Delos is thrilled to announce a new collaboration with GRAMMY� Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer. Famed for it's "accuracy of intonation, purity of blend, of color and swagger of style" (Boston Globe), the group makes it's label debut with Joy to the World. This new Christmas collection blends tradition with innovation, combining Renaissance motets and fresh arrangements of classic carols with contemporary compositions, including two new commissions from Joanna Marsh. Showcasing the ensemble's extraordinary ability to move seamlessly and expertly between styles, Chanticleer's first Delos release conjures a wintertime world of magic, light, and wonder.

Tenor Charles Castronovo celebrates his first Delos solo album with an all Verdi programme which showcases the composer's spellbinding use of theatrical devices. Noble Renegades offers a collection of complete scenes from operas such as Don Carlos, Luisa Miller and I Lombardi which encompass the emotional arc the protagonists experience as the story unfolds, very much epitomizing Verdi's vision of opera as a true "operatic theater". This album shows Verdi's profound influence on Charles's career, featuring roles he has performed all over the world. He is accompanied by "the singer's dream collaborator" Constantine Orbelian and his Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra. Distinguished singers Kristin Sampson, Tomas Pavilionis and Tadas Girininkas, as well as the Kaunas State Choir join in.

Delos is thrilled to embark on a new journey with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and it's Music Director Stephane Deneve. What better statement of intent for their first album on the label than releasing the world premiere recording of three works by native St. Louisan and Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy�-winning composer Kevin Puts? Dedicated to the SLSO and Stephane, Concerto for Orchestra was written in response to the horrific school shooting that occurred in Uvalde in 2022. Silent Night Elegy is drawn from Kevin's acclaimed opera, which adapts Joyeux Noel, the award-winning film that tells the story of the spontaneous ceasefires along the Western Front on the first Christmas Eve of World War I. Inspired by Guillaume de Machaut, Virelai was commissioned for the opening concert of Stephane's tenure as Music Director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. This album celebrates the SLSO's dynamic partnership with Stephane and demonstrates the orchestra's commitment to artistic excellence and inclusive musical experiences.

Following his recent heroic Met debut as Hermann in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Arsen Soghomonyan makes his solo recording debut for Delos. A fast-rising figure in the dramatic repertoire, the Armenian tenor has enjoyed success at major opera houses such as Bayerische Staatsoper, Teatro di San Carlo, Bolshoi Theatre and Staatsoper Wien. In his album Bridges of Voice and Soul, Arsen lends his powerful voice to some of the greatest Italian arias; "Nessun dorma" and "E lucevan le stelle" by Puccini, Verdi's "Niun mi tema" and "Vesti la giubba" by Leoncavallo are some of the delights that comprise this operatic feast, enlivened by the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra and conductor Constantine Orbelian.

Acknowledged as one of the most exciting lyric tenors of his generation, Liparit Avetisyan releases his first solo album on Delos: a crowd-pleasing programme of celebrated arias which the Armenian has performed in major opera houses including the Royal Opera House, Wiener Staatsoper, Zurich Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden, Seattle Opera, and Teatro Colon. Accompanied by the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra under the helm of conductor Constantine Orbelian, Liparit gives a superb account of iconic roles - in turn passionate, tragic and haunting - ranging from Donizetti's Una furtiva lagrima to Verdi's La donna e mobile by way of Puccini's Che gelida manina and Gounod's Salut ! demeure chaste et pure. As a homage to Liparit's home country, this varied program concludes with Sayat-Nova's folk-inspired Qamancha.

Fittingly titled With Affection, Nina Kotova's latest album for Delos is a glorious showcase of some superlative cello works that are close to her heart. Starting with Shostakovich's Cello Sonata, a work blending classical form with simplicity and clarity, the program moves on to Debussy's evergreen Cello Sonata, which in contrast is elusive and whimsical, and Nina's inspired rendition of a rarity, Shostakovich's Adagio from The Limpid Stream. Martinu's Variations on a Slovakian Theme and Variations on a Theme of Rossini are both virtuosic and playful, showcasing his distinct rhythmic and lyrical style. The recital concludes with Chopin's Introduction and Polonaise Brillante in an arrangement that blends expressive cello lines with brilliant piano passages - played by Nina's partner on this album Fabio Bidini - creating an exuberant and captivating work.

In the lead-up to the World Athletics Championships held in Eugene, Oregon in 2022, the Eugene Symphony commissioned David Schiff to compose a unique musical tribute to legendary local runner Steve Prefontaine, one of the most important figures in American running. Inspired by his legacy, the symphony Prefontaine celebrates his life, athleticism, and activism, incorporating the landscapes and memories of his hometown. From the drive to Coos Bay to his legendary high school years and iconic races, the work blends orchestral storytelling with themes of ambition and resilience. Closing the program, Andrea Reinkemeyer's Water Sings Fire, a dynamic orchestral piece inspired by Leigh Bardugo's feminist origin myth, explores themes of power, betrayal, and transformation, honoring the voices of the wronged and marginalized. Both works reflect the profound cultural impact of their subjects, blending music with the rich history and challenges they represent.

