Tampa, FLorida-based McCormick Percussion Ensemble (artists-in-residence at the University of South Florida) create an irresistible force field with percussion music for which the choice of instruments is left up to the players.

The performers are unnervingly in step with each piece's different vibe. There is not one measure of anything they play that doesn't come magically alive.

– Gramophone

The conch shell exemplifies the versatility, sublimity, and transcendence of nature - a natural dwelling, a biological work of art, and, as shown by the City of Tomorrow, an instrument. NATURE, the debut Ravello Records release by the City of Tomorrow wind quintet - consisting of Elise Blatchford, flute; Stuart Breczinski, oboe; Camila Barrientos Ossio, clarinet; Laura Miller, bassoon; and Leander Star, horn - showcases works by four contemporary composers that explore the evolution of humanity's relationship with nature.

David Lang's breathless illustrates the tireless flow of time - the constant and steady movement of events - each instrument playing the same phrase throughout which overlap and create a continuously evolving unity. The innate balance between order and chaos is portrayed in Luciano Berio's ricorrenze, a piece in which interweaving virtuosic lines are grown from a single unison note, like sprouting from a seed. Inspired by a fantastical encyclopedia of real and imagined animals, "...a certain chinese cyclopaedia..." by Denys Bouliane creates a musical taxonomy of the sounds of bebop à la Charlie Parker, making Darwinian observations about the infinite and complex variations in human-made arts. Nat Evan's Music for Breathing is a foil to the occidental concept that nature is nothing but "beautiful" or "peaceful," emphasizing that nature does not discriminate, all biological events occur without favor. Through their virtuosic interpretations, the City of Tomorrow explores human emotional responses to the ever-changing biosphere and how we find new ways to participate in an awe-inspiring, often turbulent, and always indiscriminate environment.

Masatora Goya is assistant director of the concert series Vox Novus Composer’s Voice. Alturas Duo - guitarist Scott Hill and violist Carlos Boltes - took first prize at the 2006 New England Int’l Chamber Music competition and won the 2009 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. Manhattan School of Music faculty member and guitarist Oren Fader can be heard on over 40 commercial recordings. Violist and violinist Conway Kuo is currently the Assoc. Principal Second Violin, NYC Ballet Orchestra and performs regularly with the NYPO and Philadelphia Orchestra.

Joseph Koykkar has been praised for his piece Double Take, which is featured on this recording: "On the stimulating side was Joseph Koykkar's brilliant Double Take... The pithy eight-minute work, a paean to sparklingly clear conorities and economic means, bristled with good-naturedly restless activity anchored by a strong sense of direction" (The Milwaukee Sentinel). Koykkar has received commissions and performances by a number of contemporary music ensembles in North America, including Present Music, Zeitgeist, Synchronia, and the C.A.L. Ear Unit. Koykkar has composed over 100 pieces since the 1970's. He has composed chamber music, orchestral scores, film and video scores, and electronic music.

Dreams Laid Down brings to life the works of several acclaimed composers, evoking a tender, reflective atmosphere. Inspired by sources from the Beatles to the poetry of Rinehart’s wife, the album creates an intimate aural experience that is as personal to the listener as it is to the artist himself. The title track, composed by Michael Karmon, is named after a book of poems by Rinehart’s wife Janice Notland. Karmon animated six of her poems with thoughtful, evocative compositions. Contrast this with composer John Oliver’s Ancient Heroes Suite. Oliver, inspired by ancient music conventions, worked with dance-oriented rhythms in experimental time signatures that recall melodies resonating through ancient halls, while filtering them through a modern context.Variaciones Sobre un Tema de Juan Lennon, written by New Brunswick composer Richard Gibson as a wedding gift for his daughter Julia, reimagines parts of a song originally written by John Lennon. Exploring shifts in key signatures, major and minor modes, and alternate harmonization, Gibson takes the pop song and breathes his unique perspective into it. The album is rounded out with works by two more well-established Canadian composers. Guitarist-composer William Beauvais contributes his improvisatory and rhythmic Beginning of the Day and Vancouver's David Gordon Duke explores the full range of guitaristic colors in his Soliloquies and Dreams. Dreams Laid Down tenderly beckons for the listener’s attention with the lilting strains of classical guitar. Showcasing Rinehart’s inspired musical gifts, the gentle performance warmly invites audiences into a serene listening experience.

Featuring a series of works for solo string with percussion ensemble, this album highlights the McCormack Percussion Group’s dedication to furthering the repertoire and performance of percussion instruments.

Born in Finland, educated internationally, and now living in Norway, Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi knows a thing or two about blending eclectic ideas. On her new Ravello Records release SOUNDTRACK OF AN IMAGINARY OPERA, she toys with established perceptions of music and philosophy, reconciling artificial language and acoustic explorations with deconstructionist ideas. Ahvenniemi intrepidly leans into the candid clarity of contemporary serious music, and with explicit effect: Her six sketches aim to outline not only an opera, but also to ponder questions of concealed, ulterior power structures and the transience of modern perceptions, mingling perpetual chaos with ethereal beauty. A remarkably ambitious attempt which leaves no stone unturned.

