Kip Winger is a genre-bridging composer with a long and successful career in rock music. His celebrated ballet score Conversations with Nijinsky led conductor Giancarlo Guerrero to commission the two works on this album. Weaving four floriographical meanings into the musical arc, In the Language of Flowers is a violin concerto that celebrates a love story "no words could adequately express." Symphony of the Returning Light sits in the tradition of autobiographical fantasies stretching back to Berlioz. The symphony incorporates the use of Morse code rhythms and is centered around the theme of atonement.

The music of GRAMMY-nominated and Latin GRAMMY-winning composer, Roberto Sierra, is performed worldwide and has long been admired for it's confluence of Caribbean elements and inventive modernist language. The works on this album cover a decade's worth of composition and examine crucial concepts - the idea of time in music; creative new applications of sonata form with regard to mood, tempo and character; and evocations of images seen through Latin American eyes. Continuum, directed by Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs, has enjoyed a 40-year friendship with Sierra, receiving dedications and premiering numerous of his compositions.

Daron Hagen is a multi-award-winning composer with a lifelong commitment to emotionally accessible and heartfelt music-making. Everyone, Everywhere is a sweeping cantata composed to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Taking a variety of texts, it charts the articles of the Declaration, opening in fanfare optimism and ending in tenderness, to form a passionate cry for justice and peace. The other settings, utilising texts by W.B. Yeats and President Abraham Lincoln, are both ardent and intimate.

World premiere recordings of three new important choral works by American composers Richard Einhorn, Gilda Lyons and Joseph Turrin. The Musica Viva NY Choir and Orchestra make their Naxos debut with these recordings, conducted by their artistic director Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez.

This album showcases a selection of Ives’ shorter works for orchestra. Experiments, marches, arrangements, and enticingly incomplete fragments are included alongside the Four Ragtime Dances and Chromâtimelôdtune, one of Ives’ most startling creations. Ives specialist James Sinclair conducts. Includes seven world premiere recordings. Released to mark the 150th anniversary of Ives’s birth.

Click here to listen to the Naxos podcast interview with Paul Jacobs about this release.

This release features organ concertos by some of America's finest contemporary composers: Horatio Parker's 'imposing and brilliant' piece is heard alongside Christopher Rouse's concerto of contrasting light and dark sonorities, which is dedicated to album soloist Paul Jacobs, and Wayne Oquin's Resilience reflects the human capacity for tenacity and perseverance. The program ends with Ives' Variations on 'America' for solo organ.

East meets West offers a series of geographical and musical connections that bind the music of composers Ian Krouse and Ronald Pearl. The album includes the first recording of Krouse's Roderick Usher's 'Phantasmion' (in it's 2009 revision), as well as the eloquent tone poem La Petite Fille aux Allumettes("The Little Match Girl"), and his version of a Hassidic song. Pearl: My Name is Red is inspired by Orhan Pamuk's novel and reveals a range of Islamic influences.

This second volume of George Walker's piano music joins its predecessor on Naxos 8.559916 (April 2024), together forming a unique complete piano works edition. On this new release, Steinway Artist Alexandre Dossin performs the cyclical Fourth Piano Sonata, which alternates between sections of virtuoso muscularity and lyrical repose, and the Piano Concerto, which integrates expansive Classical forms with inspiration derived from songs by Duke Ellington, something also cleverly hidden in Guido's Hand. The album closes with Walker's passionate Fifth Piano Sonata.

REVIEW:

Dossin makes much of the alternately moody and energetic first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 4. His ability to grasp the long line of Walker’s music is a really big factor in one’s enjoyment of his performances. The pianist's ability to use “space” in his interpretations makes these performances fascinating and ultimately rewarding.

— Art Music Lounge

Although Bruce Broughton is best known for his many film and television scores, over the past five decades he has composed scores for a diverse array of projects from film and TV to concert music and even theme parks. His work has been recognized with an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score for the film "Silverado" (1985) and a record ten Emmy Awards for his musical compositions in television. This album presents a small selection of his concert works.

