• Words Adorned

    Catalog #: NV6356

    Release Date: July 9, 2021

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Voice

    The Grammy-winning professional chamber choir The Crossing, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, and Navona Records present WORDS ADORNED. Conducted by Donald Nally, with Takht musical direction by Hanna Khoury, the combined forces interpret lush scores from Kinan Abou-afach and Kareem Roustom; the music is at times driven and passionate, at others mystical and lyrical, responding to ancient Andalusian poetry in the Muwashshah tradition. The takht – masterfully handling the oud, qanun, violin, cello, and percussion – guides the kaleidoscopic sounds and colors in these poems of love, revelry, and war, with additional solo work by the virtuosic singer Dalal Abu Amneh. True to their commitment to honor tradition while constantly blazing new ground, The Crossing’s latest offering is steeped in history, deeply relevant to modern listeners, and bridges cultures seamlessly.

  • Woefully Arrayed

    Catalog #: NV6113

    Release Date: July 14, 2017

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir

    Navona Records showcases sacred and secular choral works by composer Jonathan Little on its latest release, WOEFULLY ARRAYED. Jonathan Little’s work has been described as “a music redolent of the past and the future.” His modern interpretations of Renaissance and Baroque techniques of composition—such as modal harmonies and isorhythm—form the basis of his musical voice. The sound is strikingly contemporary, yet also intertwined with choral traditions of the past. Several of these beautiful and moving settings of profound and poignant texts feature intricate “polychoral” techniques: multi-part, multi-divisi, solo, echo and spatial effects.

  • Wisdom-Love-Eternity

    Catalog #: NV6027

    Release Date: February 12, 2016

    21st Century
    Liturgical
    Vocal Music
    Choir

    On his latest release on Navona Records, WISDOM-LOVE-ETERNITY, composer Michael G. Cunningham presents a collection of his choral works, performed by the Kühn Choir of Prague conducted by Marek Vorlíček, which explore the spiritual element of the human condition, addressing the uncertainty of death, the inexpressible emotion of love, and humans’ search for an understanding of God.

  • Wild Swans

    Wild Swans

    Catalog #: NV6547

    Release Date: August 11, 2023

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Vocal Music
    Clarinet
    Harp
    Piano
    Voice

    Diane Maltester and Nancy Bachmann take listeners on a mesmerizing musical journey with WILD SWANS. Contemporary composer Nancy Bachmann’s exquisite music entices listeners with an artist’s pallet of expressive and progressive sounds. Released under Navona Records, this extraordinary album showcases Bachmann’s compositions for the superbly talented clarinetist, Diane Maltester. WILD SWANS takes flight through compositions for voice, woodwind quintet, trios, duos, and unaccompanied clarinet. The wings of Bachmann’s imaginative energy and Maltester’s interpretive virtuosity transport the listener to beautiful and exotic destinations. As one explores the transcendent compositions on WILD SWANS Bachmann’s brilliance and versatility shine through on every track, illuminated by the extraordinary artistry of Maltester and all her collaborators. A captivating mix of wildness and grace!

  • Who is Sylvia

    Catalog #: NV6282

    Release Date: May 8, 2020

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Piano
    String Quartet
    Voice

    Joseph Summer’s WHO IS SYLVIA, new from Navona Records, is a collection of Shakespeare’s works set to music that will make you question everything you thought you learned in high school English. Summer believes that the famous playwright’s true identity is not William Shakespeare but rather Edward De Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Many of the songs found on WHO IS SYLVIA come from Summer’s aptly-named The Oxford Songs, a collection of scenes, sonnets, songs, and Summer’s original opera version of Hamlet. These are paired with music from the likes of Schubert and Schumann to create a dynamic and colorful musical experience worthy of the Bard himself.

  • Whispers of Heavenly Death

    Catalog #: NV6198

    Release Date: November 9, 2018

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Piano
    Voice

    First up in this compelling collection is a selection of Walt Whitman's oeuvre, including the work that inspired the album's title, which Perkins' music hauntingly elucidates as the lament of a soul hovering on the brink between life and death. Intriguingly, the composer preserves the mood for the Holy Sonnets by John Donne, a Petrarch-style, English Renaissance collection of sonnets auguring the later Baroque period's preoccupation with the contrast between carnality and mortality.

