Navona Records is delighted to present DASHING, a festive album for the holiday season featuring brand new works and arrangements of holiday favorites by several outstanding composers, with performances by The Stanbery Singers, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Salt Lake City Jazz Orchestra. Familiar faces and tunes make appearances here, such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s perennial holiday favorite, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from his ballet The Nutcracker. Henry Wolking provides a jazz arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; likewise, David Tanner contributes with an arrangement of O Holy Night. Composer Christopher J. Hoh has produced choral commissions for The Stuttgart German-American Chorus, and California’s Meistersingers. In addition to several current composition projects, he is also editing neglected works from the European Renaissance and America for performance. L Peter Deutsch composes primarily for small instrumental or a capella vocal ensembles, known for his modal harmonies, fluent text setting, and lyrical melodies. His work to date includes three choral commissions ("Brethren and Lovers," San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, 2008, "The Dimensions of Love," Bay Choral Guild, 2011, and "Where Everything is Music," Arizona Women in Tune, 2012).

In collaboration with educator and physicist Dr. Robert Davies, the Fry Street Quartet two composers, Libby Larsen and Laura Kaminsky, to create musical landscapes which speak to the crisis of an imminently unsustainable human world and move the listener toward a meaningful response. Kaminsky’s CROSSROADS | Rising Tide unfolds in a series of four vignettes, titled H20, Bios, Forage, and Societas, together forming a meditative space for audiences to explore connections between the human world we’ve created and the natural world we inhabit. Weaving together a chorus of artistic and scientific voices responding to one of society’s greatest challenges, the work of the quartet, Dr. Davies, Kaminsky, and Larsen presents a deep, profound contemplation of the choices before us, the paths they forge, and the dramatically different landscapes to which they lead.

Arthur Gottschalk is recipient of a number of accolades, including the Charles Ives Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Special Distinction by the ASCAP Rudolph Nissim Award in 2009 for Requiem: For the Living, Gold and Silver Medals from the Global Music Awards, The American Prize in Composition in 2013 and 2014, annual awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers since 1980, and Arthur Gottschalk Day (October 16) from the City of Houston TX. Mr. Gottschalk has worked in diverse areas of music, including composing and arranging music for feature films, television scores, numerous industrial films and commercials, music publishing, and artist management. He continues to work as an expert in music copyright cases and as a forensic musicologist. Featured soloists on Requiem for the Living include tenor Alberto Mizrahi and Grammy-nominated soprano Lauren Snouffer. Vladimir Lande conducts the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir.

With two critically-lauded releases on Navona Records, pianist Eliane Rodrigues returns with Reflets, showcasing the pianist’s nuanced and thoughtful performances of fifteen works by Claude Debussy. While it might seem that child prodigies are commonplace in the world of classical music, only a few truly make a lasting impact, one that lives on long after those prodigies have passed well into their adulthoods. Mozart began to play piano at the age of three, Beethoven did so at seven and a half, and Georges Bizet did so before his tenth birthday. Pianist Eliane Rodrigues, who began composing at three, played her first recital at five and first performed with an orchestra when she was just six years of age, can certainly be counted among those prodigious musicians, as evidenced on her latest recording, Reflets. The album opens with “Suite Bergamasque,” one of Debussy’s most well-known piano suites. The dynamic contrasts in the moods of the suite’s four pieces are well suited to Rodrigues’ sensitive and vivid style. Debussy is credited as one of the ‘founders’ of Impressionist music, distinguished by its focus on suggestions and atmosphere, a world that Rodrigues also inhabits here, as evidenced by her cascading and powerfully textured performance of Debussy’s “Ballade.” “Pour le Piano,” certainly one of the composer’s most moving works for solo piano, features rapid, brilliant passages that fully emphasize the pianist’s virtuosity. That impressionistic ability to invoke a mood or a feeling carries on with “First Arabesque in E Major,” one of a pair composed early in Debussy’s career. “Images,” comprised of two ‘books’ of three pieces each, ranging from the subdued “Homage à Rameau” to the energy of “Mouvement,” marked by the torrent of notes in its finale. Eliane Rodrigues was born in Rio de Janiero, where the performances that she gave in her childhood bore fruit when she was awarded the Gina Bachauer prize at the Van Cliburn Competition in the United States at only 18 years of age. She has gone on to perform internationally, as well as to hold the position of professor at the Royal Conservatoire in Antwerp.

VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR 2 presents the best that modern choral compositions have to offer. Settings of traditional prayers are mingled with ethereal stories and otherworldly visions, and each of the eight compositions both stand unique and work together harmoniously to create a collection that nods to the future of choral music. Scott Solak's Ave Maria starts off the collection. Richly tonal and resonant, the piece is written in memory of the composer's mother, a second generation Polish Catholic. Ave Maria is followed by Jonathan Little's Crucifixus, another rich, vibrant work that presents modern interpretations of historic performance techniques and fills space with an all-encompassing listening experience. Helen MacKinnon's Gloria in Excelsis Deo demonstrates various moods throughout the piece, from tender to fiery and triumphant, all culminating in a glorious "Amen" to close the piece. The album then shifts to L Peter Deutsch's A Fisherman of the Inland Sea. With jagged intervals and interesting harmonies, and text by famed fantasy author Ursula K. LeGuin, the choir and a single narrator retell the melancholy story of a young fisherman's loss resulting from a tryst in a magical underwater kingdom. Following this story is Juli Nunlist's posthumously released Spells, an eerie, dissonant choral work that uses subtle recurrences to create an enveloping form. Daniel Morse's Nachtlied is an otherworldly soundscape that uses the writings of Austrian Expressionist poet Georg Trakl. Creating a sense of ritual, the otherworldliness is amplified by the use of electronic sounds created through manipulating pre-existing audio. Peter Greve's invocation for organ and mixed choir, Give Us Peace, is made up of four expressions of peace from four religious traditions. It follows a narrative arc of joy within communities, followed by violence and destruction, and finally a reconciliation and expression of peace between four different ideas. The album concludes with Whitman Brown's Psalm 23, a final return to sacred texts that creates a powerful bookend to the collection. Reverent and soothing, it gives a sense of conclusion to the journey of VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR 2.

Jonathan Sheffer’s The Conference of the Birds is presented on this new release from Navona Records. Two versions of the work are recorded here: the first, with narrator Joyce DiDonato, and the second, without narrator. Performing this work is the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jonathan Sheffer.

Composer Richard Thompson’s three-act opera presents the life behind the name of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the most prominent African American poets of the early 20th Century. This dramatic performance, inspired by the hundreds of letters exchanged between Dunbar and his wife, Alice Ruth Moore, removes the masks of fame and social identity to investigate the psychological realities of the people underneath. Driven by pivotal moments in the poet’s life, the chamber opera follows the arc of Paul and Alice’s relationship, from their courtship through letters, secret engagement and marriage, to their final estrangement and Paul’s death from alcoholism and tuberculosis at age 33. Throughout these moments, the audience gets a look behind the known storyline into the psychological challenges occurring beneath the surface for both Paul and Alice. Both characters grappled with the fact that they came from troubled relational backgrounds filled with abuse and apathy — much of which was translated into their own marriage. In addition, both struggled with their racial identity in a culture that generally judged and discriminated before it sought to understand. The dramatic tension of their personal relationship and story, fused with the broader questions surrounding identity, appearance versus reality, and grappling with the person in the mirror, makes this a moving story on the operatic stage. Captivating, challenging, and compelling, The Mask In The Mirror is a necessary look into fame and identity as seen through this hero of African American poetry.