If glaciers could speak, what would they tell us? On ICEFIELD, veteran composer Matthew Burtner answers that very question with an eclectic series of works that explore the intersection between the environment and controlled sound. Combining specialized field recordings of glaciers and Arctic storms, electroacoustics, and traditional instruments, Burtner creates surreal soundscapes that blur the line between audio and physical experience—from the opera Auksalaq to the audio synthetization of data on Sonification of an Arctic Lagoon, each piece on the album channels the whip-crack chill of the air, the blinding snow, and the awe-inspiring sight of glacial fields breaking apart and bringing sea levels higher and higher.

Ten emerging composers assemble and offer insight into our societal world through music on IN TANDEM from violinist Lucia Lin. Each work featured on this album represents a social cause close to its composer’s heart, commenting on inequality and breaking down barriers by building social awareness. Orchestrated in intimate duo settings, Lin’s virtuosic violin playing is complemented by a variety of selected string, percussion, piano, and vocal performers, each offering a fresh ingredient to a diverse and conversation-igniting program. Lucia Lin made her debut performing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 11. Since then, she has been a prizewinner of numerous competitions, including the 1990 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. She has performed in solo recitals throughout the U.S., making her New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall in March 1991, and has appeared with the Boston Pops Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria.

On INTO THE GREEN, clarinetist Wesley Ferreira takes listeners on an aural journey through a world of musical possibilities where digital and analog become one. Works for solo clarinet place it in the midst of sprawling electronic soundscapes, providing ethereal backdrops for its earthy timbre. With technical flair and blistering speeds, Ferreira perfectly blends the instrument with industrial beats, atmospheric arpeggios, and reverberating effects, creating a seamless juxtaposition of computer-based composition and classical, folk, and world music. In doing so, Ferreira and the composers create a sense of old meeting the new, where the lushness and abundance of nature live in harmony with the exciting possibilities of technology.

Betty Wishart’s and Navona Records present her latest album: MOODS, featuring her compositions for solo piano as performed by Jeri-Mae Astolfi. These impressionistic pieces, sparked by a swath of concrete and abstract inspirations, explore the full range of timbral textures and colors the piano offers. MOODS follows up Wishart's 2016 premiere solo album, PIANO SONORITIES, which also featured the Canadian-born pianist Jeri-Mae Astolfi. This new album opens with an imaginative rumination on the sounds of rain and thunder. In Phantasmagoria, Wishart employs both atonality and tonality to depict anxious sleeplessness, which is eventually eased into peaceful repose as the storm subsides. Variations on Shenandoah, as the name suggests, explores a series of variations on the famous folk tune. We hear the melody reharmonized, reimagined, and even catch a retrograde variation. Preludes: In Memoriam is another innovative piece; each prelude recalls a historic cultural or political figure and their characteristics. The music embodies the unique personalities of people like Audrey Hepburn, Amelia Earhart, Winston Churchill, and more. Vibes is a surreal and abstract piece. Broken into three movements, the composer borrows from jazz and other styles to recreate her observations of a peaceful day at New York’s Central Park. The album concludes with Illusions. This piece uses dynamics, phrasing, tone decay, pedal techniques, and more to conjure an array of strange and wonderful sonorities. Wishart recalls waking in the dead of night to scrawl down this composition from beginning to end without revision. This raw prolific power permeates MOODS. MOODS offers listeners an opportunity to reconsider what is possible when it comes to solo piano music. Each piece simultaneously challenges the hearer while also inviting him or her to a higher perceptive plane—if they choose to accept the invitation, they are richly rewarded.

CLICKABLE: THE ART OF PERSUASION, from the celebrated duo of flutist Zara Lawler and marimbaist Paul J. Fadoul, is a concept album, an audio version of a live show that uses theatrical performance and audience participation to convey the many facets of persuasion - from powerful storytelling to coercion, pressure, and manipulation. The album includes commercial jingles, a lullaby, dust jacket texts set to music, a protest song, a serenade, and a spoken-word commentary on social media. Nowhere is persuasion more ubiquitous than in advertising. The lively tempo of Jingle Without Words nonverbally conveys that our drive towards innovation is also a relentless need for more. It is followed by the first of four Hedonistic Treadmill vignettes, told as a series of commercial breaks. Those pieces, interspersed throughout the album, together exhibit the fleeting happiness that results from chasing bright and shiny new products. The power of persuasion is also captured by the frantic pace of Want It. Need It. Have It, as Lawler’s flute seems to be in pursuit of Fadoul’s marimba, a chase that is musically indicative of our consumer-centric society. The album also features three dust jacket pieces that touch on the darker sides of persuasion. The bucolic music that accompanies the copy from the dust jacket of Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility belies the presentation of the book’s tale of secrets, greed, and a dark undercurrent of societal pressures. The slightly ominous tone of the music that accompanies both Liars and Power Money Fame Sex typifies the baser sides of human nature. The spoken word piece Click. Tweet. Like. Repost. is a rendition of a poem by Liza Jessie Peterson, which addresses the paradoxical aspects of social media. Unaccompanied by any instrumentation, the percussive cadence of the poet’s words makes a powerful impact. Common Thread, which closes the album, was recorded live. A singalong with the audience, the track is a perfect example of a means of positive persuasion.