This recording of Corigliano's chamber arrangement of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan featuring soprano Laura Hynes, is coupled with Vincent Ho's virtuosic and mystical Gryphon Realms for piano trio. World premiere recordings. Corigliano's orchestration of Mr. Tambourine Man can be heard on 8.559331.

I had always heard, by reputation, of the high regard accorded the folk-ballad singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. But I was so engaged in developing my orchestral technique during the years when Dylan was heard by the rest of the world that I had never heard his songs. So I bought a collection of his texts, and found many of them to be every bit as beautiful and as immediate as I had heard – and surprisingly well-suited to my own musical language.

I chose seven poems for what became a thirty-five minute cycle. A Prelude: Mr. Tambourine Man, in a fantastic and exuberant manner, precedes five searching and reflective monologues that form the core of the piece; and Postlude: Forever Young makes a kind of folk-song benediction after the cycle’s close. Dramatically, the inner five songs trace a journey of emotional and civic maturation, from the innocence of Clothes Line through the beginnings of awareness of a wider world (Blowin’ in the Wind), through the political fury of Masters of War, to a premonition of an apocalyptic future (All Along the Watchtower), culminating in a vision of a victory of ideas (Chimes of Freedom). Several years after composing the vocal/piano score I orchestrated the work, and some years later transcribed it for Pierrot ensemble, a chamber group. This is the first recording of the chamber version. - John Corigliano

Gryphon Realms is a three-movement work, inspired by gryphon mythology, that explores the coloristic, virtuosic and expressive possibilities of the piano trio while highlighting my more personal musical language. - Vincent Ho

50 American Patriotic Military Songs is presented as a four-vinyl LP set of the greatest patriotic music available! This album features over fifteen traditional favorites such as 'This Land is Your Land', 'God Bless America', 'You're a Grand Old Flag', and 'God Bless the USA', along with all the service songs, and Naval and Air Force hymns. This best-selling album also features original compositions by members of the military band including the songs 'The Flag Still Flies High', 'They Died For You, They Died for Me', and 'Honor With Dignity'. This is a great patriotic collection with over two and a half hours of marches, concert band, choral, sing-a-long, and contemporary songs for all to enjoy!

Rhapsodies is the fourth album on Naxos dedicated to the lauded American composer Margaret Brouwer - renowned for her music's lyricism, imagery and emotional power. Marin Alsop conducts the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in this programme of world premiere recordings including Symphony No. 1 'Lake Voices' and the dazzling Rhapsody, Concerto for Orchestra.

"Heiko Quinto" is the sixth album release on Naxos by the award-winning composer Daron Hagen. Composed for Duo YUMENO, the piece is based on the Japanese medieval text "The Tale of the Heike." Scored for Japanese koto, cello, and two voices, the work presents a compelling and expressive narrative. World premiere recording.

German-American composer Lukas Foss transformed the Buffalo Philharmonic into an adventurous and world-renowned orchestra during his tenure as music director, and he was a mentor to the orchestra’s current music director, JoAnn Falletta, at the start of her career. This album celebrates the 100th anniversary of Foss’s birth with four works, including the lyrical Symphony No. 1 and the Renaissance Concerto.

REVIEW:

Foss's music is much like the man, full of charm, brilliance, playfulness, deep seriousness, and bewildering variety. This resonant, well-filled recording gives us three early works from the 1940s, with colorful solo playing by flautist Amy Porter and violinist Nikki Chooi. The Ode, an expression of grief and admiration for men who died in World War II, begins with a funereal tread but builds in excitement, with a soaring climax showing off the excellent Buffalo brass and ending on a serene major chord.

A delightful contrast is The Renaissance Concerto, a neo-baroque piece based partly on Rameau and Monteverdi. The Three American Pieces, influenced by what Foss calls the “open-air” sound of Copland, display Foss’s lyricism and fondness for jazzy syncopation. The latter also erupts in the scherzo of his Symphony 1, which is based on classical form and has a satisfying symmetry. The finale, which exudes youthful confidence and optimism, revisits motifs from the opening movement, launches an exciting fugue for strings, and builds to a majestic culmination on an ecstatic major chord, ending a winning album with a bang.

