to Paganini by developing a dialogue between the two gestural worlds, that of the violin and that of the guitar, both loved by the Genoese composer. The third pair of pieces leads into the more abstract dimension of melancholy and meditation, with the very famous June by P.I. Tchaikovsky for piano in the version for guitar created by Giacomo Susani and the original piece by Susani Gems dreaming which the author considers his most abstract work among those on the album. The listening ends with an arrangement of Moon River by Henry Mancini and an original piece in three movements inspired by three paintings by the British author Frederic Leighton. An album that develops in an eclectic meeting of sound worlds and artistic illuminations, where the classical repertoire is singularly intertwined with contemporary expression.

UN is the result of many hours of practice, concerts and a lot of work done, but above all it is the result of five people who, although time has passed and making five very different lives coincide with each other has become difficult, can't wait to meet up to play together, giving life to a project that connects the contemporary Italian repertoire to the American Jazz and Blues ones. Luciano Berio, through the blasts of Call, captures the attention and prepares the listener for the inexorability of the four movements of For Brass by Giuseppe Garbarino; an electric History of Mok by Alessio Manega involves and charges the audience with energy which Corrado Saglietti, with his Blues and Encore from the Any Time Brass Quintet collection, welcomes and transforms into dance, transporting the listener overseas. Who better than Duke Ellington and George Gershwin to squeeze the juice of so much passion? Summertime is just one of the themes that greet listeners with the same warmth felt by the musicians when recording them. Erika is still trying to understand if she is reading an 8 or a B on the score; Michele consolidates his career as Major with the patience that distinguishes him; Marina, extricating herself from the numerous instruments that she inexplicably plays at a level beyond human comprehension, is determined to divide Nicol� and Federico, engaged in their usual umpteenth and eternal squabble: immersed in their very well known calm and relaxed mood, the five members of the Canaja Brass Quintet have never been so proud to wish you happy listening.

In the planning phase of this CD, which evolved together with the talented performer Miriam Garagnani playing the acoustic part of compositions on the piano with great virtuosity, it was decided to create a musical path that included the double version of two previous compositions of mine: Achernar (2014) for piano and orchestra and Nan (2019) for solo piano. It is the new interpretation of two particularly relevant songs which can best summarize my musical poetics, experimentation and research work as well in the years 20142019, especially on the piano - but not only it, together with several masterful performers. Nan (2019), for example, is a composition created for pianist and researcher Giusy Caruso, a performer mostly committed to playing music of the present day. That composition is proposed on the CD both in the original 2019 version for solo piano and in the 2024 version for spatialized piano, while Achernar (2014), originally composed for piano and orchestra, is presented in two recent 2024 versions, the first one for spatialized piano and the second one for piano and 'imaginary orchestra.' The second version has been a chiseled work in which we wanted to recreate a sort of electronic orchestra starting from the acoustic sound of prerecorded and electronically processed piano. With the aim of achieving that particular sound result, we worked on modifying the previously recorded audio material with the help of various sophisticated audio editing tools.

... The works collected here, written for different orchestral settings, with or without voice, offer a certainly not exhaustive but solid and truthful image of the specificity of the figure of Matteo D'Amico on the contemporary compositional horizon: the ability and will to weld thought to musical matter, gesture to form, sound to sense. In his vast catalogue, it is always possible to find this trail, transmitted with firm persuasion and happy results. Like an identifying mark, an author's scratch, an opening passage frequently recurs in his works that opens the curtain, only to then perhaps stop, look around, listen to the voices of his fellow travellers, and resume the journey: thus, immediately, in Le creature di Ade (The Creatures of Hades), a 'concert ouverture' composed in 2004 and dedicated to Daniele Gatti, who was it's first conductor. The title alludes to The Creatures of Prometheus, Beethoven's work written for a choreography by Salvatore Vigan�. The darkness of Hades, the opening up of it's abysses, the terror induced in those who cross it, a sense of fearful waiting that allows a more encouraging trace to filter through, the reemergence of the anguished expectation: the exemplary journey of instrumental theatre precedes the final twist, marked by a lively rhythmic charge, which in it's sudden conclusion leaves one gasping for breath, while in the body of a classically structured orchestra the colours of the saxophone and the pressing variety of the percussion set emerge... Sandro Cappelletto

