Navona Records artist Clipper Erickson presents a solo piano album of works by composers Richard Brodhead (1947-), David Finko (1936-), and Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) entitled Tableau Tempest & Tango. The mostly Russian-themed album climaxes with Erickson's masterful interpretation of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The original version for solo piano precedes the iconic orchestrations by many composers, most notably Maurice Ravel. For Erickson, the piano is his orchestra, and he conducts it marvelously through every movement, down to the famed finale, The Great Gate of Kiev. Stellar, too, is Erickson's interpretation of Finko's Fantasia on a Medieval Russian Theme, which is inspired by a grievous poem about the oppression of the Russian people. Finko's Sonata No. 1 Solomon Mikhoels is next. It has folk roots-budding from the composer's interest in Yiddish and Slavic cultures. Erickson executes the polarity in dynamic contrast and rhythmic complexity with incredible manual dexterity. Finko writes that his Sonata No. 2 "expresses the acute feelings of a sensitive intellectual who goes through several stages of personal sufferings and struggle." Finko's Sonata No. 3, composed in 2009, is evocative of the evolution of the composer's technique since his first sonata in 1964. Erickson, too, shows an evolution - the melodies become more fluid, the separation between each note more precise. The listener is transported to Brazil where Erickson presents Richard Brodhead's Una Carta de Buenos Aires, a truly dark tango. It is mysterious and vacant, but Erickson handles it like a delicate flower. The finale is Brodhead's Sonata No. 2, Sonata Notturna, dark, too, in it's presentation, but Erickson's light shines on the meditation of terrors we hear at night. As evidenced on his previous recording, 2015's My Cup Runneth Over, Professor Erickson's prodigious performances are not only products of his superior musicianship, but also the in-depth studies he completes on every work performed. This is the best collection of such works to date. Tableau Tempest & Tango is a must-have for the collections of piano dilettantes and savants alike. As the LA Times notes, Erickson plays "with extraordinary dash and power and he never let[s] flamboyance obscure art."

Bearing musical witness to the versatile talents of two acclaimed northern California-based composers, The Life Before Us combines works from John G. Bilotta and Allan Crossman. Bilotta's cycle of Yeats Songs, performed by baritone Andrew R. White, highlights five of the poet's shorter lyrics in predominantly bi-tonal or atonal settings. His collection of Renaissance Songs is based on the work of several Elizabethan poets, including John Donne and Thomas Lodge. They're brilliantly delivered by tenor Justin Marsh. Bilotta draws on two American poets, Carl Sandburg and Edna St. Vincent Millay, for "Lost" and "Prayer to Persephone," two songs united by a single poetic theme and elegantly performed by soprano Cass Panuska accompanied by pianist Hadley McCarroll, who are also featured on The Hippocampus' Monologue, the closing aria from the first act of Bilotta's opera Rosetta's Stone. Allan Crossman's ten songs on The Life Before Us include four inspired by the Spanish poet Federico Garc�a Lorca and an international array of others: from Ireland (James Joyce), Germany (Hermann Claudius and Ricarda Huch), Russia (Alexander Scriabin), and America (Louis Phillips), performed by mezzo-soprano Megan Stetson and bass Richard Mix, with the composer himself at the piano. Crossman's three-movement Sonata fLux, with pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi, flows from the energetic "Moto Atlantico" through the vibrating "fLight of the Firefly" to the swirling fluidity of "Rondo a Pollock" - inspired, as it's title suggests, by Jackson Pollock's 'action painting' technique - and brings the eclectic program to an impressive conclusion.