Villa-Lobos, H.: Forest of the Amazon

A Musical America New Artist and BBC Rising Star, Ian Niederhoffer is a fast-rising, young conductor. Here, together with his orchestra Parlando, he explores music as a tool of cultural resilience in the face of censorship, particularly within the Soviet Union. This eclectic program includes Shostakovich's Adagio from Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, a work infamously censored after Stalin's disapproval, the Concertino for Violin and String Orchestra by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a composer whose career was shaped by persecution during Stalin's anti-cosmopolitan campaign, and Edvard Mirzoyan's Symphony for String Orchestra and Timpani, which is a powerful testament to Armenian cultural survival despite Soviet Russification. Inspired by Parlando's mission that "every concert tells a story", the album ends with three narrated tracks detailing Soviet censorship.

United Sounds of America melds the power and rhythms of street poetry with the expressive capacity of the symphony orchestra to bring urgent social questions to the symphonic stage. United sounds is not a traditional musical work, nor is it one individual's attempt at a unified statement. Instead, it's an authentic and deep collaboration that embraces the truth about America's continuing problems and pains as a culture, with uncompromising poetry and music. Intermixed with these weighty subjects are touching childhood memories and uplifting moments of humor and hope, all culminating in a rousing call for unity. Among the collaborators are the award-winning Twin Poets, Albert Mills and Nnamdi Chukwoucha, and the impossible-to-categorize composer Mark Hagerty. Performers joining them are soprano Makeda Hampton, pianist Oksana Glouchko, percussionist-composer Jonathan Whitney, and the University of Delaware Symphony Orchestra, led by James Allen Anderson.

Trumpet was meant to have a bright future after Handel and Bach, but history decided otherwise. Relegated to a military signal role with timpani, it had to wait until the later Romantic period to flourish once again. A brainchild of Andrew Balio, this album showcases his own transcriptions of works from the golden age of chamber music, inviting trumpeters out of the cold and into the cozy world of Brahms, Schumann, and Schubert. Pianist John Wilson partners Andrew for these new arrangements of Brahms's clarinet sonatas, Schumann's Adagio and Allegro, and Marchenbilder, and Schubert's lied 'Auf dem Strom', in which tenor Nicholas Phan gives voice to the text. Thanks to Andrew, trumpeters and music lovers can now enjoy an expanded repertoire which invites us into an entirely new soundworld.

Brazilian Guitar Quartet Plays Villa-Lobos

SHOSTAKOVICH Film Music: Viborg District. The Man With a Gun. The Great Citizen. Passer-By. Sofia Perovskaya • Walter Mnatsakanov, cond; Byelorussian RTV SO • DELOS 2003 (65:01)


Between 1932 and 1939—spanning the period of his lowest fortune following the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk debacle in 1934 and his revitalization with the Fifth Symphony in ’37—Shostakovich composed music for 13 films. It was his most active decade, cinematically speaking, by far, and though scoring Soviet revolutionary-themed films was the means by which he attempted to rehabilitate his career, the music, though suggesting varying degrees of inspiration, was not limited to populist fodder. The excerpts offered here, from (in chronological order) Passer-By (better known as The Counterplan ) in 1932, Viborg District , and The Great Citizen to The Man With a Gun from 1939, are fragmented re-creations from the original scores. (This recording, from 1995, used the material available at the time in the published Collected Works edition, which was to be expanded and re-edited beginning in 1999. More music from these films may now be in circulation.) It makes sense that these existing fragments were the most accessible pieces from the films—fanfares, stirring marches, and familiar or original folk songs. But there are the occasionally more interesting episodes where Shostakovich’s idiosyncrasies emerge, such as the extended, eloquent Funeral March from The Great Citizen , and the ominous, symphonic scene-painting of The Man With a Gun , which includes a few Wagnerian paraphrases and anticipates some of John Williams’s Star Wars maneuvers. It’s a shame that we’re not able to hear any examples of what John Riley in Dmitri Shostakovich: A Life in Film (Tauris, London) described as his “smudging the line between music and sound-effects, using factory noises as a percussive underlay to the etched and other dark music” in Passer-By.


But the most radical and most valuable music on this disc are the 16 pieces from Sofia Perovskaya, composed in 1968 while Shostakovich was hospitalized, recovering from having broken bones in both legs. Remarkably, though he was unable to view the film beforehand, he composed these set pieces solely from a copy of the script, knowing the director’s timing of the individual scenes. The story is about the rebellious activities of the title heroine, who was executed in 1881 for her participation in the plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander II. For the most part, Shostakovich’s music reflects his mature perspective—a profound cello soliloquy, the fully sustained symphonic momentum of several longer passages, even a waltz reminiscent of Nino Rota—but there are also strange episodes that flash back to his eccentric, youthful style. Two scenes are devoted to timpani with only brief trumpet interruptions; there is a section of choral writing stylistically somewhere between Stravinsky (think Symphony of Psalms ) and Ligeti; and his use of piccolo to project a spirited, mocking anti-military presence in the “March” and “Execution”—the latter silenced in midphrase—is a reminder of his earliest, most audacious music.


Primarily because of Sofia Perovskaya , this release offers the non-specialist a more engaging musical experience than the majority of these compilations. Recommended to anyone who wants a sampling of Shostakovich’s commonplace and exceptional work for film.


FANFARE: Art Lange

Boccherini, L.: String Quintet, Op. 42, No. 2 / Schubert, F.

Albeniz, I.: Iberia (Arr. for Guitar Quartet)