Exploring the oeuvre of Mauro Montalbetti is like moving through a labyrinth made of glass, in which the apparent simplicity of the surfaces hides, in full view, the multilayered interplay of references and reflections. Since the late 1980s, the composer from Brescia has progressively tackled almost every genre, in a succession of experiences that have been described as phases in their own right, but which are surprising for the coherence and naturalness of their development. This recording by the AltreVoci Ensemble and Laura Bersani has among it's merits precisely that of allowing us to discover the path that Montalbetti has traced in his now more than 35 years of activity through his output for transverse flute, an instrument deeply loved by Montalbetti, who cites among his references the great flutist Annamaria Morini, whom he met and listened to several times in the 1980s, and the works of Varese, Debussy, Messiaen, Berio, Maderna, Matsudaira, Hosokawa, Takemitsu and, of course, his teacher Giacometti.

Indiana-based composer Eugene O'Brien and the 21st Century Consort (contemporary ensemble led by Christopher Kendall in residence at the Smithsonian Museum) release Algebra of Night, featuring two ensemble works that highlight O'Brien's rich harmonic palette and carefully articulated structural approach.

The pieces in this recording belong to Messiaen's first compositional period, from the 1940s to the early 1950s. The music of O. Messiaen had a major influence on the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu (Tokyo, 1930 ibid., 1996). Raised in militaristic Japan during the Second World War (at just 14 years old, in anticipation of an American invasion, he was drafted into the Japanese army), Takemitsu initially had a sort of rejection of the culture and philosophy of his own country and instead showed great interest in the various musical trends of the Western avant-gardes, especially French. The pieces in this recording cover a compositional span of about fifty years.

Guitarist Ben Verdery and the Ulysses Quartet release an album of music for guitar and string quartet that displays the versatility and accessibility of the combination. With music by Bryce Dessner, Javier Farías, Verdery's arrangement of Leonard Benstein's 1942 Clarinet Sonata, and two works by Verdery himself for electric guitar with quartet, A Giant Beside You presents persuasive and committed performances of several new works that provide new options for concert programming for this engaging and eminently viable instrumentation.

Over the past forty-five years, I have composed many works whose titles point to natural and celestial radiances: galaxy, star, sun, earth, moon, sky, light, dawn, illumination, equinox, summer, etc. One central metaphor of my life's creative work is that of light refracting. Of interest to me, for my work, is to build, sculpt, and compose clean, clear, transparent, translucent, luminous, radiant, shining, resounding, and resonant musical materials. Solstice Ritual for 14 virtuosi shares many of these preoccupations. Solstice Ritual also pays homage to the composers Edgard Var�se and Maurice Ravel, and it celebrates their imagination, joy, love, vitality, soul, energy, great chords and rich chord progressions, resonant orchestrations, tight big-band-like splash-chords, and the sheer beating-heart inner life of their music. I love all of their compositions, and to give just two examples among many, Var�se's percussion writing and Ravel's gorgeous orchestrations have been longstanding sources of inspiration. - Augusta Read Thomas

Cellist Ashley Bathgate releases her third solo album featuring her performance of Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint alongside three new works that take advantage of the versatile format of soloist with layered tracks. Composers Emily Cooley, Alex Weiser, and Fjóla Evans wrote works that expand on Reich’s template, exploring harmonic, dramatic, and gestural contrasts. The homogeneity of timbre inherent in works for layered tracks of the same instrument gives the listener a sense they are hearing a hyper-cello; the compositional strategy both echoes studio techniques that are ubiquitous in commercial music while also amplifying more Romantic impulses of extroverted expression and immersive textures.

The structure and motivic material in Fjóla Evans’ Augun is inspired by the traditional Icelandic song, Vísur Vatnsenda Rósu. Evans organizes overlapping motives taken from the traditional song and creates a shimmering, undulating texture, pushing and pulling between dissonant and consonant voicings. The atmospheric quality of the work tells a non-linear story, painting a complex mix of mournful and resolute emotions.

