The prolific young composer Jake Runestad has won numerous awards for his music, which ranges from opera to works for chamber ensemble. He is particularly valued for his choral compositions which exemplify a desire to write expertly crafted, socially conscious and emotionally potent music. On this album, Runestad explores a profound sea/life journey in The Secret of the Sea, and projects a powerful expression of grief in Let My Love Be Heard. Nature is a recurring theme for the composer and he employs texts that exalt the natural world, as well as finding seldom heard sound combinations in the exhilarating Ner Ner. Jake Runestad is one of the youngest composers ever awarded the Raymond W. Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association in 2018- the foremost commission available to composers of choral music in the USA. He is considered ‘one of the best of the younger American composers’ (Chicago Tribune) and this is only the second album of his music to be issued.

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REVIEW:

Each of these 10 works by Jake Runestad, written between 2006 and 2018, has a similar reverence for texts that touch deeply but gently on human issues and benefit from his imaginatively varied toolkit of resources. That he writes well for singers is enthusiastically proved by the all-volunteer Denver-based Kantorei choral ensemble and eight instrumentalists, and some fullblooded recordings.

– Gramophone

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We have on this disc three highly entertaining orchestral works saturated with Latin rhythms and melodic motives. The Symphony No. 3 actually casts a wider net than just “Salsa.” The performances, featuring Sierra’s home town team under the capable baton of Maximiamo Valdés, do the music proud, and the engineering is vivid.

-- ClassicsToday.com

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I sure hope the folks in Buffalo know what a prize they have in JoAnn Falletta. Her Naxos discography has few peers in terms of imaginative programming and quality of results. The city couldn’t ask for a more positive or alluring cultural calling card, and the present release offers a case in point. There have been many fine recordings of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, but this one stands with the best: for clarity, elegance, distinguished solo work (superb oboe, William Preucil’s solo violin), you name it. Although scored for a chamber orchestra, it’s amazing how congested and fussy so many performances sound. Not here. Just listen to the opening processional of “The Dinner,” with its bold horns and transparent textures. Great stuff.

However, the real item of interest is the “Symphony-Suite” arranged by D. Wilson Ochoa from Ariadne auf Naxos, the original companion work to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Arranging suites from Strauss’ operas is a trend that can only be encouraged. Strauss did it himself, of course, but mostly without much enthusiasm or imagination. So here’s a case where the intervention of more caring hands is clearly called for.

This suite, forty minutes in all, contains three chunks from the prologue and four from the opera itself. It is gorgeous. Even those who know the opera well may be surprised at how much lovely material slips by without notice in stage performances, such as the “Intermezzo” music on the second to last track here (sound clip). You do get some of the more famous bits (“Es gibt ein Reich,” for example, and the closing scene), but it really is astonishing how much care Strauss lavished on sections that flit by as mere accompaniment–never mind the thematic interest that they contain. Here, thanks to Falletta and the folks in Buffalo, in this luminously played and recorded performance, we can savor them afresh. So what are you waiting for? Go for it.

- ClassicsToday

Naxos, the world's leading classical music group, supports the Alzheimer's Association with the release of the Purple Classics series. Each release in this new series of 10 recordings features approximately 2 hours of classical music on 2 CDs. For every CD sold through June 23, 2017, Naxos will donate $.50 to the Alzheimer's Association, with a minimum donation of $25,000,to advance their efforts in Alzheimer's care, support and research.

Tobias Picker, hailed as “a genuine creator” by The New Yorker, has written extensively for the stage and for symphonic forces, and these two approaches are represented in this album. The Encantadas (an older name for the Galapagos Islands) derives from a novella by Herman Melville. Picker has set it as a melodrama, exploring the enchanted isles in all their quietly menacing and spectacular beauty. In a radical new form, Picker’s Opera Without Words is set to a libretto by Irene Dische that has now been removed, allowing the music alone to bear the expressive richness and intensity of this “secret opera.” Tobias Picker has been commissioned to write numerous works in other genres, including operas, three symphonies, concertos for violin, viola, cello and oboe, four piano concertos and chamber music. His many honors include the 2020 GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Recording (Fantastic Mr. Fox). Picker is a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is artistic director of the Tulsa Opera, a post he has held since 2016.