— American Record Guide

Delve into the heart of naval tradition and innovation as you explore original compositions meticulously crafted by the talented members of the U.S. Navy Band Commodores Jazz Ensemble. Just as the Navy's ships and aircraft require the unified efforts of its diverse crew to operate seamlessly, each track on this CD reflects the harmonious synergy of individual artistry and collective devotion to musical excellence.

This is the first of two volumes of George Walker’s complete piano works, both featuring performances by Alexandre Dossin. The three sonatas heard here offer compelling contrasts. Sonata No. 1 (rev. 1991) is his longest and utilises folk tunes, No. 2 is darker and unified by tonal relationships, while No. 3 (rev. 1996) displays contrapuntal mastery and translucent elements. The album opens with the serene and majestic Prelude and Caprice, while both Spatials and Spektra are atonal. Bauble is heard in a world premiere recording.

REVIEW:

Judging by the compositions on this album, his piano music is communicative, colorful, expressive and, above all, characteristic. As a student of Rudolf Serkin, he was himself an outstanding pianist with an impressive career in Europe and the United States. This may have been conducive to his talent as a composer. 

Pianist Alexandre Dossin shows himself to be an accomplished interpreter, making Walker’s tonal language his own with his flexible and sensitive playing.

-- Pizzicato

John Adams’ City Noir was inspired by the cultural and social history of Los Angeles, with the composer himself calling it ‘an imaginary film score’, while Fearful Symmetries exemplifies his steamroller motor rhythms. The album ends with a capricious ‘Spider Dance’ of memorable rhythmic drive – a work dedicated to Marin Alsop who leads the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in these performances.

REVIEWS:

Marin Alsop has been quietly championing John Adams abroad—and now at the Met Opera conducting his El Nino— for decades. A new Naxos recording with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra demonstrates her flair and feeling for his distinctive idiom. City Noir, premiered by the LA Phil in 2009, is a vivid, multi-textured score inspired by mid-20th century urban California. With its jazz inflections and brooding canvases, the debt to the City of Angels and film noir are equally clear. This is the work’s third recording but well worth acquiring for Alsop’s theatrical bite and detailed interpretation. Punchier than Robertson and livelier than Dudamel (though Robertson’s ravishing sonics make for essential listening), she holds the attention with a sure eye for the work’s architectural twists and turns. The companion piece is Fearful Symmetries from 1988, one of Adams’s most infectious scores and yet only receiving its second outing on disc. Alsop takes the chugging basic pulse a tad faster than the composer’s own recording without sacrificing any of the infinite variety to be found in Adams’s orchestral details. It’s a joyous, carefree work and beautifully recorded. The same goes for the recorded premiere of Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance. Happily rehabilitated after getting the chop from Girls of the Golden West, this six-minute essay in wriggling cross rhythms is laced with sardonic wit.

-- Musical America (Clive Paget)

John Adams’s City Noir has been pretty well represented on disc in the fifteen years since its 2009 premiere: Marin Alsop’s new recording of the score with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony is the work’s fourth. In general, this celebration of the city of Los Angeles benefits from her approach. It’s swift and characterful...its structure emerges nicely intact in Alsop’s hands. The central “The Song is for You” boasts a series of idiomatic solos (especially from alto saxophone and trombone), at times seeming to channel Gershwin. [The] ORF’s woodwinds, trumpets, and jazz drummer really shine here. By about any measure, this is some brash and chill Adams.

Even more welcome is the pairing’s account of Fearful Symmetries, a half-hour-long study in rhythm and texture that’s only been recorded once before. Granted, that earlier release was led by the composer and it’s aged well. But Alsop’s new take is downright invigorating. The conductor brings a strong sense of drive to the music, drawing out a beautiful blend of colors – from invitingly swooning saxophone quartet playing to unexpected synthesizer colors – from her forces. What’s more, hers is a reading that manages to vigorously illuminate the sophistication of Adams’s compositional language, circa 1988. It’s a keeper.

