Catalog

It is tempting to compare Matej Meštrović's compositional style to his great predecessors in the late-Romantic tradition. After all, much of the Croatian composer's style and techniques would be right at home in Rachmaninoff’s concertos, Tchaikovsky's works, or Prokofiev's neoclassicism; and the name of the album's first work, Danube Rhapsody, naturally evokes associations with Smetana's similarly river-themed Vltava. Add to all of this that Meštrović, like most of his great musical ancestors, is a talented virtuoso pianist, and it's easy to see why 3 RHAPSODIES is bound to meet with enthusiasm.

Jonathan Sacks composer “Incantations: Book V” Recorded August 2003 with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra. Conducted by Carl St. Clair “Litanies” and “Ghost Horses” Recorded December 2006 at Futura Productions in Boston, MA. Produced by Bob Lord “5th (S)eason” Recorded July 2000 [...]

Composer Dan Redfeld presents A HOPEFUL PLACE: A SONG CYCLE FOR SOPRANO & CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, his debut release on Navona records showcasing his nine-movement song cycle of the same name. A Hopeful Place follows a woman’s journey through life from birth to death—a life-cycle-song-cycle, as librettist John Gabriel Koladziej describes the piece.

The music of Irish composer Gráinne Mulvey explores the juxtaposition of polar opposites, pitting the real against the synthetic in finely crafted and thought-provoking works. AKANOS, an all-Mulvey album on Navona Records, includes seven of her works.

What do you get when you cross a composer, a bassist, and a conductor? It's no joke, and neither is Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn. It is, however, a piece called Joker's Wild which opens up Sternfeld-Dunn's debut Navona Records release FIREWORKS, and it's a doozy, a crackerjack double concertino expertly crafted and written to showcase the talents of the Cameradschaft Duo. The piece won Best in Show from the Global Music Awards in 2012.

A champion of repertoire and lauded by the New York Times as a virtuoso, double bassist Richard Fredrickson brings his instrument to the forefront on ALL AMERICAN BASS, an album of works composed specifically for him. Joining the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kirk Trevor, Fredrickson flawlessly navigates the works by Vittorio Giannini, John Carbon, and William Thomas McKinley. From Giannini’s darkly profound and agitated Psalm 130 to Carbon’s Endangered Species, which portrays the double bass as a wild and powerful beast that gracefully reins itself in, to McKinley’s modern, somber-then-lively Passacaglia, Fredrickson’s command of tone and melody creates an unforgettable recording and serves as an encapsulation of the instrument’s potential.

AMERICAN SCENES, from composer Samuel A. Livingston is, as its title suggests, a painterly tribute to America. The album’s title piece, Three American Scenes, is a three-movement suite that expresses the grandeur of the American west, the serenity of a mountain lake at dawn, and the bustle of a busy day in a large city. The album opens with Celebrating the Fourth, which depicts an American Fourth of July celebration. The final two selections feature works for concert band with a solo instrument – the flute, in Silvertube Variations, and the clarinet, in Balkan Dance. In that last selection, Livingston turns his attention beyond our shores, to the harmonies and rhythms of the folk music of the Balkan countries, especially Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Altogether, AMERICAN SCENES is thoughtfully-crafted and unabashedly jubilant, expressing appreciation for America and the world beyond with refreshing sincerity.

A composer equally accustomed to writing for orchestra, opera, film, theater, chorus, and chamber ensembles, Brian Wilbur Grundstrom’s voice includes a strong affinity for long melodic lines, distinctive tonal harmonic vocabulary, engaging rhythms, skillfully executed counterpoint, and dramatic imagery, all of which are reflected in the five orchestral works which span fourteen years on his debut release with Navona Records, AN ORCHESTRAL JOURNEY, to create a visionary and lyrical expedition that is quite accessible and easily travelled for the listener.

With an innate sense of curiosity and a drive for knowledge, humans constantly push the boundaries of their physical and psychological environments, attempting to break through and discover the unexpected. On his debut Navona Records release ASTRAL TRAVELS, composer and double bassist David Arend explores several frontiers, including perceived boundaries between musical genres, earth and outer space, humanity and nature, and perception and reality.

AT THE PRECIPICE, the third release on Navona Records featuring the music of the late composer Yves Ramette (1921-2012), showcases four world premiere recordings of the composer's works. Recorded with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in the summer of 2013 after his passing, these four orchestral pieces follow on the heels of Ramette's albums CASCADING INTO REVERIE for piano and orchestra and WITH PASSION for solo piano, and offer interesting insight into not only the composer himself but also the times in which he worked.