  • When The Soul Speaks

    Catalog #: NV6205

    Release Date: January 25, 2019

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir

    The Bonifantes Boys Choir showcases the best of the best of the Czech boy singers and composer Jan Jirásek over the past 20 years. WHEN THE SOUL SPEAKS demonstrates the abilities of both the ensemble and its leaders through the performance of Latin Christian masses, Buddhist mantras and Quran excerpts, and traditional Czech hymns -- together presenting the idea that different religions and cultural customs can stand together side by side.

  • Wheels of Heaven

    Catalog #: NV6574

    Release Date: October 13, 2023

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir
    Organ

    Avner Finberg, Avishay Shalom, and Ohad Stolarz decorate the choral scene in WHEELS OF HEAVEN, a new setting of sacred Hebrew and Aramaic texts admirably performed and recorded by Ensemble Ofanìm. WHEELS OF HEAVEN is a devotion to the literary elements of Hebrew traditions, illustrations of a rich and cherished history. These artists have composed, arranged, and presented a beautiful collection of a vast literary tradition in this release, and the resulting sound is remarkable.

  • What Is Ours

    Catalog #: NV6484

    Release Date: December 9, 2022

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir
    Large Ensemble

    There are generally two ways one can face a crisis. One can give up, or one can persevere and use it to one's advantage. Choir director Dominick DiOrio definitely chose the latter during the pandemic, turning his reflections and sentiments about it into a profoundly engaging, almost philosophical choral album titled WHAT IS OURS. DiOrio conjures a formidable cross-section of music by a range of contemporary composers that not only reflects the diversity and multiplicity of modern-day America, but also its underbelly of struggle, challenge, and an eventual triumph of humanity.

  • Ways You Went

    Catalog #: NV6648

    Release Date: September 20, 2024

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir
    Organ
    Saxophone

    Recently named Musical America's 2024 Ensemble of the Year, Donald Nally's chamber choir The Crossing stuns with their latest studio album, WAYS YOU WENT. Vibrant, exhilarating, and uplifting, this new release features original compositions by composers Martin Bresnick and Mason Bates. WAYS YOU WENT is a yin and yang of interconnected opposites. Bresnick's song cycle Self-Portraits 1964 exclusively deals with the life and personality of a single man: young and intellectual, working as a trash collector to put himself through college, and escaping into literature at night. Bates' trilogy Mass Transmission takes a telegraph conversation between mother and daughter in the 1920s and sets it to music, contrasting the warmth of human communication and a mechanistic medium. Both of these cycles, one introspective, the other socially oriented, are snapshots of a time gone by. The Crossing brings both to life with perfect mastery.

  • Voices of Earth and Air Vol V

    Voices of Earth and Air Vol V

    Catalog #: NV6538

    Release Date: August 25, 2023

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir
    Piano
    Voice

    Navona Records presents VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL V, a dynamic album showcasing the human voice and the powerful storytelling capabilities that vocal music wields. Six contemporary composers from around the world offer breathtaking works that stir the senses in this release, from hauntingly beautiful ballads to uplifting choral arrangements and climactic moments of triumph. With intimate settings of the human voice with instrumental accompaniment, full-fledged choir works, and everything in between, the composers and performers on VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL V deliver unique and impactful moments that are sure to strike a chord.

  • Voices of Earth and Air Vol IV

    Catalog #: NV6465

    Release Date: September 9, 2022

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir

    Navona Records presents VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL IV, a choral celebration of the human commonality we find within music. Featuring the works of six seasoned composers, each piece tells a sentimental story unique to each composer, fitting together like puzzle pieces and demonstrating the connective qualities of the human voice. Brought to life by Prague’s Kühn Choir, these choral works are sure to entrance and entice listeners with flowing tonality and artful text settings that demonstrate the powerful storytelling capabilities that vocal music wields.

  • Voices of Earth and Air Vol III

    Catalog #: NV6299

    Release Date: October 9, 2020

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir
    Organ

    Judging by Navona's VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL III, this century is facing a significant paradigm shift in contemporary composition. The third installment of the trailblazing series again showcases contemporary choral music, and once more, it is mesmerizing – mesmerizingly tonal and aesthetic.