REVIEW:

The title for The Encantadas (1983) comes from the early name for the Galapagos Islands. In six sections it relates the journey made there by Herman Melville. The work was conceived for narrator and a standard sized orchestra, and, on this recording, the composer is the very articulate voice that relates Melville’s discoveries he made there.

The more recent score, Opera Without Words, was completed five years ago, and had a strange birth. He had hired a librettist, Irene Dische, to conceive the story, and, after many discussions, all was completed, even down to the stage actions and directions for the producer. But in the end Picker deciding to dispense with words. It receives its World Premiere Recording by one of the commissioning orchestras, the Nashville Symphony. They, and their conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, provide a very colourful score, both works instantly enjoyable in pure tonality. The booklet includes the words narrated in The Encantadas and I hope there is more Picker coming from Naxos.

-- David's Review Corner (David Denton)

This new release from Naxos brings together the two poles of Tobias Picker’s output: symphonic music and opera. He brilliantly straddles both worlds, drawing upon each to bring something new to the other.

…The music on this disc is impassioned and adventurous, providing the curious listener a great introduction to Tobias Picker’s output. The recorded sound is excellent, and the Nashville Symphony is in top form. Recommended.

-- Fanfare

One of Philip Glass’ most glorious themes, this release focuses on the subject of love. From his BAFTA award-winning music for The Hours to his iconic Music In Fifths, the genius of this composer is felt throughout the duration of this album. The Hours is featured here in its entirety, complete with three previously unpublished movements. The release also includes the breathtaking Modern Love Waltz and the world premiere recording of Notes On A Scandal. Performing these works is Nicolas Horvath.

BAUER: Orchestral and Chamber Works

Migrations provides a generous view of Derek Bermel's superb craftsmanship and eclectic style, in which classical forms, world music, jazz, blues and American folk music create a mix that reaches directly into the body and the heart. Commisioned by Wynton Marsalis, Migration Series has it's roots in African American music, it's impeccable counterpoint and biting rhythms expressed through orchestration that sounds like a city coming to life. Mar de Setembro was inspired by Luciana Souza's bell-toned voice and the intense feelings of Portuguese saudade, while A Shout, A Whisper, and A Trace honors Bartok's last years in New York, referring to the Concerto for Orchestra as well as to jazz and Balkan music.

Multi-award-winning composer Paul Reale has a distinctly American voice, enriched and given touches of familiarity through references to folk idiom and musical ancestors such as Bartok and Kodaly. This program brings together Reale's works for cello and piano. His earliest, S�ance, is a haunting combination of modernist sounds and Baroque melodies. The operatic Cello Sonata No. 1 daringly uses 'What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor' as the backbone of it's finale, and the recent 'Chopin's Ghost' explores the Romantic composer's long, weaving lines and evokes his poetic spirit. This is the world premiere recording of the aforementioned work.

Although he is a prolific composer of operas, symphonies and concertos, songs lie at the core of Daron Hagen’s output. With over 350 published art songs, he has embraced and extended the great lineage of American song exemplified by Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein and Ned Rorem, and is now considered one of the foremost twenty-first century composers for the voice. The meticulously crafted and wholly idiomatic examples included here have been recorded under the composer’s supervision with his chosen performers, members of Lyric Fest, Philadelphia’s renowned song series.

Conducted by Christopher Bell, Chicago’s Grant Park Chorus, “as fine a symphony chorus as any to be found anywhere in the nation” (Chicago Tribune), makes its a cappella CD debut with an all-American program of eight imaginative, moving, and sometimes whimsical works written between 1975 and 25, including four world-premiere recordings. Premieres include Abbie Betinis’s Toward Sunshine, Toward Freedom: Songs of Smaller Creatures. Lee Kesselman’s Buzzings: Three Pieces about Bees offers vignettes based on Emily Dickinson poems. Paul Crabtree’s Five Romantic Miniatures is a set of affectionate tributes to characters from The Simpsons animated TV series. The chorus made its commercial recording debut performing with the Grant Park Orchestra on the 211 Cedille Records release The Pulitzer Project, which attracted international attention. Chicago’s New City said the CD “spectacularly showcased” the chorus’s “remarkable transparency and flexibility.”