From Bow to String

Although Arnold Schoenberg is often seen as a composer strictly concerned with pitch, his interests in timbre and sonority are ever-present in all five of his completed piano works. On Schoenberg Piano Music And His 17 Fragments, pianist Yoko Hirota performs three of Schoenberg’s completed works along with the 17 fragments that he never brought to completion. Hirota, praised as being “precise and keenly projective” and demonstrating the “highest level of proficiency,” is one of the leading interpreters of contemporary piano repertory, and she brings Schoenberg’s compositions to life with conviction. The three pieces that make up Drei Klavierstückes op.11 demonstrate Schoenberg’s burgeoning awareness that, as a corollary to the atonal structures he was beginning to use, more emotionally stringent use of the piano made for fertile musical ground. A close examination of the 17 fragments illustrates the composer’s preoccupation with and research into expressivity and color in his piano music — elements that are communicated clearly in Hirota’s performances. The evolution of Schoenberg’s musical thought can be clearly traced in the fragments, which were written throughout the first quarter of the 20th Century. The influence of Brahmsian piano writing is evident in the first four fragments; by the time he had composed the ninth, his demand for articulation had become predominant. The twelfth fragment contains a character dissimilar to both his previous works and fragments, in that the harmonic language is rather tonal and in the vein of Prokofiev’s works. Schoenberg’s priority was the expression of music in the creative process. Through this album, Hirota does not only demonstrates Schoenberg’s care for expressivity in music. She highlights the fact that other pianists should strive to present this color and expression in the performance of Schoenberg’s works, in order to deliver a performance that is both rich and true to the composer’s intent.

On his latest release on Navona Records, WISDOM-LOVE-ETERNITY, composer Michael G. Cunningham presents a collection of his choral works, performed by the K�hn Choir of Prague conducted by Marek Vorl�cek, which explore the spiritual element of the human condition, addressing the uncertainty of death, the inexpressible emotion of love, and humans' search for an understanding of God. Poetry plays a significant role in many of the works in the album. Poetry from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Shakespeare, C. P. Cranch, Francesco Petrarch, Robert Herrick, Robert Burns, P. B. Shelley, and others is introduced, inspiring contemplative, dramatic, and elaborate vocal harmonies, instrumental accompaniment, and musical imagery. Some of Cunningham's more austere writing is found in his setting of text from the Christian liturgy in works such as Come, Holy Spirit (1975) and The West Wind (1961). Audiophile Audition praises Michael G. Cunningham as "a gifted and interesting composer" Cunningham has written over 200 compositions, spanning virtually every medium. He is a respected educator and author, with more than ten books published focusing on the subjects of composition and music theory His works have been performed in Europe, Japan, Australia, and throughout the United States Cunningham's other albums - PARAGONIA, SONIC FLIGHT, GALLERY, and COLONNADE - are available through Navona Records His works are featured on the Navona compilations VOICES OF EARTH & AIR, QUADRANTS, and CONTINUUM

Cunningham, M.: Colonnade

Venezuelan-American cellist Carmine Miranda is a renowned international soloist and recording artist. He studied first at the Carabobo State Music Conservatory in Venezuela, then at the Latin-American Academy of Violoncell, the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. For this release, Miranda has chosen cello concerti by Schumann and Dvorak. When Miranda was only twenty two and twenty three years old, he recorded Bach’s Six Cello Suites, as well as Alfredo Piatti’s 12 Caprices for Solo Cello. He was one of the youngest in the world to ever record these works. “It’s natural, then, that Miranda’s performance of the Schumann Cello Concerto sounds like a love letter—attention is paid to moments of delicacy and tenderness.” (Huntley Dent, Fanfare Magazine)

When The Soul Speaks paradoxically presents music of ancient texts through some of the present day's youngest voices. Performed by the Bonifantes Boys' Choir and the Czech Soloist Consort, these sacred texts rise to life through the performances of one of the Czech Republic's most acclaimed ensembles. The Bonifantes Boys' Choir was founded in 1999 and has since won a place among the cream of the crop of choir ensembles in the Czech Republic. Talented boys from age 4 to age 20 work in the singing school known as the Bonifantes School of Arts. The group has gone on a number of concert tours across the world, and performs with many Czech orchestras on a regular basis.