Navona Records presents ANCESTRIAL VOICES, the Apollo Chamber Players’ next installment in their 20x2020 project. 20x2020 is an initiative to commission 20 new folk music-inspired and multicultural works by the end of the decade. This fiery release comprises four 20x2020 works from composers Gilad Cohen, Arthur Gottschalk, Malek Jandali, and Javier Farias. Gottschalk’s Imagenes de Cuba incorporates sounds and music from Cuban culture, from the Cuban national anthem to protest songs to the sounds of a busy Havana square. Cuban percussion virtuoso Adel Gonzalez joins for the final movement of the work, an exploration of historic salsa and pachanga dances. Cohen’s Three Goat Blues is inspired by the Passover prayer “Chad Gadya,” a fable that concerns a goat that falls victim to the natural laws of predator and prey. The soundscape of Javier Farias’ Andean Suite is situated on the Andean mountain region. He melds the sounds and virtuosity of a classical guitar with string quartet to evoke the ceremonial blood fight of the Peruvian Yawar Fiesta, the Altiplano (“high plains”) of the Andes, and La Diablada, the traditional dance of the Bolivian Oruro Carnival. Syrian-American composer Malek Jandali's String Quartet in E-flat Major connects Middle Eastern modes and Western classical forms. His passion for humanitarian efforts and the music of his home country emanates through expressive and powerful settings of centuries-old Syrian folk melodies, thoughtful interpreted by Apollo Chamber Players.

Award winning cellist Carmine Miranda and violinist Boris Abramov’s new Navona release Mozart / Beethoven: Violin and Cello Duets is an intimate gem of delightful chamber music from the Classical Period. Drawn from various duos by Beethoven and Mozart, this album is substantive, and showcases a wide stylistic breadth of late eighteenth century German instrumental music, from the sumptuous levity of the divertimento, to the full brilliance of sonata form. In this recording both performers balance concepts of classical performance, musical research and virtuosic dexterity combined with a high-definition audio engineering in order to create the most realistic sound and definitive version of these works. The pieces in this recording have never been paired together. Their unique styles, and carefully researched interpretations by Miranda and Abramov, create exceptional recordings with equal parts nuance and bravado.

An exploration of the unique timbral characteristics and technical extensions of wind instruments, Gregory Wanamaker's LIGHT AND SHADOWS, WAVES AND TIME is comprised of eight compositions that collectively illustrate the composer's ability to integrate various genre influences into a distinctive whole. His music has been lauded as "pure gold, shot through with tenderness and grace" by the San Francisco Chronicle and "achingly beautiful" by the Palm Beach Daily News. The album's first track, "des ondes et les temps," which translates to "of waves and time," explores the saxophone's full range of possibilities. A solo piece performed by Casey Grev, "des ondes et les temps" waxes and wanes and rises and falls. Wanamaker expands to a quartet setting for "... unsettled, unphased... ," whose rhythmic roots can be found in genres ranging from Eastern European folk and dance music to jazz and progressive rock. The somber, poignant "Elegy," written for and performed by the Akropolis Reed Quintet, was originally composed in memory of those who died in the September 11 attacks, while the virtuosic musical fantasy, "Ragahoro Breakdown" intricately weaves elements of North Indian Raga with characteristics of a Bulgarian Horo and subtle hints of American folk music. The track that represents the second half of the album's title is a sonata in two contrasting movements, the first a quiet nocturne, the second it's polar opposite, each exploring the extended timbres of the saxophone and extreme ranges of the piano, while the dynamic "Out of Mind, Into Body" travels a similar path taken by John Friedrich's solo bass clarinet. While less than two minutes in length, the spirited "Counterpunch" effectively alternates elements of driving American-style minimalist with a fusion of jazz and funk. The album concludes with a concr�te version of it's opening track, transforming it into the form of experimental music in which sound identities are intentionally manipulated to appear unconnected to their source, creating an ambient, layered soundscape.