Emily Cooley’s approach to the layered ensemble was to focus on various groupings of the eight celli as they take on shifting roles in the overall texture. She writes of Assemble, “The title describes what I felt like I was doing while composing: assembling a sort of puzzle. Only at the end of the piece do the eight parts truly assemble into one voice. They all play a slow, resonant chorale that fades into silence." The work ventures through moments of insistent pulse, poignant anticipation, and exuberant lyricism, expanding beyond the bounds of mere assemblage.

Upon Wings of Words is a setting of Emily Dickinson for mezzo-soprano and string quartet. Dickinson continues to inspire composers over 130 years since her death, and here it is the tense, springy rhythms of her poems that Read Thomas responds to.

Requiem is a personal piece in Lukaszewski's oeuvre, the individual movements of which are dedicated to his friends and loved ones. At the same time, everyone can relate it to the sphere of their own experiences thanks to the accessibility of the musical language used by the composer, emphasising the intimate, contemplative nature of the piece. It is the harmony suspended between the tonality of the major-minor system and the simplicity of the melody, whose task is to follow the text, which plays a leading role, that are particularly noteworthy. The Mass fits into the tradition of a consoling, comforting requiem, devoid of the threat of the Last Judgment. The colour of the work is perfectly matched by the voices of both soloists, who are able to express every emotion - regret, hope, peace - while leaving the listener space for their own emotional reactions. Despite the definitely religious nature of the composition, you can also interact with it on the level of sincere admiration for the beauty of Lukaszewski's musical language, for an elusive aura between mystery and certainty.

In the dark years of the Nazi-Fascist period, when the light of the end was still far off, Malipiero completed a long-awaited undertaking: an edition of the complete works of Claudio Monteverdi. Its last volume, the sixteenth, came out in 1942 at the height of the war. The edition contained the sacred production that the publisher Vincenti had assembled in the collection Messa a 4 voci et salmi (1650).

Quartetto Sincronie’s choice to include an arrangement of Monteverdi’s Mass, alternating the parts with Malipiero’s work, is yet another example of reinvention-creation that Malipiero would likely have appreciated. In the composers’ poetics, instruments are asked to sing as voices, and so the opposite—voices translated to instruments—is fitting. Philological rigor was, after all, foreign to Malipiero’s worldview. Instead, the composer spoke of his relationship with Monteverdi as a kind of psychic channeling: finding synchronicity within the synchrony of listening, which dissolves the distance of centuries. The Mass for Four Voices is thus split into parts throughout the record, but it remains possible to orient oneself. The cohesion is melodic: there’s a descending tetrachord G-F-E-D at the beginning of the Kyrie that returns in various guises (inverted, diminished, augmented), articulating the contrapuntal fabric of the different movements. The listener can thus follow this pathway, from the Gloria to the Agnus Dei, in a zigzag that turns Monteverdi the sacred “refrain” to Malipiero’s profane cycle of quartets.

Longtime Duke University string quartet-in-residence, the Ciompi Quartet releases "A Duke Moment" featuring three works written for them by Duke composers, Stephen Jaffe, Anthony M. Kelley, and Scott Lindroth. The three works draw some of their inspiration from different sources related to the Duke experience, including the North Carolina countryside and various athletic pursuits.

Composer Reiko Futing releases his fifth portrait album on New Focus, featuring performances by Longleash, Unheard-of//Ensemble, Quartet121, Noise Catalogue, SchallSpektrum, violinists Miranda Cuckson and Doori Na, and pianist Jing Yang. Futing's music engages with temporality, memory, and quotation as tools put in service of using music as a way to explore contemporary moral and spiritual questions.

Que sais-je? is a one-hour composition that explores the life and philosophy of composer Amos Elkana's father, Yehuda Elkana, through music, archival recordings, and visual media. Performed by the Meitar Ensemble, the piece integrates live instrumental performance with multichannel audio and video projections, surrounding the audience with a tapestry of sound and memory.

Ken Ueno's creative approach to composition shares an affinity with the percussion world; there is an underlying spirit of exprimentation, problem solving, and deconstruction as a path to innovation that guides them. This clear eyed perspective on the materials of sound and their possibilities makes percussion music an ideal forum to hear Ueno's work. The works on this recording share an interest in microtonality. Transformation of noise timbres into pitched material, and an investigation of instrumental possibilities.