It is not often that one encounters a choir - professional or otherwise - whose unity, technical perfection, and musical expressiveness would be a match for the Chamber Singers at the University of South Dakota. The much-recorded, much-acclaimed ensemble presents yet another triumph in the form of I Carry Your Heart, a breathtaking, exhilarating cruise through a cappella choral music from around the world. The Chamber Singers is the premier vocal ensemble at USD. Performers in the choir are selected through audition from the entire university student body. The choir's repertoire, which is primarily a cappella, includes music from the Renaissance to the present in a wide variety of styles. The ensemble presents formal concerts on campus each semester and it's annual concert tour has taken the group throughout the United States and Europe. They have been selected for performance at state and regional conventions, have appeared on the public radio programs, and received numerous national honors and distinctions.

PARMA Recordings presents Legends & Light, a compilation album featuring works by composers Hans Bakker, Jan Järvlepp, Clive Muncaster, and Shirley Mier. Each has a different, unique story to tell, and the narratives are brought to life by the orchestra and string ensemble. Hans Bakker showcases his ‘Canzona III: Hidden in Her Light’ in ternary form. Described by the composer as a “hymn to the sun,” this tone poem is reminiscent of the symphonic storytellings of such greats as Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov — with a heritage of folk melodies and rhythms to boot. The extraordinary balance between strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion is expressed so fluidly, yet individually, the listener is immediately enveloped into the epic saga Bakker is telling. Jan Järvlepp expresses his unique composition style in Suite for Strings. In this incredible pedagogical work, Järvlepp brings the listener through a gamut of emotions. Clive Muncaster’s Redcliffe Gardens Suite for Strings follows suit perfectly with a romantic “Petronella,” enormously expressive in every way. “Pastorella” takes it down a notch, toeing the line between major and minor, somewhat demonstrating the complexity of romantic love. But, obviously, love wins. “Stella” is the heroic ballad to profess it. “Fuga Romantica” layers the sweetness together using one of composition’s most complex forms. Shirley Mier’s Of Lakes and Legends, a programmatic work written for the Century Chamber Orchestra, closes the album. Each movement is set at White Bear Lake in Minnesota, the city where the Century College and the ensemble are located. This celebration of music is tinged with nostalgia, as it both recalls these concerts and reflects on the fact that they now exist only in time past. This, hands down, is contemporary composition at its best. This album has been perfectly curated to offer continuity in the listening experience. PARMA patrons, old and new, will find enormous satisfaction in this collection.

On his debut Navona Records release, ALL THE WAY BACK, pianist and composer Vytautas Smetona presents a collection of keyboard repertoire that highlights his enthralling and committed interpretations of some of the great composers' masterworks as well as an example of his faculty as a cultivated and dynamic composer.

The pieces on this album offer Smetona technical feats and expressive themes, all of which the pianist handles with ease, determination, and eloquence. From Bach's lyrical and joyous Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Major, BWV 848 to the somber and dramatic range of Liszt's Funerailles (October 1849), Smetona evokes passion and refinement in his performances. The technical mastery of works such as Brahms's Intermezzo in B-flat Minor, Op. 117, No. 2, Schumann's Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17, and Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23 is handled by Smetona with sophistication, lucidity, and powerful passage work. Smetona shows us a balance between accurately playing the notes on the score and interpreting the feeling between them.