On WITHIN MY SOUL, New York-based composer Akemi Naito’s debut release on Ravello Records, the composer’s intent was to create a collection of musical works inspired by words. The poetry and prose that inspired the album’s three pieces were crafted by a trio of writers who transcend the boundaries of time and place: 19th-century British poet and novelist Emily Brontë; 20th-century Japanese novelist Kobo Abe; and Japanese monk-poet Saigyo (1118 – 1190). The album’s first selection, Emily Brontë: Through Life and Death, A Chainless Soul, is a poetic mono-opera in one act, based on selected poems of Emily Brontë and scored for mezzo-soprano and piano. Opera Wire praised the performance, describing it as “a wonderful example of the beauty that can be found when words mingle with music, each giving the other new life and meaning.” The Woman in the Dunes for Solo Percussionist was inspired by Japanese writer Kobo Abe’s novel, The Woman in the Dunes. Performed by percussionist Gregory Beyer, the music echoes Abe's text, using metallic instruments centered on chromatic gongs to express the woman’s emotions and drum instruments to express the turmoil of the male character in the novel. Five Waka poems by Saigyo was composed as part of famed marimbist Makoto Nakura’s Forest Trilogy project. It is based on the writings of the ancient monk-poet Saigyo, who expressed his free spirit in poems, inspired by nature, that even today continue to stimulate the imagination. On WITHIN MY SOUL, the work is performed by William Moersch on marimba and the University of Illinois Chamber Singers directed by Andrew Megill. WITHIN MY SOUL is her third recording. Each composition, inspired the words of Brontë, Abe, and Saigyo and performed by a stellar array of musicians, offers strong proof of the way great art, even as it is transformed by modern influences, endures over time.

Ravello Records proudly presents VERDI’S GUITAR, an album by guitarist Alan Rinehart made up of six fantasies for solo guitar by 19th-century composer guitarist/composer Josef (Johann) Kaspar Mertz. Each fantasy is based on an opera of the great Giuseppe Verdi, including such famous works as Nabucco, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata.

The six Verdi fantasies are taken from a larger Mertz collection of 34 similar pieces based on operas, called Opern-Revue (Op.8). These “revues” were not unlike works for piano by composers such as Liszt, which were arrangements of or fantasies on popular operatic arias. Both these and Mertz’s revues responded to the popular demand of the opera “experience” adapted for a small, private setting. Mertz’s revues are more ambitious, however—they adapt not just a single aria, but the entire opera, compressing a large-scale, 2–3 hour production into a 10–15 minute piece medley for solo guitar. Each revue is essentially a medley consisting of an introduction, arias (with variation), and dramatic high points. Mertz’s Verdi fantasies are even more impressive, considering Verdi’s mid-19th century status as a leading composer of dramatic opera. Mertz retains Verdi’s drama and flair, but also adds an element of intimacy by distilling the operas down to minimal voices in the solo guitar. Rinehart navigates both of these qualities in his historically-informed performances. His interpretations embrace the free lyricism afforded to a solo piece, resulting in new perspectives on Verdi’s masterpieces.

Fresh from Ravello Records is The McCormick Percussion Group’s STRINGS & HAMMERS. In this latest offering, the MPG tackles a program of new and politically charged works. They are joined by the violin-bass-piano trio Strings and Hammers. Together, the ensemble of string and percussion players employs rhythm, eccentric timbres, and even their own yelping, whispering voices to express powerfully relevant themes. The McCormick Percussion Group has never shied away from contentious issues, and this album is no different. It opens with Piano Concerto: Solution, in which frantic piano lines and impassioned claps and stomps reflect deep frustration with the modern political scene in the United States. A direct response to Toni Morrison’s call for all artists to “get to work” in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, this piece is a staunch rebuke against misogyny and racism in all of its forms. Memento Mori takes a similar tack; it is a badly-needed reminder of mortality and the frailty of the human condition during a time when hubris and incivility seem to run rampant. We hear the skin of the players’ hands beat each drumhead, a stark and defiant flash of humanity in the midst of moral collapse. The album goes beyond protest into even more cerebral realms—Ice Concerto, for violin solo and percussion ensemble, is infused with notions of elemental chemistry. The piece portrays the atomic disintegration of dripping ice through anxiety-ridden, jolting rhythms and creeping violin stabs. STRINGS & HAMMERS brings an audacious and highly-provocative attitude to the world of percussion ensemble music. Regardless of your political convictions, The McCormick Percussion Group’s raw, blistering performances are sure to stir up a revolutionary fervor in you.