This debut Navona Records release highlights six contemporary composers from the northeastern Connecticut Composers, Inc., who reflect the diversity and progression of today’s music. Droyßiger Wald, by Michael K. Slayton, Ken Steen’s piece for piano trio, re: Moon in the Afternoon, Stephen Michael Gryc’s deep-diving loon, BA(da)SS by Ryan Jesperson, Time Pieces by Margaret Collins Stoop and Rose Sonata by Elizabeth R. Austin.

Rational Passions, Greg Bowers’ debut Navona release, takes listeners on a trip through the psychological world of music. + Each piece explores the relationship between the notes played and the emotions experienced, suggesting that emotional meaning can be rationalized. + The Boston String Quartet and pianist Karolina Rojahn performs the works on this album. + Mr. Bowers is a Professor of Theory & Composition at William and Mary College.

Drawing on popular music and minimalism of the late 20th c. while recalling the 19th c. Romantic tradition, composer and pianist Scott Pender explores the expressive natures of four instruments – piano, violin, viola, and cello – on his debut solo Navona release, 88 12. The Rhapsody, Elegy and Finale is a virtuosic study in contrasting mood and texture. The Viola Sonata is a work of rhythmic pulse and intensity, while the deeply lyrical Cello Sonata is a work of sweeping dramatic gesture. The string trio Veil of Ignorance provides three differing approaches to the same thematic material.

On Inner Music, his Navona Records debut, composer Ruud van Eeten presents three works highlighting the refinement and control evident in his compositional style. +Throughout the four movements of Piano Quintet No. 1, the composer adds no excess; every note has a role. +Punctus Einz, based on Bach’s The Art of Fugue, builds layers of textures that are heightened by the timbres of the saxophone quartet. +Jhero pulls inspiration from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.

The 28th edition of the Society of Composers, Inc. release series and the 4th on Navona Records, Pendulum extrapolates and elaborates on several themes relating to variation, transformation, repetition, and more. This installment features works from seven SCI composers: Doron Kima’s As From a Dream, Metamorphoses II by Clifton Callender, Jorge Variego’s Walls, Alex Freeman’s Night on the Prairies, Wing Over Wing by Eric Nathan, Chris Arrell’s Narcissus/Echo and October by Philip Carlsen.

Canadian-born composer Sydney Hodkinson’s (b. 1934) second Navona release, A Keyboard Odyssey, is a journey through the world of the solo keyboard, exploring the versatility and spirit of both the piano and organ through the composer’s perceptive style. + Mr. Hodkinson currently holds the Almand Chair of Music Composition at Stetson University. + “…a composer who projects his musical-self outwards with a very personal yet very much contemporary expression.” - Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review

"•A person’s life is marked by contradicting events—some peaceful and light-hearted, others tempestuous, desolate, and fearful. Sunlight And Storms, composer and pianist Lionel Sainsbury’s (b. 1958, U.K.) debut solo release on Navona Records, illustrates these conditions and many more. • A retrospective collection of the composer’s piano works from almost 20 years of his career, this album consists of pieces ranging from tangos to toccatas, character pieces to ostinatos."

"Alexandra Ottaway’s solo Navona Records debut Tetrahedron Dreams draws on a diverse set of genres and stylistic sources including atonal, folk, chant, dance, and more Since its founding by Harold Rosenbaum in 1988, The New York Virtuoso Singers have won several prestigious awards as well as collaborated with groups like the American Composers Orchestra and the Juilliard Orchestra."

"•On her second Navona release, composer and oboist Patricia Morehead showcases her ability to incorporate varying instrumentation into her compositions. • With this variation, the composer creates a world of imagery, setting poems by such writers as Margaret Atwood and Anne Sexton in several of her pieces. • Morehead adopts some of the technique and style associated with the Second Viennese School composers; yet, in most cases, Morehead implements more tonal structure throughout her works."

The works on Unbridled, Sergio Cervetti's fourth solo Navona CD, represent his continuing aesthetic of combining traditional and postmodern techniques and instrumentation. +The title track is his response to the financial crisis. +Five Salvador Dali paintings inspired Mémoires du Paradis. +…from the earth… treats a passage from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with reconfiguring minimalist techniques. +Mr. Cervetti was Master Teacher of Music at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, from 1972-97 and 2007-08.