Gaudete Brass, a quintet devoted to presenting serious brass chamber music and commissioning new works, brings a fresh perspective to music of John Corigliano with an inventive album of brass works by the prolific American composer and his protégés. “The excellent Gaudete Brass” (Gramophone) honors Corigliano, winner of Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Pulitzer Prize, with world-premiere recordings of his groundbreaking Fanfares to Music for on- and off-stage brass choirs, his stately Antiphon for double brass quintet, and a new arrangement of the Rossini-esque Overture from his popular Gazebo Dances. Gaudete commissioned the title track, Steven Bryant’s sevenfive, in honor of Corigliano’s 75th birthday, and the numbers seven and five figure prominently in its musical architecture. David Sampson’s boisterous Entrance opens the program, while his surprisingly restrained Still is luxuriously lyrical. Jonathan Newman’s Prayers of Steel evokes the Midwest landscapes in Carl Sandburg’s poetry. Jeremy Howard Beck’s ROAR exploits the brasses’ ability to do just that. Conrad Winslow’s The Record of a Lost Tribe summons an imaginary, bygone civilization. All works except Entrance receive their world-premiere recordings on the album.

Acclaimed lyric soprano Patrice Michaels, “a formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker), conceived and headlines this inventive, wide-ranging two-disc, 26 song project where classical music and jazz find common ground. A vocalist of uncommon intellect and sophisticated wit, Michaels has assembled a singular collection of songs, including one she composed, which give Ms. Michaels and her stellar instrumental collaborators room to gently improvise and swing the music.

This collection of best-loved Christmas repertoire was recorded live at the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir Festival of Carols concerts in 2015 and 2016. GRAMMY award-winning vocalist Sylvia McNair adds her own unique beauty and warmth, and as ever, the programme celebrates the joys of the season with sparkling versions of family favorites. The tranquillity and magic of Christmas eve, heartfelt messages of hope, reconciliation and peace, and thrilling new compositions all combine to capture the celebratory excitement of the holiday season.

REVIEWS:

The title refers to the practice in many churches of having a ceremony of carols and traditionals during the Christmas season, a holiday for the choir when they can really open up and let 'er rip, and, quite often, a sing-along for the congregation as well. It is, after all, the most joyous time of the Christian year.

We get all of that in a well-packed program by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra under conductor Eric Stark. The substantial choir are supported by an orchestra that plays with a lot of gusto, especially the folks in the percussion section (this genre of music encourages a lot of gongs and bells). Listen for some distinguished playing by pianist David Duncan in Rob Swenson’s Christmas Hosanna with its jaunty rhythms recalling that old chestnut, Good Christian men, rejoice.

Most welcome of all is soprano Sylvia McNair, whose warm vocal presence...adds a special quality to such songs by contemporary composers as Mary, Did You Know? (Buddy Greene) in which the choir asks Jesus’ mother a series of poignant questions (“Did you know when you kissed your baby boy, then you touched the face of God?) and Grown-Up Christmas List (David Foster/Linda Thompson Jenner) with its plea for greater understanding and peace among people).

McNair does some of her best work in the two spirituals, This Little Light of Mine and Go Tell It on the Mountain, the last-named with an accompaniment by David Duncan that partakes deliciously of the spirit of the blues and R&B. Sylvia’s intimate vocal warmth and sensitive interpretation capture the special quality of both these grand old songs.

There’s something for everyone here, including J.S. Bach’s Sinfonia from the Christmas Oratorio, its lilting melodies and swaying pastoral rhythm recalling those time-honored instruments of simple shepherds, the wooden flute and the hurdy-gurdy. We also have John Rutter’s All Bells in Paradise and his Magnificat, the lastnamed animated by use of Latin-American rhythms, Mendelssohn’s Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, a recounting by composer William Goldstein of ‘Twas the Night before Chistmas with delightful spoken narration by Sherry Stark, and a rousing Jingle Bells.

-- Audio Video Club of Atlanta

Argentine composer Alberto Williams studied in Paris during the 1880s, and his violin sonatas draw comparisons with his teacher César Franck. Williams has been described as ‘the grand old man of Argentine music’ and is recognised as one of the founders of an independent musical language for his native country. Making their Naxos debut, DUO AM are the Brazilian musicians Alejandro Aldana (violin) and Fabio Martino (piano). Two albums of Williams's piano music can be heard on Marco Polo 8.223799 and 8.223800.