When appraoching his latest chamber album Bliss Point, Polish-born violinist and composer Piotr Szewczyk turned to a unique lens of inspiration - food science. His interpretation of a "bliss point" in the culinary sense embodies the technique's saturation ofa flavor just before the poitn of diminished potency. Of course, he trades in the contents of his spice cabinet in favor of diverse instrumental pairings, and in doing so, the composer explores the "saturation limits in teh full spectrum of emotions, textures, and characters." In doing so, Szewczyk is confident that the resulting collection of chamber works "covers the entire expressive range of my vocabulary and artistic sensitivity." Naturally, Szewczyk's violin stylings are included in this spectrum, as he appears on nearly all the album's compositions. He keeps true to his stated inspirations on Bliss Point and exemplifies these goals on the title track. Accompanied by clarinet, cello and piano, the violinist leads the quartet through a set of intertwined sections that stakly differ in their pacing. An ostinato bookend aids in structuring the piece, opening with a gentle pulsation and closing with tranquility after a midsection of contrasting instrumental textures. Contrasting moods also appear on the album's first two mixed ensemble pieces. The four shot, ever-shifting movements of Twisted Dances are brought alive by oboe, violin, cello and piano, and the scattered themes of Images from a Journey - which retains the same instrumentation save for a flute replacing the oboe - range from explorations of darkness to a similarly dance-inspired movement based on gypsy performers. These ensembles are only a sample of Szewczyk's use of contrast on teh album, with a strong example arrivign on Piano Trio No. 1's bricolage of disparate movements. The composer cycles through passages of intense, rhythmic virtuosity; then meditative jazz piano obscured by melancholic tendencies; and lastly, an explosive finale with unbridled energy as its ignition. His vibrant writing for strings echoes this trend as well, including the viscous, atonal sonorities of a string quartet in the octatonic scale on Half-Diminished Scherzo and the fury of a lively string trio on the appropriately titled Furioso. These types of musical personification all exhibit the itnense imagery of Szewczyk's compositions. Even without knowing the title of Very Angry Birds, the way the violinist's extended techniques glide over propulsive piano chords will prompt listeners to point their imaginations skyward. This tendency also holds true for the composer's dialogue between instruments, such as the furious battle of violin and viola on Conundrum and the marital themes of Nimbus, which tests the polarity of wedding vows with passages full of both joy and bickering.

Thomas Bowes' Sei Solo shines the spotlight on the sonatas and partitas for solo violin composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1720. Bowes believes that these six stand-alone compositions, while each individually offering insight into Bach's genius reveal more when taken as one epic work - and especially when set against the tragedy in Bach’s life in the year of composition. The three albums in Bowes’ release contain a total of six tracks. Each album starts with a sonata and concludes with a partita, moving through different keys. The sonatas showcase a larger, more abstract expression, while movements in the partitas are more focused on elements of the dance. Bowes views these six compositions as a vehicle for exploration into the existential, taking his cue from Bach’s cryptic title ‘sei solo’, which reads ‘you are alone’, punning on the Italian for ‘6’ and ‘you are’. Though the performer flies solo on all of the tracks, he reaches well beyond the limitations of just one instrument. The focus and attention the violinist brings to all six tracks draws the listener into a meditative state of mind. It’s almost as if Bowes is performing solely for each individual listener, providing an intimate experience that demands attention yet allows room for contemplation.

Navona Records is proud to present PRISMA, a compilation featuring four contemporary composers from the United States and England including Lionel Sainsbury, Clive Muncaster, Patricia Julien, and J. A. Kawarsky. PRISMA spans the spectrum of unique styles of composition, from the grandiose and triumphant to the fragile and tender. This compilation captures a journey through colorful orchestral elements in a singular listening experience that builds into a thrilling sound. PRISMA opens with triumph in Sainsbury’s “Time of the Comet.” Written in 1997, the piece was inspired by the visual presence of the Hale-Bopp comet. Sainsbury translated his vision into a grand composition featuring a proud and virtuous introduction that transitions between allegro and slow sections concluding with prevailing optimism and possibility. Muncaster’s “Reflective Thought Patterns” builds in arch form to its central section and then literally reflects itself in reverse order. The composition starts with brass and timpani, transitioning its melody patterns on woodwinds, marimba, vibraphone, and French horn until the piece comes together at the end echoing the opening this time with a full orchestra. “Among the Hidden” by Patricia Julien, introduces an eerie, darker shade to the PRISMA collection. Building off a circular, three-note piano melody, the moodiness of the composition creates a stark, yet refreshing contrast to the bright, brave orchestral performance of the other composers. Lastly, Kawarsky’s “Fastidious Notes” draws in the ear of the listener with its unusual 5/4 metrical setting. The composition, based on a reworking of the American folk-song “Goodbye Old Paint,” features a sound borrowed right from the school of 20th century American classical music. As the compilation end, the four songs touch every emotion resulting in a conclusive listener experience.