• Abhanden features six Chris Wild stylistically diverse compositions for solo cello and small ensemble. • Chris Wild is a cellist, conductor, and teacher. He has performed in many world premieres as the cellist for the acclaimed Dal Niente Ensemble • (The Dal Niente Ensemble) is “a model of what contemporary music needs” - Chicago Tribune

Michael G. Cunningham: Sonic Flight

"•With uncompromised interpretation, duo526, the powerful union of violinist Kerry • DuWors and pianist Futaba Niekawa, presents Ballade, their Navona debut, performing violin sonatas by Janáček, Enescu and Grieg—repertoire rarely performed together. • Each of these three sonatas introduce themes from European folk tunes and exalted Romanticism. • Founded in 2011 while DuWors and Niekawa were attending the Eastman School in Rochester, NY, duo526 has performed throughout the United States andCanada."

"• The debut CD from chamber jazz group Douglas Detrick’s AnyWhen Ensemble. The ensemble was awarded the New Jazz Works: Commission and Ensemble Development grant from Chamber Music America in 2011. This extremely competitive grant commissioned The Bright And Rushing World. • Mr. Detrick’s AnyWhen Ensemble has performed at The Jazz Gallery and The Stone in NYC, the Festival of New Trumpet Music and the Is That Jazz? Festival in Seattle, "

"• The works on Polarities express the emotions, feelings, and scenes associated with opposites. • Alex Freeman is an award-winning composer. • Debut US release for Hong Kong based composer Chi-hin Leung • Katherine Saxon is director of New Century Voices, a choral group dedicated to new music performance • “Mathew Fuerst so vigorously controls his material that it never verges on the sentimental” - Alex Ross • Album web-app. includes study scores, liner notes, and more. www.navonareacords.com/polarities "

Four Quartets of Songs & Arias, the debut Navona release by composer Roger Bourland, takes US on a touching journey by way of works for voice (Juliana Gondek) and piano (William Lumpkin). The album features four song cycles, each a four song set depicting a range of emotion and feeling. 'Four Apart Songs' depict the agony of being apart from something or someone, both physically and emotionally. 'Four End Songs' express the notion of endings in a variety of contexts. 'Four Marian Songs]' tenderly describe two Marian apparitions-remarkable images of the Virgin, and 'Four Xmas Songs' provide humorous relief about secular Christmas as a contrast to the emotional nature of the rest of the works on the album.

• Three essential works for clarinet from Paul Hindemith, two of which are making their premiere Stoltzman-performed releases. • The foremost clarinetist in the world. Virtuosity, technique, imagination and communicative power sum up this legendary artist. • Pianist Yehudi Wyner is a former teacher of Richard Stoltzman and former student of Paul Hindemith. • Album Web Application includes interviews with Stoltzman and Wyner, study scores, liner notes, and more www.navonarecords.com/resolve

Foundations

The debut release on Navona Records by Welsh composer Brian Noyes features two orchestral works that reference the life and works of John Clare-a 19th Century Northamptonshire peasant-poet. Inspired by Clare's 'Journey Out of Essex' - a poignant account of his escape from a mental asylum and his 80-mile walk home looking for his imaginary love, Noyes has sought to reflect the poet's real and illusionary worlds as depicted in his evocative text.

This compilation features 11 English choral works by 5 contemporary composers, performed by 6 unique ensembles showcasing the diversity and depth of the choral subgenre. On-disc enhanced content includes extended full-color liner notes, study scores for analysis and performance consideration, and more.

Wind Devil & CO. Was created, composed and performed by Sergio Cervetti, and is his third Navona release. The music, termed 'Dance Electronics' by the composer, is evocative and austere yet simultaneously whimsical and playful. 'This Music reflects [Cervetti's] intimate and extensive collaboration with the world of dance as a composer favors by many experimental dancers' (The New York Times).

