First released in 2010, JUPITER DUO showcases music for cello/piano duo, solo piano, and for solo cello by Alla Elana Cohen. She and cellist Sebastian Baverstam make up Jupiter Duo, and have performed together for many years since Baverstam was 12 years old. They perform Cohen’s highly expressive music with an unbridled intensity, and have a reputation for having a close musical connection. Cohen channels her interest in spiritual and mystical ideas into her music. To start, the name “Jupiter Duo” draws from Roman mythology and astrology to describe the close connection between her and Baverstam. Querying the Silence confronts the loneliness and grief in the face of loss and unyielding silence. Third Vigil for cello and piano, originally for orchestra, is a mystical concerto, written with challenging parts especially for Cohen and Baverstam. It tackles the place of humanity in the universe and eternity—the human world being but a residual echo of the spiritual world. In Vol. 1, Ser. 7 of Book of Prayers, Cohen parses the visceral emotions and states of being humanity experiences in trying to connect further with the Divine. The pieces are heart-rending, once again tackling the echo of sound into silence. This is music that should be heard by many. The recordings are excellent and were made in Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory, beautifully capturing both piano and cello.

Poet and musician Aidan Andrew Dun offers extremely unique works of spoken word poetry recitation, with keyboard accompaniment, in his Ravello Records release Honeyland. The album's offerings can be seen to have roots in a number of Western musical and literary practices. Dun's geographyically specific epic poetry recalls the writings of James Joyce and his interest in reciting poems to music suggests the influece of English poet and painter William Blake.

Weaving together vocal musical styles past and present, composer and conductor Thomas Juneau, with the Juneau Vocal Alliance and Summit Chorale, present their debut Ravello release, Visions Eternal. Thomas Juneau is active throughout the US as both a conductor and composer. He is Music Director of Summit Chorale, one of New Jersey’s most venerable choral organizations at over a century old, and the Juneau Vocal Alliance, founded 2011. His first choral pieces were published when he was 17. He has conducted in major concert halls throughout the US including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

Waking the Sparrow, from classical and baroque guitarist Robert Nathanson and soprano Nancy King, performing as Duo Soreno, is the result of a twenty-year long journey exploring the grandeur of the human voice blended with the vibrancy of the guitar. Interpreting the work of five notable modern composers who were, in turn, inspired by the words of poets throughout the ages, Nathanson and King deliver a stunning performance that is rich in it's variety and impressive in scope. The album opens with William Neil's "Out of Darkness into Light", which adds violin, saxophone, bassoon and contrabassoon to Duo Soreno's arrangement of what the composer described as a "mystery play interpreting through composed and improvisational music the prayer-like text written by Malgosia Sawczuk." Along with violinist Danijela �e�elej-Gualdi, the duo interprets "Open the River," with text from "To the Hand," a poem by W.S. Merwin. The remaining pieces on Waking the Sparrow feature only Nathanson and King. "A Song of Unending Sorrow" is a three-movement setting for guitar and soprano, inspired by composer Jing Jing Luo's interpretation of a work by the Tang Dynasty poet Ba Juji. The performance, at once both simple and intricate, captures the ecstasy of love and the sorrow of loss. Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer William Bolcom's "Three Cabaret Songs" arise from his collaboration with poet Arnold Weinstein and are here for the first time arranged for soprano and guitar by guitarist Michael Lorimer. Inspired by the seasonal aspect of much of haiku poetry, "Waking the Sparrows: Five Haiku Songs" was composed for Duo Soreno by David Ketchley. It's lyrical and dramatic exploration of the timbral possibilities of voice and guitar evoke a haiku-like aura of Spring.

Interfaces explores the different ways a computer can fit in a modern jazz ensemble and still be true to itself. Technology performer Jeff Morris is joined by free jazz icon Karl Berger on vibes and piano as well as innovative New York percussionist Joe Hertenstein. Morris takes sounds from his partners live in the moment and transforms them into his own musical voice with the DNA of acoustic sounds and the fingerprints of digital processing. This live sampling improvisation results in expressively shifting quasi-loops and glitchy melodic gestures, drawn from music that just happened and influencing what the performers will do next. Call it a twenty-first century version of imitative counterpoint, as in J. S. Bach's classic fugues. Taking inspiration from, among others, free jazz legend Ornette Coleman and Brian Eno's early rebellious sound, Morris builds different digital instruments and interactive environments to produce unique encounters with the jazz world. He uses every stutter, glitch, and clash as a chance to discover new kinds of beauty. The native voice of the technology sings freely instead of pretending to be other instruments or remixing classic recordings. At times, Interfaces can feel like an aural puzzle that challenges the mind as much as the ear. But if you're up for a sonic adventure, you will find musical moments that are nothing short of revolutionary.