This is an exciting new album bundle of five previously released albums from Navona Records. What Are They Doing To That Piano? features composers and artists dedicated to finding the most adventurous and compelling sounds that the piano has to offer. Opening with works composed by John Cage, the virtual godfather of prepared piano, and performed by the virtuosic Kate Boyd, this bundle contains one of the most eclectic collections of solo piano music a listener will ever encounter. Ice & Fire, first released in 2013 by Navona Records, features six compositions by Stephen Scott for the Bowed Piano Ensemble, including Afternoon of a Fire, written for bowed piano and improvised native american flute in memory of a wildfire that occurred in his native Colorado. The album also includes experimental works that interpret the concept of drones, a piece with five miniatures for bowed piano, and Scott's first written piece for voice and bowed piano. Originally released on Ravello Records in 2016, 16-2-60-N-5: Works for Electronics & Piano, by composer and pianist Sidney Bailin, shows how musical technique can exist solely to help him tell his secrets. A combination of piano and electroacoustic works, 16-2-60-N-5 transforms patterns and structures into a viscerally and emotionally gripping sound experience. Felt, a compilation for solo piano first offered by Navona Records in 2015, presents the works of a number of composers including Matthew Durrant and Byron Petty. With each composer comes a subtly different perception of what the piano is capable, a degree of variation that presents itself repeatedly in the kaleidoscopic collection of pieces included on this release. On An Evolving Cycle, Gheorghe Costinescu's second Ravello Records album, first released in 2013, the composer explores the manner in which keyboard idioms evolved from Baroque to 21st-century contemporary, charting the evolution of form and technique with a deft control of style. Throughout this collection, the composers and performers run the gamut of stylistic and physical variations possible for the piano and its repertoire. It seems only fitting that these albums would ultimately be combined into a single compendium of the piano at its finest, and we are pleased to finally offer, in collected form, What Are They Doing To That Piano?

John A. Carollo’s newest release, The Transfiguration of Giovanni Baudino, is a fascinating mixture of music written for different orchestral instrumentations and with wildly varying intended emotional responses. The composer himself may best define the intangible aspect of his music’s emotive intentions, writing, “I have always preferred to let music speak for itself. We each derive our own unique personal meanings from our listening experiences and most of it is felt viscerally.” The visceral is, in the case of much of the music presented on this release, never far away. Carollo’s writing for strings in the five movements of The Rhetoric and Mythos of Belief emphasizes the tremulous and melodic, yielding a varied but consistently inspired musical color palette. Throughout this lengthy work the hues of the string ensemble sound tend toward the amber, allowing the luster and huskiness of the lower voices to often become a focal point. In these lush textures, slowly unfolding melodic materials easily maintain primacy of placement, and the many harmonic voices of the ensemble combine in a refined coherency. Likewise, the works presented on The Transfiguration of Giovanni Baudino featuring full orchestra each, in turn, define their own aural landscapes. The title track is defined by scampering, freewheeling melodic materials that make their way throughout the instruments of the orchestra. Skirting the edges of tonality, the piece takes full advantage of the many timbres and orchestral coloring that can be achieved by a large ensemble. This, like Carollo’s other works, has a structural resiliency that both embraces and simultaneously defies the melodic and harmonic materials that constitute it. It can be hard to paint the six works making up The Transfiguration of Giovanni Baudino with a single brush. Do You Have an E.R. for Music?, another orchestral work, couldn’t be farther in emotional intention or impact from The Rhetoric and Mythos of Belief, yet somehow the two pieces exist admirably as separate sides of a single coin in this collection of Carollo’s works. The composer’s dexterous control of the orchestra shines on this release, and the impassioned playing of the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Petr Vronský, only accentuates the sheer strength of Carollo’s compositions. Ampersand, Carollo’s first CD was awarded ‘Best Classical CD’ at the 10th Annual Hawaii Music Awards Ceremony in 2006. The Transfiguration of Giovanni Baudino marks two Parma Recordings milestones. It is the 500th Parma album released and is also Parma’s first album to be simultaneously released on vinyl. Carollo was a participant in Parma Recordings’ groundbreaking November 2015 recording session in Havana, Cuba. His Burlesque was featured on the June 2016 album Abrazo: The Havana Sessions. The composer’s musical training included studies with Dr. Robert Wehrman. Before retiring to compose fulltime, Carollo had a long career as a mental health professional for the state of Hawaii, having received a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from San Diego State University. Of past Carollo album Starry Night for String Orchestra a reviewer wrote, “This is a starry night with meteors and perhaps an exploding star in the midst of it!”