Expanding upon the first release in this collection, Past Recollections: Music for Clarinet & Piano, Vol. 1, the composer continues to celebrate past events through musical narratives, tenderly and radiantly performed by clarinetist Michael Norsworthy and pianist Yoko Hagino. On this album, Vollrath takes a more personal approach than previously, conveying stories about small towns, like Troy, Alabama where the composer has taught since 1965; Christmas parties; and inspiring musicians in pieces such as Tim and Trina's Ball, Trina's Path, and Once a By Gone Time. Odd Pieces illustrates magical pictures of a young blossoming mind. One of these pieces, "Gaby with the Green Eyes," is about a young girl who lived with Debussy in Paris. The album culminates with Evan's Haven, a companion piece to "Little Violet," featured on the first volume, and written for clarinetist Timothy Phillips when his son was born. The first volume of Vollrath's works for clarinet and piano on Navona Records, Past Recollections (NV5988), is praised for having "a straightforward lyricism at times, and a dance-like colloquial feel at others, but always a nicely unpretentious air of somewhat complicated simplicity" (Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review) The album features clarinetist Michael Norsworthy, hailed for playing "with beautiful tonal nuances" (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review), and "technical agility, musicality, and control" (Clarinet Magazine). American Record Guide says, "The tenderness and effort Michael Norsworthy puts into each note on the clarinet is enviable" These works feature pianist Yoko Hagino, who has received prizes at several competitions, including the Steinway Society Piano Competition, the First International Chamber Music Competition, and the All-Japan Selective Competition of the International Mozart Competition, among others. Vollrath's music has been recorded by Grammy Award-winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and the highly acclaimed pianist Karolina Rojahn His compositional output includes an opera, orchestral music, symphonies for winds, chamber music, and solo piano works. Since 1965, Vollrath has been a member of the music faculty at Troy University in Alabama.

On his eclectic Navona debut, the composer and double bassist David Arend explores several frontiers in a collection that features the Moravian Philharmonic and special guest tenor saxophone player Salim Washington. Straddling the idioms of new music, jazz and electro-acoustic music, Arend's compositions similarly cover a rich sonic landscape informed with his multi-genre sensibilities.

For decades, John Rojak has been a staple in American brass music, performing with a number of chamber ensembles and orchestras such as American Brass Quintet, Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony; in Broadway shows including Les Mis�rables and The Producers; in big bands of Mel Lewis, Bob Mintzer, and Gerry Mulligan; and contributing to the pedagogy of the bass trombone as a faculty member of several institutions, including The Juilliard School, The Hartt School, and Aspen Music Festival and School. Needless to say he has taken the bass trombone and it's repertoire to new heights in the classical, contemporary, jazz, and commercial genres. Rojak presents his debut release on Navona Records, Rojak Rocks, a culmination of his experiences until now in the contemporary music scene, both in New York and around the world. Each of the works on this album have a history for Rojak, a time and place that marks a transcending moment in his prolific career. Whether coming to him from a close colleague or through an unexpected opportunity, the works on this collection have contributed to the development of Rojak's extensive and varying career as a brass player. Not only do these pieces illustrate significant moments in Rojak's career and in the development of new works for bass trombone, some of them incorporate elements of genres in which he worked, including jazz and commercial music.

In THE STOLEN CHILD, Scott Perkins builds vast and stunning worlds out of a handful of voices. Vibrant, facile, and confident, Perkins’ choir writing is state-of-the-art and makes a modern musical statement while retaining a clear attachment to choral music’s longstanding tradition. To this end, Perkins’ compositions seem to balance the fluid and direct expression of late Renaissance a cappella masterpieces, while also possessing a decidedly contemporary approach to timbre and texture.Though the classic beauty of Perkins’ music might strike the listener most immediately, the multi-movement works featured on THE STOLEN CHILD come to life thanks to Perkins’ inventive use of vocal color and sound. For example, at the end of “Whereto answering, the sea,” the final movement of A Word Out of The Sea, Perkins builds accompanying material out of the distinct sound of the letter ‘s’, setting it specifically across the ensemble to produce a clearly rhythmic effect. The entire album is peppered with similar devices, all of which prove Perkins’ masterful command of the ensemble’s density and layering.Tracking Perkins’ exquisite choral techniques should not distract from the overall splendor of the three compositions featured on THE STOLEN CHILD. Each work is a world unto itself, activated by Perkins’ neo-modal language and superlative instincts for form. The album’s title track probably covers the most expressive ground, though A Word Out of The Sea and The World Of Dream are also undeniably strong compositions. The Stolen Child, however, excels in painting a diversity of sonic images, using only the human voice. More sullen in tone than the other two works on the disc, The Stolen Child narrates a dark journey made more haunting by the irreproachable beauty of its telling.Also a stellar element in THE STOLEN CHILD is Michigan-based vocal ensemble Audivi’s performance, which is both moving and immaculate. Although Perkins’ compositional style does not fall far from the a cappella tradition of Monteverdi or Gesualdo, Audivi responds to the challenge of these works’ intricate textures, delicate sonorities, and shifting, expressive colors with a resounding, unqualified triumph.