This collaborative album, REACT, is the first from flutist Francesca Arnone and violinist Mikylah McTeer. The tracks on this album explore all timbres and ranges of both of these instruments, as well as electronic techniques, in an exciting journey through experimental and traditional sounds. Mikylah McTeer is professor of violin at West Virginia University, and was previously concertmaster of the San Juan Symphony in Durango, CO. Francesca Arcone is the principal flutist of the Waco Symphony, as well as professor of flute at Baylor University. She also frequently performs with the Brazos Ensemble.

David Taddie's new album Fancy Colors blurs the spectrum between acoustic and electronic music into an unorthodox wave of sound. In contrast to the primary characteristics of each type of music, Taddie creates sophisticated, complex compositions by blending the sounds of string and woodwind instruments with the influence of computer-generated effects. Written and recorded over two decades, Fancy Colors is the result of Taddie's exploration of timbre and space using the electronic medium. The eight tracks on the album expand the boundaries of the otherwise conventional sounds of instruments like the flute and piano to a grandiose level. The album's debut track "Wayward Country" fuses together alto and bass saxophone samples as well as interactive electronics to process the sound in real-time to create a spontaneous, improvised sense of time and space. The composer's arrangements evoke many emotions, mostly notably the little dramas and anticipations that get the listeners heart racing. Like the emotional "A Rift in Time," the composition builds tension quickly, only to release it slowly through tender melody through the string section. "Triptych," which runs over 13 minutes long, builds patiently. The composition buzzes and twinkles with gongs, bells, and anklets, the whispered vocals reciting poetry adding to the production. Fancy Colors shows the listener just how far the sound of an instrument can really go when manipulated by electronics. The album offers an expansive palette for listeners who enjoy a little more depth to their art.

Ed Martin's Ravello Records debut Journeys could not be more aptly titled. This album of highly original piano compositions invites the listener on a voyage through mysterious realms where the limits of the sensual and the intuitive dissolve - a journey that is at times epic, and at other times epically quiet. The album commences with Three Pieces for Piano (2006), a modernist m�lange whose gamut ranges from dissonant serenity to rhythmic agitation. They're perfectly, intimately rendered by pianist Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi, who performs the entirety of Journeys with great clarity, structural insight and precision, never losing touch with the primal, emotional appeal of the compositions. Swirling Sky (2014), dedicated to the pianist, displays the collaboration between the performer and the composer at it's most fruitful. Martin has sculpted and captured the peculiar sensation of looking at clouds in the sky with seeming effortlessness; Astolfi performs them with a paradox combination of lightness and depth that is most appropriate. The album's namesake and centerpiece, however, is the recent, eleven-piece piano cycle Journey, composed in 2015-2017. In more traditionalist terms, one might call this "variations on a theme" - and one would fall horrendously short, considering the vast artistic and psychological scope of the work. The starting point, Soul, whose main idea centers around a humble minor third, is subsequently transformed in the most diverse of ways: The motive appears, recognizable but ever-changing, in deep sorrow in Lament, desperate to the brink of madness in Vexed, collected in Revelation, and cheerfully delusional in Manic. Eventually, a new thought - Conviction - leads to a Metamorphosis and ultimately culminates in the final Transcend, the cycle's (and album's) musical catharsis.

New from Ravello Records is DECADE ZERO, a compilation of works for instruments and electronics by Christopher Biggs. The works integrate traditional instruments with live electronic processing and sound files. Biggs’ compositions focus on environmental, political, and scientific extra-musical concepts relevant to today’s world. Featuring the Western Brass Quintet, the title track, Decade Zero explores the last period in time when humanity can take decisive action to combat climate change without facing irrevocable changes to our world. Externalities, for amplified cello and electronics, balances a consumer attempting to minimize the negative outcomes of their consumption choices while reflecting on participatory economics. Amass, for clarinet and electronics, has origins in the Arab Spring movement and Occupy Wall Street. It reflects on contemporary society’s desire for meaningful change through continuous stratifying and blending of music. Biggs’ more abstract works, such as the Decoherence for trumpet and electronics, refer to concepts of quantum physics, and Recombinant Serenade features variations on the “Prologue” from Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn, and strings. The common themes between these works include the anxieties of decision-making, often represented with instrumental parts, and the range of resulting consequences, generally represented by the electronics. Biggs’ striking electro-acoustic works lend these ideas a startling immediacy by creating compelling music that will intrigue and thrill listeners.