New Zealand born, Canada based composer John Robertson’s album VALLARTA SUITE showcases the continuation of classic orchestral traditions into the present day. The album’s three works testify to Robertson’s flexible compositional voice, which expresses playful, grand, and romantic materials within a welcoming style based on nineteenth century, and early twentieth century precedents. Performed expertly by the Jánacek Philharmonic Orchestra, VALLARTA SUITE is defined by beautiful melodies, confident orchestration, and classic musical forms. The album’s anchors are its multi-movement works, Vallarta Suite, op. 47, and Symphony No. 2, op. 63. Vallarta Suite is a musical postcard to the Mexican city of Puerto Vallarta and, like George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture or Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A London Symphony, uses a variety of contrasting textures and materials to illustrate its geographical subject. For example, the work’s third movement, “Excursion para hacer compras (Shopping excursion)”, is the most concise and literal example of Robertson’s portrayal of Puerto Vallarta. Here, a series of playful and syncopated themes encourage the listener to imagine strolling through the city’s markets. The work’s other movements, namely, “Las Ballenas (The Whales)” and “La Noche en la Zona Romantica (The Night In The Romantic Zone)”, are more abstract and varied in their materials and form. “Las Ballenas”, for instance, is less thematic than other movements, but leans heavily on the orchestra’s brass to express the stately grace of whales. The two other works on VALLARTA SUITE present much more traditional music structures. Strut In – a March, as the title suggests, is Robertson’s take a classic March, and, as one might expect, features jaunty themes and more percussion than is typical to the rest of the album. Unlike Sousa, Robertson crafts a longer, more dramatic structure for his march, and, in particular, uses a wide range of textures to build towards the arrival of its culminating and triumphant melodic material. Robertson’s Symphony No. 2 stands out on VALLARTA SUITE as the only piece that is not wholly defined by a reference to a specific musical style or non-musical reference. Robertson excels in the more abstract setting of the Symphony, the first movement, in particular, is a tremendously crafted voyage of thematic and textural energy. The work’s final movement, “Passacaglia”, suggests, as well, that Robertson always has an eye to the past, as its title refers to a type of instrumental music that originated in the Renaissance. Marked by its grand orchestration, the “Passacaglia” serves as an intense and brilliant finale to the Symphony and VALLARTA SUITE, as a whole. Consider the potential differences between the works based on extra-musical references (i.e. Vallarta Suite and Strut In) and the Symphony, which is more of a statement of ‘absolute music’. There is great consistency in Robertson’s treatment of melodic themes, rhythm, and orchestration across the album, which may act as evidence in assessing his overall compositional style

With Parallel Worlds, Czech composer Jan Jirasek provides a portal into his intricately textured and resonant choral music. These works are enhanced by Czech children's choir Jitro, whose singers imbibe Jirasek's delicate and earnest compositions with authority, maturity, and captivating grace. A varied collection of Jirasek's sacred and secular choral music, Parallel Worlds reveals the composer's affinity for non-traditional sounds, as well as vocal forms rooted in Renaissance and Medieval traditions. These subtle, period-based influences are most evident in the nuances of compositions such as works like Missa Propria that evoke the voice-leading techniques of Italian Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo. Most obvious of these subtleties is Jirasek's contrast of polyphony and monophony in Missa Propria and Si, Vis, Amari, Ama, which use chant-like melodies scored for the entire choir. These moments strongly recall the structural role of Gregorian chant in Medieval, Renaissance, and even later musical settings of the mass text. King Lavra presents a subtler allusion to earlier eras of choral music, as its dramatic scoring recalls teh Medieval genre of the liturgical drama. This composition is also one of several works on this album to feature atypical sounds, including percussive vocal sounds ranging from spoken text to individual isolated consonants. Jirasek's use of a pair of scissors as a percussion instrument on King Lavra is a brilliant and wholly unpredictable reinterpretation of a mundane object, and the clear, precise attack of the swiftly closing scissors works impressively well with the piano and vocal forces. Throughout Parallel Worlds, Jirasek's creations are vibrant and profound, often suggesting the choir's singing is filling an enormous venue. The composer constantly plays with layering fixed materials, and he often manipulates the density of these musical strata to pull the listener through his intricate compositional mazes.