Fresh Dimensions features works by two of our era's most esteemed composers: Craig Madden Morris and Paul John Stanberry. Both award winning masters in their field, bringing the two together for this album has created a listening experience of the highest caliber. Morris' Concerto for Violin and Orchestra presented here was originally written for violinist Christine Kwak. Frank Restesen performs the work here with stunning virtuosity and emotion. The suites by Stanberry became instant hits. The music is programmatic, and was composed for the Sam Ashworth film about Robert McCloskey, author of Make Way for Ducklings. The compositions' distinctly American style shines in these works.

Soprano Shudong Braamse presents a selection of Romantic French art songs, illustrating Massenet's arresting motives, graceful vocal lines, and well-placed accompaniments. Exhibiting Massenet's meticulous style, Braamse creates tender and dynamic imagery, intertwining punctuated piano lines with her sensitive voice, which suggests the colors of a clarinet, while turbulent textures denote climactic moments of emotion. Massenet enriches motives and themes with the incorporation of religious scenes and the evocations of remote locales in works such as the austere Le Petit Je�sus and exotic Chanson and a louse. In a critique of the evolution of Massenet's operas, Debussy wrote that "[the composer] surely would have been wiser to go on expressing his genius in delicate colors and whispering melodies and in light airy structures." These melodies provide a glimpse of the supple creativity that Debussy so valued, and the effortless confidence, control, and delicacy Braamse offers Massenet's captivating songs.

A compilation of contemporary chamber works by composers Daniel Perttu, Hans Bakker, Steven Block, Peter Greve, and Kevin M. Walczyk that highlight the melodic, emotive, and dramatic styles offered by some of today's chamber music. Daniel Perttu's work The Storr of Trotternish is a musical reaction inspired by the dramatic scenery of the rocky peaks on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Hans Bakker offers three works: Brenne for piano and violin introduces a musical mantra in a repeated hymn-like melody, while Leys III for flute, violin and guitar also uses a short hymn-like melody yet in a different setting and style than the former work. Hortus Conclusus, meaning "enclosed garden," is, as the composer states, a "metaphor for the innermost self of every human being" in which a key to the enclosure is hidden inside. Steven Block's 5 Plainchants for Clarinet delivers meditative pieces that are freely derived from Byzantine Rite tradition of the late 19th century, allowing the passages to flow in a manner that emulates the cantorial practice in which chanting imitates speech and song rhythms. Peter Greve's Trio for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano is written in memoriam of a friend and illustrates the different aspects of her outgoing personality, celebrating her love for nature, philosophy, and altruism. A Goodbye Too Soon by Kevin M. Walczyk takes it's name and inspiration from a poem written by Dr. Paul Baxter that laments the death of a friend, and whose formal structure, expression, and empathetic meaning guides the composer's iteration. Daniel Perttu's music has been performed in Europe, Asia, South America, and throughout the United States.

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

Figments is a compilation of eclectic and unique contemporary works for chamber ensemble. The theme throughout the works is the dramatic, mysterious, and inventive through use of extended techniques and diverse instrument combinations. Featuring works by award winning composers Richard Campanelli, Mark Dal Porto, Paula Diehl, Jason Lovelace, Mel Mobley, and David Nisbet Stewart, listeners of this album are in the company of some of our generation's great artists. Whether it be Campanelli's nod to Bart�k in the second movement of his piece, or Paula Diehl's example of her own system of composition which she developed, the creativity and masterful artistry of these composers shine through in this recording.