  • Voices of Earth and Air Vol II

    Catalog #: NV6221

    Release Date: April 26, 2019

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir

    VOICES OF EARTH AND AIR VOL II presents the best that modern choral compositions have to offer. Settings of traditional prayers are mingled with ethereal stories and otherworldly visions, and each of the eight compositions both stand unique and work together harmoniously to create a collection that nods to the future of choral music.

  • Voices Of Earth And Air

    Catalog #: NV5923

    Release Date: July 30, 2013

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir

    The poet has long been considered a vehicle for expressing human thought and emotion through literary device, setting the seemingly indescribable to text, offering direction to the enamored and forlorn alike. The human voice adds a new element to the text, providing an additional level of complexity and expressiveness.

  • Voices from the Other Side

    Catalog #: NV6662

    Release Date: September 6, 2024

    20th Century
    21st Century
    Chamber
    Vocal Music
    Cello
    Voice

    VOICES FROM THE OTHER SIDE is a collection of evocative chamber works performed by cello octet — several with soprano soloist Gabrielle Haigh. Included are Arvo Pärt’s tintinnabuli-style Fratres as well as his L’abbé Agathon, inspired by the remains of a 12th-century leper hospital near Beauvais, France; as well as the beloved Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Two works by American composer Margi Griebling-Haigh are featured: the title piece is a setting of three otherworldly poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a single-movement work called Cantilena allows the cellists to shine individually as well as together. Griebling-Haigh’s music has been praised for memorable melodies and strong rhythms; her colorful scoring and harmonic language have been compared to Barber, Ravel, and Poulenc.

  • Vocal Works

    Catalog #: NV6360

    Release Date: August 13, 2021

    21st Century
    Vocal Music
    Choir
    Orchestra

    Throughout his ever-evolving career, Brian Field has penned music for everything from orchestra and chamber settings to ballet and television, sprinkling in influences of post-romanticism, minimalism, and jazz. On his album VOCAL WORKS on Navona Records, the human voice takes center stage, and Field doesn’t shy away from his brand of compositional diversity. Field brings six pieces springing from the page, including a traditional Sephardic lullaby, musical interpretations of Pablo Neruda's and E. E. Cummings’ poetry, and works with texts written by the composer himself. Throughout the album, the Budapest Chorus conducted by Martón Tóth brings dynamism and emotion to every note.

  • Unseen Paths

    Catalog #: NV6633

    Release Date: June 14, 2024

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Vocal Music
    Clarinet
    Flute
    Voice

    Navona Records is pleased to present UNSEEN PATHS, a variegated collection of works by late composer Lawrence K. Moss. Well known for his diverse musical oeuvre spanning vocal, instrumental, and electronic works, UNSEEN PATHS shows us a deeper look into his mastery in the chamber music genre, from flute and piano duos to music for string quartet, operas, and more. As a valediction to a remarkable career, this collection is a timeless tribute to Moss' enduring legacy, inviting listeners to savor the depth and brilliance of his artistic voice.

  • Unholy Sonnets

    Catalog #: NV6578

    Release Date: November 10, 2023

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Vocal Music
    Piano
    Voice
    Wind Ensemble

    Few forms in classical music are as underrated as the song cycle. It is easy to be betrayed by the seemingly-modest set-up – piano and solo voice – requiring well-calculated finesse from a composer to seize its minimalist power and bring it into full bloom. UNHOLY SONNETS, a collection of songs by German-born American Samuel Adler, succeeds greatly in this effort. Although all works presented are in English and the tonal language is decidedly modern, there is much that harks back to the German art song tradition of the 19th century. Despite the title, these are largely quiet, pensive pieces, confidently resting in a tranquil serenity.

  • Transparent Boundaries

    Catalog #: NV6290

    Release Date: June 12, 2020

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Vocal Music
    Cello
    Piano
    Voice

    For centuries, writers have documented the awe brought about by the pristine wilderness and untamed expanses of the American Midwest and West. Three authors in particular—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson—beautifully documented the boundless optimism and sense of opportunity that the country’s vast natural resources inspired and heralded a new era of American thought.