2017 release, an album of Bach works recorded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile, and bassist Edgar Meyer. The album comprises works by J.S. Bach originally written for keyboard instruments, plus one sonata for viola da gamba. In 2011, Ma, Thile, and Meyer-along with Stuart Duncan-collaborated on The Goat Rodeo Sessions, which won two Grammy Awards. The New York Times said of Yo-Yo Ma, who is considered one of today's foremost interpreters of Bach, "Other cellists hear Bach's suites the same as Mr. Ma, but few if any have the technical means to transfer their imaginings so precisely into sound." Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras worldwide and his recital and chamber music activities. His discography includes more than one hundred albums, eighteen of which have won Grammy Awards. Ma also serves as the Artistic Director of Silkroad, an organization he founded to promote cross-cultural performance and collaborations. More than eighty works have been commissioned specifically for the Silk Road Ensemble, which tours annually. Ma also serves as the Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Negaunee Music Institute and in 2016 was appointed Artistic Advisor to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

2019 release. On Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw's album Orange, Attacca Quartet performs six of her pieces for string quartet. The string quartet form "has existed for hundreds of years, but there's something, for me, beautiful and ritualistic about coming back to that form," says Shaw. "It's something familiar, and yet you can keep on opening these doors and diving down these little rabbit holes... This album is a celebration of the simple, immediate, unadorned beauty of a natural, every day, familiar thing."

2022 release. In These Times is a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven's personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community. It's the recording that he's been trying to create for 7+ years, as it's been consistently in process in the background while he's put forth a prolific run of releases including: In The Moment (2015), Highly Rare (2017), Where We Come From (2018), Universal Beings (2018), We're New Again (2020), Universal Beings E&F Sides (2020), and Deciphering the Message (2021). With contributions from over a dozen musicians and creative partners from his tight-knit circle of collaborators - including Jeff Parker, Junius Paul, Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, and Marquis Hill - the music was recorded in five different studios and four live performance spaces while McCraven engaged in extensive post-production work at home. Featuring orchestral, large ensemble arrangements interwoven with the signature "organic beat music" sound that's become his signature, the album is an evolution and a milestone for McCraven, the producer. But moreover, it's the strongest and clearest statement we've yet to hear from McCraven, the composer.

The album features eight new compositions by Halvorson, performed with her sextet Amaryllis; the improvisatory band that performed on her critically praised 2022 albums Amaryllis and Belladonna comprises Halvorson, Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Jacob Garchik (trombone), and Adam O'Farrill (trumpet). Labelmate Laurie Anderson also is featured on the album track "Incarnadine."All the music on Cloudward was written in 2022, mostly in the fall and winter, when things started moving forward. Life felt like a creaky machine starting up again," she continues. "Air travel, however chaotic, had resumed, and we were once again cloudward. Performances and tours and recordings were happening after a long hiatus and with a renewed sense of gratitude. This band, for me, was quite simply working, both musically and personally, and the main thing I felt while writing the music was optimism."

The original score for Ken Burns's 2024 two-part documentary, LEONARDO da VINCI. The album features performances by the composer's longtime collaborators Attacca Quartet, So Percussion, and Roomful of Teeth as well as John Patitucci. Shaw wrote and recorded new music for LEONARDO da VINCI, marking the first time a Ken Burns film has featured an entirely original score. LEONARDO da VINCI is directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon. The film, which explores the life and work of the fifteenth century polymath Leonardo da Vinci, is Burns's first non-American subject.