BEE-SHARP HONEYBEE from composer Rae Howell is an immersive journey through the secret life of bees, performed here by the Sunwrae String Orchestra, intertwined with the hum of a live honeybee hive. It is the foundation of a large-scale multimedia work, featuring live animated projections synchronized with the music, and a real-time stream of honeybees, filmed, amplified, and intermittently fed through the live performance. Developed from extensive research into bee (buzz) rhythm, pitch, and "waggle dance" patterns (the sophisticated system of communication between bees, detailing the distance and direction of nectar in the environment), BEE-SHARP HONEYBEE magnifies the subtle intricacies of the beehive, highlighting these distinct patterns, identified through field recordings made during the initial research and development of the project.

PARMA Recordings, together with the esteemed Croatian Chamber Orchestra, is proud to release BENEATH THE TIDE, a reflection on human emotion and experience through a collection of five concertos. As the title suggests, BENEATH THE TIDE looks under the surface, examining underlying human realities that rise to the surface with the arrival of life’s changes.

It's no secret that brass instruments can infuse any musical setting with a hair-raising surge of untamed energy and fervor. On BRASS TACKS VOL 2 from Navona Records, the brass family finds itself the spotlight, showcasing unique tones and unhindered expressiveness that’ve been carefully extracted by a variety of seasoned composers and performers. Spanning joy rides in stylish sports cars, jazz-influenced passages, fusions with percussive instruments, and more, this release explores a wide range of emotions and compositional styles, each uncovering an inherent intensity and bravado that pushes the boundaries of brass repertoire.

French composer Yves Ramette's (1921-2012) music is marked by its ability to broadcast "messages of the heart," offering unflinching and distinguished representations of emotion and experience using traditional forms. A student of Honegger and contemporary of Boulez, among others, Ramette's works draw from the rhythmic and harmonic elements of mid-20th-century France.

CAUSAL DUALISM, Keith Kramer's second full-length release on Navona, is a celebration of dichotomy and relationships between all things. Duality, for soprano, saxophone, bass trombone, and string quartet, explores the interaction and relationships of the ensemble; Causality represents the string orchestra's journey of expression and highlights the action and reaction that permeates through all events; Flame of Attention, for soprano saxophone, the beginning of a long-term collaboration between the composer and Gottfried Stoger.

Composer Stas Namin has been recognized throughout his lifetime for using art to critique society and stand up against injustice, and his latest work with the London Symphony Orchestra is certainly no exception. CENTURIA S-QUARK, Namin’s symphony, is the composer’s prediction of a strange, material world to come in which humanity functions less as a community and instead favors individual interests. Using the sonata form as a base, Namin builds from multiple themes to create the symphony — after all, life itself is so complex that the human experience does not build from just a couple themes.

The music of composer Beth Mehocic comes together as a fulfilling and enticing whole in the COLLECTED WORKS OF BETH MEHOCIC. This all encompassing album merges the many corners and triumphs of Mehocic’s library, with commissioned pieces, tone poems, and various styles colliding in celebration of her extensive breadth of repertoire. Find early works like Piece by Piece alongside the more recent Left of Winter, Picasso’s Flight, and others with performances from Trio Casals, Croatian Chamber Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Altius Quartet, Zagreb Festival Orchestra, and more.

Composer Sophie Dupuis presents dazzling, profoundly eclectic compositions inspired by visual art on COMME BON LUI SEMBLE. Dupuis' musical language is measured, almost minimalist, but the colors she weaves into bright tapestries of sound certainly aren't. Pop culture or high culture, she draws inspiration from numerous sources — leading to compositions that are at once highly abstract, yet highly descriptive. It's a tightrope to walk, and at dizzying heights, but thankfully, Dupuis is not susceptible to musical vertigo.

Conductor Sergey Smbatyan leads the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra on their new album CONTEMPORARY COLOURS. Featuring music exclusively by Maltese composers, the album combines full orchestration with pre-recorded elements, traditional instruments, and contemporary sounds to bring the pieces to life.

Lauded by Gramophone Magazine for the “well-drilled performances” delivered in their first installment, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra returns with CONTEMPORARY COLOURS VOL 2, the long-awaited follow up to their 2020 Navona Records release. A keen promoter of Maltese composers, the orchestra brings to life works that explore themes of Greek tragedy, religious symbolism, existential philosophy, struggles that shape the human experience, and more. Conductor Miran Vautopić leads the celebrated ensemble through this exhilarating display of Maltese virtuosity.