Early Music group Passamezzo make their Resonus Classics debut with a collection of music and song brought together to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. The Mayflower left England in 1620, with passengers and crew all seeking a fresh start in the New World. Featuring works from the books that some of the passengers took with them, this album gives an insight into the range of music that might have been sung on board this famous ship from composers such as Richard Allison, John Dowland and Thomas Campion. Passamezzo was founded by Tamsin Lewis in 2001, initially to explore the Jacobean Masque. The ensemble specialize in English Elizabethan and Jacobean repertoire, the masque remaining an important part of their programming, and concerts have a distinct theatrical air created by costume, readings and presentation. The ensemble delights in all aspects of musical life, from the intimacy of the lute song, to the brash raucousness of the broadside ballad, from the sacred part song, to the profane insanity of bedlamite mad songs.

The two choirs of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge return to Resonus Classics to collaborate once more on a new recording of contemporary works for Advent and Christmas. Featuring many world premiere recordings, the programme includes works written specially for the two college choirs including Diana Burrell’s exuberant carol, Green groweth the holly; Christopher Fox’s major new setting of the O Anitphons, interspersed with the original plainchant, and Jeremy Thurlow’s Magnificat for upper voices, organ and tape, that blazes with the intensity of a new vision of the world.

James MacMillan has written for the organ in many different settings, from choral accompaniment to his monumental and deeply-satirical ‘enigmatic variations’ for organ and orchestra 'A Scotch Bestiary' from 2004. The organ has formed a key part of the sounds and colors that MacMillan draws on to realise his compositional ambitions and his growing number of works for solo organ now represent a significant strand of his artistic fabric, featuring works written across his active life as a composer. The critically acclaimed organist Stephen Farr here presents all of MacMillan’s organ works to date, from the 'Wedding Introit', written for his own wedding in 1983, to the 'Toccata', that received its premiere in 2019.

Organist Stephen Farr continues his survey of works by Johann Sebastian Bach with one of the composer's major collections of organ chorale preludes - the Orgelbuchlein. This unfinished compendium of miniatures, said by Mendelssohn to bear 'most evidently the marks of his genius', contains much variety with each of the forty-six completed works containing a well-defined and individual character. For this recording, Farr performs on the eighteenth-century Trost organ of Waltershausen's stunning Stadtkirche in Germany.

Celebrated organist Tom Winpenny releases an exciting programme of works by the British composer John McCabe (1939-2015) in what would have been his eightieth birthday year. Displaying a huge breadth of inspiration and affinity for the instrument, the programme features a number of first recordings, including the Carol-Preludes of 2008 and the earlier large-scale Sinfonia and Johannis-Partita. Winpenny records on the neo-classical Harrison and Harrison organ of St Albans Cathedral for which the closing track, Esperanza, was written and first performed in the biennial St Albans Organ Festival and Competition. Tom Winpenny is Assistant Master of the Music at St. Alban's Cathedral where his duties include accompanying the daily choral services and directing the acclaimed Abbey Girls Choir.

Making their debut on Resonus with a ravishing programme of 'Songs of Love and Death' by Robert Schumann is the critically acclaimed duo of baritone Simon Wallfisch and pianist Edward Rushton. Alongside what is perhaps Schumann's best-known Wanderlieder song series, Dichterliebe, Op. 48, from 1840, this distinguished pairing have explored two further series from Schumann's notoriously productive 'Liederjahr' of 1840 - his Op. 35 setting of twelve poems by Justinus Kerner, and the F�nf Lieder, Op. 40, containing four songs by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. Simon Wallfisch is one of Britain's most sought after Baritones, at home on the opera and concert stage. In 2017, Simon made his Wigmore Hall debut live on BBC Radio 3. He has a growing catalogue of song recordings with Nimbus, Lyrita, Delphian and Resonus record labels. Born in London into a musical family, Simon Wallfisch studied cello with Leonid Gorokhov and voice with Russell Smythe at the Royal College of Music between 2000 and 2006. During his studies in London, he was awarded several prizes including The Georg Solti Foundation, Emmy Destinn Foundation, Giuseppe Di Stefano Competition Sicily, The DAAD, Countess of Munster Trust, The English Speaking Union and the Royal Overseas League "Young Singer of Promise" 2005.

Following on from his acclaimed recording of Jean-Philippe Rameau's complete solo keyboard works, harpsichordist Steven Devine returns to Resonus to record one of the great pinnacles of the Baroque keyboard repertoire, Johann Sebastian Bach's Das wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier). For this first of two volumes, Devine uses an exquisite instrument built by Colin Booth after an instrument by the eighteenth century maker Johann Christof Fleischer. Steven Devine enjoys a busy career as a music director and keyboard player working with some of the finest musicians. He is the Co-Principal keyboard player with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and also the principal keyboard player for The Gonzaga Band, Apollo and Pan, The Classical Opera Company and performs regularly with many other groups around Europe. He has recorded over thirty albums with other artists and ensembles and made six solo recordings.