Brad Mehldau / AFTER BACH II - The album comprises four preludes and one fugue from J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as the Allemande from Partita for Keyboard No. 4 in D Major, interspersed with seven compositions or improvisations by Mehldau inspired by the complementary works of the Baroque master-including his Variations on Bach's Goldberg Theme. Mehldau, speaking of the "universality" of Bach's music, says in his liner note: "The more you try to engage with him, the more your own personality becomes visible, unavoidably. You are not playing Bach-Bach is playing you, in the sense that he lays you bare... The greatest choice you make at all times is not out of an absence, but from what is there, in it's totality. Specifically, it is the constant choice you make in how to negotiate between harmony and melody."He continues, "This is why Bach is a model for me as a jazz musician. In my improvised solos, I want to make melodic phrases that carry harmonic implication, and create harmony that moves in a melodic fashion. This is a crucial component in the storytelling." After Bach II follows 2018's After Bach album, which originated in a work Mehldau first performed in 2015-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, The Royal Conservatory of Music, The National Concert Hall, and Wigmore Hall-called Three Pieces After Bach.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2018 release from the jazz great. On Seymour Reads the Constitution!, Brad Mehldau Trio performs three Mehldau originals combined with interpretations of pop songs (Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson), jazz tunes (Elmo Hope, Sam Rivers), and one work from the American songbook (Frederick Loewe's "Almost Like Being in Love"). Brad Mehldau moved to New York City and first came to prominence as a member of current label mate Joshua Redman's quartet in the 1990s before becoming a bandleader himself. His trio, which tours the world extensively, made eight acclaimed recordings for Warner Bros. The pianist's time with Nonesuch has been equally productive.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2017 release from pianist Tigran Hamasyan. An Ancient Observer is the follow-up to Hamasyan's label debut, Mockroot, of which the Guardian said, "A phenomenal piano player, an irrepressible entertainer, a promising experimenter with hi-tech gizmology and a creative world-music composer. Mockroot plays vivaciously to all those strengths." The musician says of his new solo recording, which features ten new compositions: "These songs are musical observations about the world we live in now, and the weight of history we carry with us." An Ancient Observer's songs-two of which are based on Armenian melodies-were written over the last four years. Some of the pieces are through-composed and completely written out, while others are composed with ample space for Hamasyan to improvise. Many include vocals layered into the mix. As with most of his compositions, Hamasyan cites a wide range of influences, from Baroque dance to hip-hop, with pedals connected to a synthesizer on a few tracks-while the sounds of his native country also are present, as always.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2018 release, the third recording from pianist and composer Tigran Hamasyan. A companion to last year's An Ancient Observer, For Gyumri includes five songs. Hamasyan says of the two records: "These songs are musical observations about the world we live in now, and the weight of history we carry with us." Hamasyan named the album in tribute to his hometown of Gyumri, Armenia, where he was born in 1987 before relocating with his family to Los Angeles in 2003. He currently resides in Erevan, Armenia. Hamasyan began playing piano at the age of three and started performing in festivals and competitions when he was eleven, winning the Montreux Jazz Festival's piano competition in 2003. He released his debut album, World Passion, in 2005 at the age of seventeen. In addition to awards and critical praise, Hamasyan has built a dedicated international following, as well as praise from Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Brad Mehldau.

Double vinyl LP pressing. The original score for Ken Burns's 2024 two-part documentary, LEONARDO da VINCI. The album features performances by the composer's longtime collaborators Attacca Quartet, So Percussion, and Roomful of Teeth as well as John Patitucci. Shaw wrote and recorded new music for LEONARDO da VINCI, marking the first time a Ken Burns film has featured an entirely original score. LEONARDO da VINCI is directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon. The film, which explores the life and work of the fifteenth century polymath Leonardo da Vinci, is Burns's first non-American subject.

Vinyl LP pressing. 2023 release. This live solo album features the pianist and composer's interpretations of nine songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and one by George Harrison. Although other Beatles songs have long been staples of Mehldau's solo and trio shows, he had not previously recorded any of the tunes on Your Mother Should Know. The album ends with a David Bowie classic that draws a connection between The Beatles and pop songwriters who followed. Your Mother Should Know was recorded in September 2020 at Philharmonie de Paris.

Mary Halvorson - Cloudward / The album features eight new compositions by Halvorson, performed with her sextet Amaryllis; the improvisatory band that performed on her critically praised 2022 albums Amaryllis and Belladonna comprises Halvorson, Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Jacob Garchik (trombone), and Adam O'Farrill (trumpet). Labelmate Laurie Anderson also is featured on the album track "Incarnadine."All the music on Cloudward was written in 2022, mostly in the fall and winter, when things started moving forward. Life felt like a creaky machine starting up again," she continues. "Air travel, however chaotic, had resumed, and we were once again cloudward. Performances and tours and recordings were happening after a long hiatus and with a renewed sense of gratitude. This band, for me, was quite simply working, both musically and personally, and the main thing I felt while writing the music was optimism."

Double vinyl LP pressing. Nonesuch releases Philip Glass' award-winning soundtrack to The Hours on vinyl for the first time to coincide with it's 20th anniversary. Originally released in December 2002, Glass's score to the Academy Award-winning film was itself nominated for an Academy Award, as well as a Golden Globe and a Grammy, and went on to win a BAFTA and a Classical BRIT. Philip Glass' score was conducted by Nick Ingman, with Michael Reisman on piano and the Lyric Quartet, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios and Air Studios, London. The score was a key element in this acclaimed triptych of dramatic tales.

FINDING GABRIEL

Vinyl LP pressing. 2022 release. The members of the legendary original 1990s Joshua Redman Quartet - Redman (saxophone), Brad Mehldau (piano), Christian McBride (bass), and Brian Blade (drums) - reunited after 26 years for 2020'sRoundAgain; they return now with LongGone, featuring six original songs by Redman. RoundAgain, the group's first recording since 1994'sMoodSwing, debuted at No. 1 on the Current Traditional Jazz Albums chart in the US and at No. 1 on the Jazz & Blues chart in the UK. The album received two Grammy nominations. NPR called it "a flawless effort, " stating that the four musicians have "only gotten better in that time" and are each "at the very top of his game now."