Oboist Kyle Bruckmann, founding member of the wind quintet Splinter Reeds, releases "of rivers," a collection of vanguard music for the instrument that highlights its integration with electronics, improvisational practices, extended techniques, and microtonality. The album features music by Jessie Cox, Hannah A. Barnes, Helen Grime, Linda Bouchard, Christopher Burns, and Bruckmann himself.

Following up on a debut release with New Focus that was hailed as "spectacular" by The Whole Note and "remarkable" by textura, Ekmeles vocal ensemble, led by director Jeffrey Gavett, brings their crystalline performance style to new works by Zosha Di Castri, James Weeks, Hannah Kendall, Shawn Jaeger, and Erin Gee on "We Live the Opposite Daring."

Composer Michael Hersch's epic setting of Poppaea turns the classic tale of Nero inside out, examining it from multiple angles and unearthing the powerful lessons it holds for contemporary society. Hersch, along with vocalists Ah Young Hong, Steve Davislim, Silke Gang, with Ensemble Phoenix Basel and Ensemble SoloVoices, delivers a wrenching version of the tale, challenging assumptions and forcing the listener to ask difficult questions about history and the inherent biases that are ingrained into its mainstream understanding.

Composer Osnat Netzer releases her debut recording, featuring performances by Ensemble Dal Niente in full ensemble and chamber settings, saxophonist Geoffrey Landman, Mivos Quartet, flutist Eric Lamb, violist Michael Hall, pianist Marianne Parker, and the ~Nois saxophone quartet. Netzer's music engages with various abstract concepts, including cognitive linguistics and the experience of physicality.

Percussionist Christopher Whyte releases Cold Stability, a collection of works for different percussion instruments that explores paths to quietude through sound. Featuring works by Toshio Hosokawa, Sarah Hennies, Lou Harrison, and Whyte himself, the album travels through a variety of timbres, most of which inhabit a space which subverts the expectation for a bombastic percussion recording.

Pittsburgh based composer Eric Moe releases Strenuous Pleasures, a collection of chamber music written in the decade 2010-2020. Featuring performances by counter)induction, Da Capo Chamber Players, Horszowski Trio, cellist David Russell, and saxophonist Elliott Riley, this recording demonstrates Moe’s seamless navigation between ecstatic, complicated rhythmic material and flowing, lyrical music, as well as his unique approach to musique concrète within the electro-acoustic realm.

Composer David Shapiro and The Crossing release Sumptuous Planet: A Secular Mass, a work that extols a science based stance on the universe and the nature of existence while using a musical form that is firmly rooted in the Christian Mass. In this way, Shapiro straddles an interesting line, acknowledging and participating in the awe and reverence that musical masses are designed to express, while diverging from the tradition of associating that awe with belief in a divine being.

Composer Eric Nathan's Some Favored Nook is so much more than a vocal setting of Emily Dickinson texts; as ambitious an undertaking as that can be. Weaving Dickinson's poetry into a libretto that is framed around the correspondence between her and noted abolitionist and author Thomas Wentworth Higginson; Nathan; along with librettist Mark Campbell and performer collaborators Tony Arnold; William Sharp; and Seth Knopp; has created an evening length dramatic work between two characters that speaks to themes of friendship; national division; morality; and conscience.

John Aylward's chamber opera Oblivion tackles questions of memory; self-knowledge; and meaning through its rich; colorful score for four voices; viola; cello; double bass; electric guitar; and electronics. Inspired by the writings of Dante and Joseph Campbell; Aylward grapples with self-inquiry; crafting a fantastical tale that prompts timeless existential conundrums that we all face.

Byrne:Kozar:Duo (Corrine Byrne, soprano and Andy Kozar, trumpet) release their debut recording, It Floats Away From You, featuring compositions by Alexandre Lunsqui, Beth Wiemann, Li Qi, Lei Liang, Vid Smooke, Jeffrey Gavett, Christian Carey, and Chris Cresswell. Not unlike in Kozar's ensemble loadbang (baritone voice, trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet), the music written for Byrne:Kozar:Duo displays great variety in the treatment of the voice, sometimes presenting it as an integrated instrument with the trumpet, and at other times in a more discrete text presentation mode.

Indiana-based composer Eugene O'Brien and the 21st Century Consort (contemporary ensemble led by Christopher Kendall in residence at the Smithsonian Museum) release Algebra of Night, featuring two ensemble works that highlight O'Brien's rich harmonic palette and carefully articulated structural approach.

Trumpeter Jon Nelson and percussionist Tom Kolor release Secret Messages, a collection of works for duo by Moshe Shulman, Dave Ballou, Jeffrey Stadelman, Dafnis Prieto, and Emil Harnas. The works represented take advantage of this duo's unique timbral range, mining a representative range of aesthetic approaches to produce a cohesive collection that contributes several new works to the repertoire.

Cellist Ashley Bathgate releases her third solo album featuring her performance of Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint alongside three new works that take advantage of the versatile format of soloist with layered tracks. Composers Emily Cooley, Alex Weiser, and Fjóla Evans wrote works that expand on Reich’s template, exploring harmonic, dramatic, and gestural contrasts. The homogeneity of timbre inherent in works for layered tracks of the same instrument gives the listener a sense they are hearing a hyper-cello; the compositional strategy both echoes studio techniques that are ubiquitous in commercial music while also amplifying more Romantic impulses of extroverted expression and immersive textures.

The structure and motivic material in Fjóla Evans’ Augun is inspired by the traditional Icelandic song, Vísur Vatnsenda Rósu. Evans organizes overlapping motives taken from the traditional song and creates a shimmering, undulating texture, pushing and pulling between dissonant and consonant voicings. The atmospheric quality of the work tells a non-linear story, painting a complex mix of mournful and resolute emotions.

Emily Cooley’s approach to the layered ensemble was to focus on various groupings of the eight celli as they take on shifting roles in the overall texture. She writes of Assemble, “The title describes what I felt like I was doing while composing: assembling a sort of puzzle. Only at the end of the piece do the eight parts truly assemble into one voice. They all play a slow, resonant chorale that fades into silence." The work ventures through moments of insistent pulse, poignant anticipation, and exuberant lyricism, expanding beyond the bounds of mere assemblage.

Composer John Liberatore writes poetic music that often embeds actual poetry into the fabric of its composition. While only one of the four works on "Catch Somewhere" includes sung text, each piece is inspired in one way or another by poetry, mirroring a literary approach by assigning sounds to express essential and ineffable meaning. The Zohn Collective, conducted by Timothy Weiss, delivers poignant performances.

Boston based microtonal specialist Julia Werntz releases "Someone Who Loves You Throws Me At You," a collection of chamber works with and without voice that demonstrate her highly personal style, often using microtones as her chosen pitch language, but capturing expressive truths that frame the emotional landscape of the piece instead of being dictated by its composite materials. Featured performers include violinist Gabriela Diaz, cellist David Russell, pianist John McDonald, sopranos Stephanie Lamprea and Rose Hegele, mezzo-soprano Katherine Growdon, clarinetist Kevin Price, violist Anna Griffis, the Ludovico Ensemble, and conductor Jeffrey Means.