New Focus Recordings
120 products
Perishable Structures / Bonnie Whiting
Nathan: Missing Words / International Contemporary Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, American Brass Quintet, Hub New Music, Neave Trio
Kate Soper: The Understanding of All Things / Soper, Pluta
Composer/vocalist Kate Soper teams up with longtime Wet Ink Ensemble colleague, composer, and electronic musician Sam Pluta in this bracing collection that explores the ever-shifting hierarchy between text-driven and music-dominated vocal work. Soper's characteristically clever approach to setting text is balanced by Pluta's ever inventive and sensitive marshaling of his unique arsenal of electronic textures. Writers set here include Franz Kafka, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, George Berkeley, and Parmenides.
Kate Soper is a composer, performer, and writer. Her work explores the integration of drama and rhetoric into musical structure, the slippery continuums of expressivity, intelligibility and sense, and the wonderfully treacherous landscape of the human voice. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, she has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has been a featured performer with ensembles including the LA Philharmonic New Music Group, the MIVOS quartet, and the American Composers Orchestra. As a writer of fiction and non-fiction, she has been published by McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Massachusetts Review, and PAJ. She is a co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble.
Aylward: Celestial Forms and Stories / Dear, Klangforum Wien
Baker, Cheah, Morali, Negron & Rigler: Hush
New Dances of the League of David
Levering: OceanRiverLake
Mirza: Partial Knowledge
Davidson: Barefoot
Wollschleger: Between Breath
Jolley, Magin, Newman & Sheehan: Bespoke Songs
Garcia: la vida que vendra
Cuban-American composer Orlando Jacinto García unveils "la vida que vendrá," showcasing four electro-acoustic solo works that culminate in an ensemble piece performed by the prolific loadbang ensemble. Through this collection, García invites listeners to delve into the realm of timbre, exploring the interplay between harmonious and divergent sounds.
One - New Music for Unaccompanied Violin
Cameron-Wolfe: Passionate Geometries
Futing: brokenSong
Reiko Füting's newest release "Broken Song" alternates choral settings of poetry by his long-term collaborator Kathleen Furthmann with a solo piano performance of his introspective work, "Five Meditations on Music from Luigi Rossi’s Collection," by pianist Jing Yang. Füting frequently uses quotation and references to early music as a jumping-off point in his work. The choral works are sung by Vocalconsort labia vocalia, conducted by Füting himself.
Soper: The Hunt
Composer Kate Soper releases The Hunt, a one act chamber opera inspired by a series of medieval tapestries known as "The Lady and the Unicorn." The work is scored for three sopranos who also play instruments onstage (violin and ukulele), and incorporates some of Soper's characteristic compositional interests, such as the use of diegetic music, into this intimate staging.
Lu: An Unopened Seashell
Composer Yi-Ting Lu releases her debut album, An Unopened Seashell, a collection of five solo works that demonstrates her capacity for using musical materials to explore extra-musical phenomena. Featuring performances by bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward, harpist Ben Melsky, pianist Lam Wong, saxophonist Thomas Giles, and guitarist Daniel Lippel, An Unopened Seashell is an exciting first release from a composer with a captivating balance between her management of development and structure, creative approach to instrumental writing, and a flair for expressive character.
of rivers - New Oboe Music / Bruckmann
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.
I long & seek after / Jessica Meyer
In 2019, Jessica Meyer’s first composer/performer portrait album Ring Out highlighted her lyrical, expressive works that celebrate the arts of interpretation and performance. In her sophomore effort, I long and seek after, she focuses solely on vocal music that features poetry by female and underrepresented writers who tackle universal themes such as loneliness, desire, love, heartbreak, justice, and the courage to embark on a journey of discovering oneself.
Serenade with a Dandelion: Armenian Chamber Music, Old & New
Violinist Movses Pogossian continues his admirable advocacy for the work of Armenian composers with this extensive 4 disc collection of new works, a follow up to his Modulation Necklace release in 2020 (FCR244). Divided into four volumes that focus on instrumental chamber music, art song, and solo piano music, Serenade with a Dandelion is an invaluable resource to explore 20th and 21st century Armenian repertoire, performed with the utmost sensitivity and commitment by Pogossian and his colleagues.
We Live the Opposite Daring / Ekmeles
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."
Chang: Mind Like Water
Composer Yu-Hui Chang's Mind Like Water presents three ensemble works and one solo cello piece that all feature a dialogue between musical elements. Sometimes this dialogue unfolds between contrasting energies, such as the percolating rhythms of the opening movement of In Thin Air versus the dramatic gestures in its second movement. Other times the conversation is between smaller musical elements, like the cells in Germinate or the flowing, through composed unfolding of the title work. The recording features performances by the Lydian String Quartet, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, Composers Conference Ensemble, and cellist Rhonda Rider.
Hersch: Poppaea / Ah Young Hong, Ensemble Solovoices, Ensemble Phoenix Basel
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.
Netzer: Dot : Line : Sigh / ~Nois, Mivos Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente
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.
O'Brien: Algebra of Night / Kendall, 21st Century Consort
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.