Composer Ryan Vigil releases an album featuring two of his expansive works for violin and piano. Featuring sensitive performances by violinist Lilit Hartunian and pianist John McDonald, Vigil's music unfolds slowly but navigates a diversity of expression within it's frame.

Sea's Widows: The project There are sometimes encounters that seem to arise by chance, almost on the sly and then turn out to be discoveries, strong and decisive energies, great beginnings liaisons destined to last and to generate something else and to mark our years. The encounters witnessed by this disc are marked by these certainly very special and rare artistic and human paths, where human harmony, professional rigor, passion and musical "carnality" unite my music with the extraordinary interpretative qualities of Maria Perrotta, Alda Caiello, and the Helios Ensemble. Maria and Alda are the driving forces of this work which was born in fact as an ItalianFrench collaboration. I began my first international affirmations in France at the 1991 Avignon Festival, invited by Luciano Berio to compose an opera: L'Histoire de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier. Maria created the driving force of her life and her career in Paris where she prepared recordings of international caliber for Decca. Alda, who has a long history of acquaintances and affirmations with France, a "historic" voice in Europe for the twentiethcentury and contemporary repertoire, sang in my opera Camera Obscura back in 2001 at the Venice Biennale and since then she has become "the voice" of my music. The project was born after a monographic concert held at the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris in june 2021, at the request of the performers themselves and of the beautiful Parisian welcome to this music. The disc includes eight pieces: six first recordings and an absolute premiere written for Maria. In fact I am composing the third volume dedicated to the piano: Sei studi sulla mente e sul corpo. The album also contains the first study La stupeur des gouttes qui rayent la vitre and the second Les sons dans la t�te dedicated to Maria.

Composer Michael Hersch adapts the tragedy of Medea from Ovid's�Metamorphoses�in his new opera for soprano Sarah Maria Sun, the vocal ensemble Schola Heidelberg, and Ensemble Musikfabrik. With librettist Stephanie Fleischmann. Hersch's setting underscores the profound psychological trauma at the heart of the tale with a characteristically powerful, bracing score.

Virtuoso flutist Claire Chase continues her laudable documentation of her multi-year commissioning project, Density 2036, with a 3 CD set of the works from the 2019, 2020, and 2021 iterations. Featuring pathbreaking music for flute, in solo, electro-acoustic, and chamber settings, by Ann Cleare, Wang Lu, Matana Roberts, Liza Lim, Olga Neuwirth, Sarah Hennies, Phyllis Chen, and Pamela Z, "Density 2036: Parts VI-VIII (2019-2021)" represents a landmark addition to the contemporary flute repertoire.

Ars Ludi is a percussion ensemble with variable staff which, since its inception (founded in 1987 by Antonio Caggiano and Gianluca Ruggeri), has embarked on an active artistic itinerary on two interpretative dimensions.On the one hand, the proposition of the contemporary repertoire for percussion, realized with an international concert activity (USA, Mexico, Germany, China, Sweden, France, Spain, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Algeria, Kenya, Scotland and Switzerland in some these occasions has recorded for national radio and television stations.) interpreting composers such as J. Cage, K. Stockhausen, B. Bartok, G. Battistelli, L. Andriessen, E. Varese, S. Reich, W. Duckworth, A. Curran, G. Scelsi, L. Berio,V. Heyn and C. Ambrosini) and encouraging the repertoire of Italian authors with commissions and first performances (L. Ceccarelli, P. Esposito, M. Lupone, L. Bianchini, M. Tadini, M. Cardi, T. Battista, N. Sani, M. D’Amico, C. Boccadoro, M. Dall’Ongaro, F. Filidei, L. Pagliei, L. Gregoretti, C. Galante, A. Solbiati and many others).
This quality of interpretation pushed the leading composers of our time to choose Ars Ludi for their musical research: often the ensemble becomes a coauthor. A fertile interaction that brought the ensemble to enlarge its percussive instrumentation (Ars Ludi often builds its own instruments) and to increase the amount of percussionists, often resorting to their students, or other kinds of artists from Theater, Cinema or even writers, dancers, painters, electronic musicians.
A web of artistic experiences that led Ars Ludi to win in 2022 one of the most desirable awards in the European music scene: the Silver Lion at the Biennale of Venice.