Described by his teacher, J.S. Bach, as 'a musician of distinction, a player of the keyboard, violin and lute and a proficient composer', this second volume of Keyboard Works by Johann Ludwig Krebs demonstrates his diverse compositional style that represent a significant sea-change in musical taste of the time. Despite Krebs not seeing any substantial success in his own lifetime, recent assessments have shown the composer in a new light with a fascinating synthesis of Baroque, Galant and Classical forms. Keyboardist Steven Devine continues this complete survey of Krebs' significant contribution to the keyboard genre.

Originally intended as an opera for television, Malcolm Arnold’s collaboration with film-maker and librettist Joe Mendoza, The Dancing Master, Op. 34, was considered too racy for viewers in the 1950s and subsequently rejected for broadcast and largely forgotten. Conductor John Andrews, with the BBC Concert Orchestra and a stellar cast, breathes new life into this operatic gem, here receiving its first recording. With its cast of larger-than life Restoration caricatures – the trapped heiress, the scheming maid, the over-protective guardian, and the handsome rake – the opera showcases Arnold’s taste for exuberant satire and tender Romanticism in equal measure.

Acclaimed ensemble Chamber Domaine with their director Thomas Kemp return to the Resonus label with an exciting programme of early works by Benjamin Britten, including four significant world premieres. Entitled Journey to Aldeburgh, Chamber Domaine explores works written while Britten was a student at London's Royal College of Music culminating with the Suite for Violin and Pianoforte, Op. 6 and Britten's arrangement for the first Aldeburgh Festival of There is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook composed by his teacher Frank Bridge, and heard on disc here for the first time. Further world premieres include the substantial Introduction and Allegro for piano trio, The Moon for violin and piano and Allegro for solo piano. Britten's Opus 1, the Sinfonietta - heard here in its rarely-played original version - completes the programme, offering a glimpse into the lesser-known early, and often English pastoral, output of this celebrated composer.

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the current Harrison & Harrison organ in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, prize-winning organist Richard Pinel records a programme of French symphonic works for the instrument. Opening with Louis Vierne's Second Symphony and closing with Maurice Durufle's Op. 5 Suite this recital reflects the original vision of the former organist of St George's, Sidney Campbell. Also included is the Pastorale by Jean Roger-Ducasse, which featured on Campbell's first recording of this famous organ.

Following on from the resounding critical success of his first solo album (Ciaccona: Works for harpsichord - RES10126), harpsichordist Guillermo Brachetta returns with Divine Noise, a thrilling album of theatrical works for two harpsichords. Joined by the renowned Dutch player Menno van Delft – and performed on two incredible French-style instruments by harpsichord builder Titus Crijnen – the duo present a programme of French Baroque works from François Couperin (La Paix du Parnasse), Gaspard Le Roux (Suite in F major) & Jean-Philippe Rameau. The centre-piece of the disc is a new arrangement by Brachetta of twenty movements from Rameau's comic opera masterpiece Platee.

The third installment in Anneke Scott’s series of works by the French natural horn player and composer Jacques-François Gallay presents a thrilling programme of operatic fantasias & songs. These fascinating and unique works mix incredibly virtuosic music with beautifully lyrical melodies deeply influenced by Gallay’s position as solo horn of the Parisian Theâtre Italien. For this final volume in the series, Scott is joined by the celebrated pianist Steven Devine and renowned soprano Lucy Crowe. In this recording, Anneke Scott performs on a natural horn (cor solo) by Marcel-Auguste Raoux dating from 1823 (Loaned with kind permission by the Bate Collection, University of Oxford), while plays a grand piano by erard, from 1851. (Loaned with kind permission by the University of Birmingham).

Resonus is proud to present a programme of world premiere recordings of chamber music by the contemporary British composer Tom Armstrong. Performed by an impressive line-up of musicians for whom the pieces were originally composed, this unique programme explores the processes of revision and re-working, from minor alterations to radical re-examinations of the same musical materials. Tom Armstrong studied composition with George Nicholson and Roger Marsh. He read music at York University, completing a PhD in composition in 1994. He has also studied at Dartington Summer School, the Britten-Pears School and on the renowned International Course for Professional Choreographers and Composers. Tom has received commissions for orchestral, chamber and vocal music, amateur musicians and dance. In addition to the artists on this release, his music has been performed by the BBC Philharmonic, the New Music Players, the Feinstein Ensemble, and many others. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey.

Following on from their lauded recording of chamber works by their namesake, Lennox Berkeley, the Berkeley Ensemble, celebrating their tenth anniversary, return to Resonus Classics to turn their attention to the music of his son, Michael. In the year of his seventieth birthday, the ensemble record a selection of Michael's chamber works from across the last thirty-five years, including the virtuosic 'Catch Me If You Can' and the Clarinet Quintet. The ensemble is joined by mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron and conductor Dominic Grier for 'Winter Fragments,' 'Sonnet for Orpheus,' and the poignant 'Seven.' Hailed as 'an instinctive collective' (The Strad) the Berkeley Ensemble was formed with the aim of exploring little-known twentieth and twenty-first century British chamber music alongside more established repertoire. It now enjoys a busy concert schedule performing throughout the UK and abroad, and is also much in demand for it's inspiring work in education.