On 3: The Music of Gina Biver, her debut recording on Ravello Records, composer, guitarist, vocalist and producer Gina Biver presents five selections featuring the concept-based new music/new media performing collective Fuse Ensemble, a group in which she has played an integral part for the past decade. Not only did Biver compose the five tracks on the album, she either performed on, produced, mixed and/or engineered many of them. On the opening track, Mirror, which draws it's inspiration from the poem "Empress in the Mirror" by the American poet Colette Inez, Biver begins her exploration into the very nature of identity. Girl, Walking continues that exploration, flowing through five sections that are shaped as they go along by improvisations of the parts of the bassist, flutist and guitarist. We Meet Ourselves is dedicated to fellow Fuse Ensemble member Scott Deal, whose solo marimba triggers audio samples which represent Jung's theories about the impact of confrontations with the unconscious and of the messages we receive as we go through life. On The Cellar Door, Biver musically explores Jung's theory of individuation, the process by which the psyche becomes integrated and whole. Perhaps the only piece on the album not deriving inspiration from psychological inquiry is the closing track, No Matter Where. Biver states that she interpreted "No Matter Where, Not Pictured Here," a painting by the notable American artist Jackie Tileston, as a journey and so decided to sonically travel around it. Captured sound (trains) is constant, suggesting unending movement; piano floats like water.

Music from 3 Continents presents the choral works of Bruce Mahin and Graham Hair performed by Scottish Voices, Jacqueline Pollauf, Helen Thompson and Alex South. Representing an international collaboration between artists from around the globe, the works on this album draw from various texts and inspirations, uniting to illustrate the connectedness of music and it's influence.

Steven Kemper makes his debut on Ravello Records with his electroacoustic album Mythical Spaces. Kemper combines acoustic instruments and electronics to create meditative compositions that explore the connections between real and imaginary worlds. Kemper writes that “myths represent traces of our collective imagination, and similarities between myths from different cultures point to a shared human experience.” The title work Mythical Spaces concerns the liminal space between physical and mythical locations, both of natural and human construction. Amplified vessels evoke specific spaces in each of the five movements, such as an amplified pot of dirt in “Underground” and a wooden bowl in “Forest.” Lament for flute and computer responds to the poem “A History of Lament.” Drawing from the text’s evocation of the myth of Orpheus, Kemper explores the transitions between the world of the living and the underworld. In Illa Tempore bridges not only geographical space, but temporal space as well. The piece quotes Monteverdi’s Missa in illo tempore. This music of the past is juxtaposed with technology of the future—the musical robots AMI and CARI designed and built by Expressive Machines Musical Instruments, co-founded by Kemper. AMI and CARI produce a backdrop of shifting drones, upon which a saxophone and bassoon employ a variety of extended performance techniques. The album closes with The Seven Stars for prepared piano, a piece devoted to the mythology of stars, the constellations. Each of the work’s seven movements portrays a star in the Big Dipper, with musical intensities that correspond to each star’s apparent magnitude. The percussive, resonant sound profile of The Seven Stars includes special materials used on the piano strings, including marbles, mallets, and ping-pong balls.

Find your seat and settle in with The Fifth Row, the latest album by guitarist Stuart Weber. These twelve compositions, recorded in several historic American theaters, employ Weber's strong yet delicate guitar playing along with the acoustics of the rooms in which he recorded. Combining elements of classical and folk, Weber embraces the elegance of high-brow compositions as well as the grit of stripped-down Americana. Conversely, Weber's interpretation of "America The Beautiful" cracks the hardened shell of the country's staple song and exposes the pearl underneath that brings a brand new, marvelous way of looking at the classic. Weber's folk and classical elements are diversified throughout the album. "Spanish Creek" combines elements of the tango and flamenco guitar, while the "Jefferson Waltz" maintains that triple time rhythm to inspire the famous gliding dance. Under the influence of the legendary Christopher Parkening, Weber finds his own sound through the humanizing element of folk in his compositions. He employs as much of an Andr�s Segovia influence as he does a Jackson Browne influence. With Weber playing off of the acoustics in the performance halls in which he recorded the album, the experience of listening to this album feels as though the listener is sitting in the front row, hearing the pluck of every finger in real time.

Turkish composer Hakki Cengiz Eren presents a selection of chamber and solo works on his debut album Color Studies. Eren's music epitomizes expressionism in contemporary music, utilizing and enormous range of sounds, forms and textures to create highly evocative and dramatic musical statements. Eren's main field of concentration is the implementation of microtones (notes in between adjacent piano keys) in music, including the history of temperament and microtonal music of the 20th century.

Louis, when I heard about Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. A friend and I read of a forthcoming public service at Morehouse College, and a chartered bus would be available. We skipped our classes, took the bus to Atlanta and joined the crowd of thousands processing to Dr. King’s public service. The impact of this moment changed me profoundly, and I wanted to give expression to that spiritual experience by writing a piece of music in Dr. King’s honor. That piece of music was Immortal Diamond (1970). - Mary Ann Joyce-Walter