Veronique Mathieu's Argot is a spectacular demonstration of her abilities as a violinist, as well as the dramatic range of her instrument. The recording embodies the definition of its title - Argot, whcih means teh language of a particular group in two meaningful ways. First, Mathieu has selected a unique array of violin-centric works that illuminate the creative strengths of twentieth century modernist composers. Second, as a result of the album's daring program and Mathieu's incredible talents, listeners enjoy the opportunity to hear every nuance of the violin's expressive vocabulary executed at the highest possible level. Argot focuses on compositions by three titans of twentieth century european modernism: Franco Donatoni, Pierre Boulez, and Witold Lutoslawski. Donatoni's Argo: Due pezzi per violono not only gives the album its title, but also serves as one of two solo violin works on the album, alongside Boulez's Anthemes 1 pour violon seul. These pieces reveal the depths of Mathieu's virtuosity, as she delivers deeply human and emotive performances of these notably technical and demanding works. In Mathieu's rendering of these compositions, every corner of the violin's sound world is both exploited and imbued with significance. Some might think that any piece written for solo instrument must be limited in what it can express, but, with that instrument in Mathieu's hands, this theory is thoroughly disapproved as neither Donatoni nor Boulez's compositions submit to its tenets. On the contrary, Mathieu's expert performances turn these works' intricate gestures and motives into the foundation of compelling musical narratives with which the listener cannot help but become enchanted.

Spells, a new retrospective collection highlighting the music of poet and composer Juli Nunlist, marks a touching journey through the earnest, romantic, and dramatic sounds of the late artist's compositional language. The album's works demonstrate Nunlist's appreciation for tradition and grandeur, and are driven by her remarkable gift for melody and clear fascination with instrumental texture. Nunlist's literary background seems to inform the potency of the album's vocal works, including the intimate a cappella choral arrangement on the title track, a choral setting of six poems by the English poet Kathleen Raine; and the epic Six Chansons from Prières dans l'arches, for vocal soloists and orchestra. Though these pieces feature contrasting instrumentations, they both display the composer's effortless text setting and brilliantly sensitive orchestration. In each, her compelling writing brings the given text to life, and activates the nuance of its narrative and symbolism with intricate vocal an dinstrumental arrangements. To this end, Spells uses subtle melodic, harmonic, and textural recurrences to convey an enveloping and somewhat cyclical form. The Six Chansons, on the other hand, build vast sonic wonderlands, imaged through Nunlist's incredible command of orchestral space and density. Each of the Chansons pairs vocalists and a large instrumental ensemble, with some of the work's most compelling moments arising from these unique and highly exposed pairings, such as solo mezzo-soprano and celeste. The album's romantic centerpiece arrives with Nunlist's String Quartet, a piece which hearkens back to the genre's seminal nineteenth century masterpiece with its captivating melodies and gripping subversions of functional harmony. Moreover, in a structural sense. Nunlist's String Quartet is one of the most impressive works on Spells, especially in its dramatic closing movement. In the final moments of this piece, the music refuses to repose, and, on the strength of a new theme, the quartet gains energy and determination. This surprising turn in the work's formal trajectory is unquestionably meaningful, and seems to demonstrate a fearless quality in Nunlist's compositional perspective.