Multi-award-winning composer Anthony Brandt makes his Navona Records debut with MATERNITY / ULYSSES, HOME. The album includes two very distinct compositions with equally distinct inspirations. Maternity for soprano and chamber orchestra is based on neuroscientist David Eagleman's short story "The Founding Mothers," published in Slate Magazine on Mother's Day, 2010. Eagleman reads the complete story on the album, which traces a maternal line back through history. In the space of seventeen minutes, the composition touches on the lives of twenty-one mothers spread across millions of years of history. Brandt's setting begins with a fragment of a lullaby sung to a child; as the piece progresses, that lullaby becomes more and more distorted as the evolutionary chain rewinds to early humans, primates, aquatic creatures, and eventually to a single cell. Ulysses, Home imagines Homer's story of Ulysses and his return to Penelope after the Trojan War in a more contemporary context, portraying the hero as a modern soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Scored for soprano, baritone and string quartet, and comprised of five continuous scenes, the opera's opening evokes the ferocity of combat and Ulysses' many tours of duty. As the couple is reunited, the battle music becomes submerged-but it is never gone entirely. Instead, it hovers in the background, gradually re-emerging as Ulysses struggles to leave the battlefield behind. Both pieces on MATERNITY / ULYSSES, HOME were recorded live in Houston TX. Riveting, moving, and altogether unforgettable, Brandt's album covers the multifaceted experiences of human life from it's very beginnings all the way to today.

Pianist Roberta Rust brings her own unique dynamism to the works of eight composers with whom she has had direct contact over the years. Dedicated to her late mother and step-daughter, this collection is as personal and touching as it is memorable for the broader audience. The album commences with Blues from George Rochberg's Carnival Music. This piece is true to it's name in style and form with the riffs and improvisations to prove it. Michael Anderson's Thirteen plus 4 and Sonata create a contemplative setting, where every tone cluster and arpeggio is connected to the next. Rust skillfully gives each phrase it's own story. Rust shares three selections from Leo Brouwer's Diez Bocetos. Moving from dark and mysterious to mischievous and experimental, the piece shows that after the darkness, light does emerge, leaving the listener on a hopeful plateau. In Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Lament, Rust pays close attention to structure, truly capturing the traditional yet experimental compositional style for which Zwilich is known. In Almeida Prado's Halley, all the forces of nature appear in this tonally-liberated work, likely influenced by the composer's studies with Messiaen and Boulanger. It is a voyage into the uncharted, but the finish is demure. In Phillip Evans' Suite 1945, the pianist graces us with a "Sarabande" and "Aria." The composer's affinity for Bartok is evident in this piano composition that spans a breadth of emotions. His exquisite "Minuetto" is nuanced and precious and Rust gives it the delicate delivery it deserves. Thomas L. McKinley's Fantasy Pieces for Piano demonstrates Rust's ability to portray more rustic, raw themes in her performances. Concluding the album are three selections from John Sharpley's Four Preludes. Rust thrills her listener with suspense, the latter party holding on in anticipation of her every note and phrase. The New York Times hailed Rust as "a powerhouse of a pianist-one who combines an almost frightening fervor and intensity with impeccable technique and spartan control."

For her debut album on PARMA recordings, SHE, Emily Sternfeld-Dunn serves as the voice of two of history's strongest female characters. The poetic musings in the lyrics soar with Sternfeld-Dunn's unmistakable soprano under the current of the tender, delicate melodies performed by pianist Amanda Pfenninger. Split into two mini-albums, SHE serves as a definitive recording that both showcases Sternfeld abilities as a vocalist and preserves the compositions for educational use. The first collection, titled "Too Few the Mornings Be (Eleven Songs for Soprano and Piano)," is composed by Ricky Ian Gordon. Gordon complimented his compositions with the poems of Emily Dickinson. Despite the relatively short run-times of these tracks, Sternfeld-Dunn takes the poet's philosophical themes and wraps them in raw emotion as though pleading for answers to life's biggest questions. The second half of this album "Eve-Song" features music by Jake Heggie and text by Philip Littell. Here, Heggie creates a moving soundtrack to Littell's poems about the biblical Eve. The composition is a monodrama. The longer compositions allows Sternfeld-Dunn to truly harness the character of Eve. She employs her vocal melodies like ancient chants exploring moods and feelings of wonderment, yearning, and even humor. The power of SHE comes from the strength of it's female performers. Sternfeld-Dunn and Pfenninger play off each other well to give life to these historically-renowned women, and translate their quests for life and purpose into a grand, new meaning.