-- The Arts Fuse

"Merit[s] hearty recommendation." -- Textura

Learn more about this recording on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

Naxos’s exploration of the works of Florence Price continues with this album of music for string quartet. Price and Leo Sowerby were contemporaries in the Chicago music community of the 1930s and 1940s, and they are known to have respected each other’s works. Sowerby’s String Quartet in G minor is a world premiere recording. Performed by the Avalon String Quartet – one of America’s leading chamber music ensembles.

Embark on a musical journey celebrating humanity's relentless pursuit of innovation and exploration. This recording, a tribute to pioneers like Amelia Earhart and Neil Armstrong, showcases new compositions and transcriptions, some crafted exclusively for the Navy Band. Immerse yourself in monumental pieces reimagined for winds, created by composers and arrangers with strong ties to the Navy Band. Join us in navigating uncharted waters and be the first to experience the thrilling intersection of tradition and innovation!

The Gershwin titles included on this album are from the new Gershwin Critical Edition which seeks to publish the definitive versions of the composer’s works. All are premiere recordings. Joan Tower’s 1920/2019 is a propulsive study in rhythm and texture, while ghostly waltz evocations can be heard in Steven Stucky’s Dreamwaltzes.

Discover songs to connect, heal, and inspire on the U.S. Navy Band Sea Canter Chorus’ recording “Safe Harbor”. These musicians have played a vital role in comforting America in times of mourning, and this recording follows in those footsteps

Daron Hagen is widely acclaimed as one of the most performed American composers today. The Art of Song draws on a wide range of literary sources – from the Bible, to tweets by Donald Trump. Co-commissioned and performed by members of Lyric Fest in Philadelphia, this is a world premiere recording.

JoAnn Falletta conducts the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic in works by four extraordinary mid-20th-century American composers who helped shape the country’s musical destiny: Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Paul Creston and Ulysses Kay. Includes two world premiere recordings – Paul Creston's Saxophone Concerto and Ulysses Kay’s poignant and elegiac Pietà.

Learn more about this recording on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

Louis Wayne Ballard was the first indigenous North American composer of art music and a highly respected authority on his culture’s musical heritage. Conductor John Jeter and the Forth Smith Symphony continue their Naxos journey of rediscovering neglected American composers in a program of world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

The conductor John Jeter could be categorized as an angelic force for overlooked American music. Here, he and his Fort Smith Symphony are back for an invaluable hour in the company of the Native American composer Louis Wayne Ballard, whose music has yet to receive substantial interest from record labels.

The first three movements from “Scenes From Indian Life,” written in 1963, have an unassuming playfulness. (The fourth movement, appended in 1994, takes on a graver cast.) But the longer pieces are even more impressive. Selections from Ballard’s ballet “The Four Moons” could pair well with Bernstein’s “Fancy Free” suite. The tone-poem writing of Ballard’s Fantasy Aborigine No. 3, “Kokopelli” could lend an American air to an orchestral program featuring music by Strauss.

The singing wind, brass, and string lines threaded throughout his “Devil’s Promenande” are captivating, too. While the playing here is persuasive as per usual, I also came away from this album hoping to hear Ballard’s music taken up by orchestras far and wide.

-- New York Times (Seth Colter Walls)

Learn more about this release on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!

Duo Duel, a concerto for 2 percussion and orchestra, is dedicated to the two percussionists who inspired it, Svet Stoyanov and Matthew Strauss. The work is in one continuous movement, but the pacing of the individual sections is: slow, fast, slow, fast-cadenza (one of the fastest cadenzas ever written for percussionists), fast (with dueling timpani).

The soloists sometimes play together, and sometimes they “duel” their way through the music. There is some seriously high-speed playing in this concerto, so don’t blink – you might miss something!

The Concerto for Orchestra is truly a concerto in that it requires virtuosity from the principal players, the individual sections and the entire orchestra. The first movement was the last to be composed. It took writing the other four movements to create a clear picture of what was needed to start this virtuosic tour-de-force. The second movement was written next, inspired by the string sound of The Philadelphia Orchestra. The third movement was written first, and it is this movement that allows each principal player a solo, before moving into section solos. The fourth movement is a tribute to rhythm, and the percussion section of the orchestra. The fifth movement, which begins with the entrance of the violins, highlights the entire orchestra.