Flutist Lindsey Goodman presents her second album, Returning To the Heights Unseen. Goodman grasps the listener's attention right away with Roger Dannenberg's "Separation Logic" for flute and live computer processing. In this futuristic work it is the listener's responsibility to determine what is real and what is imagined as his ears are fed short melodic phrases that have been electronically manipulated. It's this sort of electronic genius that allows Goodman to play a duet with herself in the second track, David Stock's "A Wedding Prayer" for 2 flutes, stark and striking. In Tony Zilincik's "I Asked You" for solo flute and mixed media, Goodman competes with samples of spoken text and percussion riffs in "Everything I Love." "I Play Music" boasts a similar challenge, but without percussion and with the addition of the atmospheric pads of a modern synthesizer and the sound of ocean waves. Elainie Lillios's "Sleep's Undulating Tide" for flute in C and live, interactive electroacoustics seems to be a continuation of the previous Zilincik track, until the entrance of a ghostly mezzo-soprano voice-the flutist's herself. Next is Linda Kernohan's "Demon: Daemon," a performance art piece in which the flutist is both musician and actor as she is seemingly possessed by an evil spirit. Randall Woolf's "The Line of Purples" for flute and pre-recorded electronics is the least harmonically experimental of the works so far, but perhaps the most complex to categorize. In Judith Shatin's "For the Fallen" for amplified flute and electronics the listener must decide who is fallen-Adam and Eve? A young soldier? Or the listener herself? Here Goodman offers the entire spectrum of possible flute sounds and colors though an electronic backdrop of dark chimes, pipes, gongs, and cymbals. This masterfully mixed album is a must-have for any new music or electronic music savant.

Missa Charles Darwin will be released as a special edition deluxe package on PARMA Recordings/Navona Records. It will include an all-new remastering of Missa Charles Darwin as well as liner notes, biographies, and excerpts from the Darwin texts featured in the music. A select number of the deluxe packages include a limited edition photograph hand signed by the composer and author. All of Gregory's proceeds from this release are being donated to musical education charities including Chorus America, American Choral Directors Association, and the International Society for Music Education. Vocal music with texts from Charles Darwin Performed by New York Polyphony

John A. Carollo's fourth Navona Records release, and follow up to 2017's The Transfiguration of GIovanni Baudino, is a wondrous musical journey through the world of desire. With Music From the Ethereal Side of Paradise, Carollo makes an impassioned plea for the power of romance. From the opening tensions and mystery of "Awakenings for String Orchestra" through the surprising, amorous joy of "Romanzo!" "Splendido Affare," and "La Tortura dell' Amore," Carollo's compositions communicate what mere words cannot: the inner rapture, utter fulfillment, and yes, the torture, of being in love. Shifting slightly, and perhaps more into the ethereal, "Metamorphosis No. 3 for Solo Violin" introduces a newer, more contemplative element. With short notes and runs, the violin first cries out with unanswered questions followed by furrowed introspection. Two Guitar Etudes follow, demonstrating both intimacy and technique, while maintaining an inquisitive tone throughout. As the album continues, we arrive at a vocal suite with "Little Gems" to be discovered throughout. T.S. Eliot wrote "... The end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time." Musid From the Ethereal Side of Paradise does just that. Concluding as we began with a sumptuous string orchestra, we arrive where we started - enlightened and wise from our journey.

Since the late 18th century, art songs have combined poetic vocals and equally intricate instrumental accompaniments to delight listeners with intimate compositions across the globe. The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Trio's CANTILENA spans the centuries and continents to highlight the form's enduring appeal. CANTILENA transports listeners through time and cultures as soprano Gillian Zammit, harpist Britt Arend, and cellist Frank Camilleri explore the national traditions and stylistic traits of individual composers who embraced the emotional impact and stripped-down arrangement of the art song. The album opens with works by Debussy, Duparc, Faur�, and Massenet, who exemplify the French penchant for precision and expression in elegant m�lodies with accompaniments that shine a light on the emotions expressed in their texts. The lyrical traditions of Italy then come into focus, with folksong-inspired pieces by Tosti featuring beautiful Italianate melodic phrases and a haunting instrumental by Tedeschi. The European tour is concluded with Strauss, with a series of lieder that range from joyous and playful to dark and brooding. The program takes a contemporary turn with Alexander Vella Gregory's Tluq, based on poetry by John Aquilina. The short song cycle spans the gamut of human emotion in relationships, beginning with the loss of love and regret to the eventual relief of reconciliation. To close things out, Heitor Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras pays homage to Bach's Baroque idioms with a heady fusion of Brazilian folk and popular music.

Eleanor Alberga explores the whole gamut of the human experience in WILD BLUE YONDER, an equally diverse and coherent set of four contemporary chamber music pieces. While written over the course of twenty-two years, these pieces burst the limits of both space and time. No-Man's-Land Lullaby reaches back over a century to World War I; Shining Gate of Morpheus enters the realm of the mystical; Succubus Moon explores the dark sides of the human psyche; and The Wild Blue Yonder offers a glimpse into a world that is at once alien and wonderful. Undauntedly, positively unsettling album; perfect listening for these unsettling times.

Timothy Kramer has recorded and released a full album of his orchestral works with Navona Records. The result: SENTINELS, an evocative representation of Kramer's compositions that span several decades, with influences ranging from Baroque to rock. The bold, prominent horn introduction of BACH meets ESCHER opens the album with a sense of mystery. This is the first movement of Symphony B-A-C-H, the largest work on the recording. Drawing from his training as a music scholar and theorist as well as a composer, Kramer chose to base each movement of this symphony on an overarching musical texture: the first focuses on polyphony, then monophony, homophony, and finally, cacophony. Everything is a deliberate choice: even the individual notes chosen by Kramer in certain sections can be "decoded" to reveal the names "Bach" and "Escher." Next comes A Fivescore Festival, a work commissioned by the City of Kent WA for their Centennial celebration. The piece, a series of four preludes and a rondo, has a spirit of resoluteness which imagines the city marching through successive generations toward the promise of the future. Sentinels of the Dance breaks from the traditionalism of the preceding piece, with the timpani and other instrument sections snarling and biting at each other with spontaneous, syncopated rhythms. Finally comes All in Golden Measure, another commissioned piece-this time for the Jacksonville Symphony Society celebrating the 50th anniversary of their Symphony Orchestra. Appropriately, Kramer chose to integrate the golden ratio into the fabric of this composition. Here, Kramer's sensitivity to rhythm and timbre allows him to conjure up images of the train whistling through Jacksonville, the hissing of cicadas, and the electric excitement resonating through the summer air from the racetrack.

Introducing the album is Lee Actor's Duo for Violin and Cello. The track, which won the Eva Thompson Phillips Award for Composition in 1979, is a short, textured, and powerful piece. In ABA form, the energy of the stringed instruments swings like a parabola from the height of sharp, angular rhythms down into deep and gentle expressions and builds up to a sharp, explosive climax. Contrasting with this minimal violin-cello duo, Peter Greve's Aria is slow and expansive. The composer pairs the trumpet and organ, mastering the interweaving of the brass instrument's long slurring path around the subtle foundation laid by the keys. The sonata Marian is a composition created by Steven Kennedy. Kennedy's composition represents a polyptych of the Life of Jesus Christ, interpreted through the grace of the violin and piano. In four carefully composed pieces, Kennedy guides the listener through Christ's beginnings ("Advent l'enfant"), alongside Christ as he walks to the cross ("Lento Doloroso"), the thunderous early stages of the movement of his tomb ("Resurrectio"), and finally the arrival of the Holy Spirit ("Jubilatio Spiritu"). Sidney Bailin employs jazz influences in Blue Plea. Writing for clarinet, the tone of the piece is influenced by the 2nd movement of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet. Though the atmosphere of the piece often feels improvisational, the careful calculation of Bailin's every note creates a story, one of sorrow and pleading, that introduces subjects and counter-subjects through his use of riffs. The last track of the album, Allen Brings' Duo for Flute and Piano, closes the album with three movements. Echoing some of the themes of J.S. Bach's inventions, the flute and piano create a relationship that is at once contentious and allied. The composition creates a back-and-forth between the two instruments like a game of tag, influencing each others' performances in both moments of softness and ferocity.