Catalog

Inspired by poetry and prose, composer Mark Volker’s latest release YOUNG PROMETHEUS is about reactions. From the philosophical reaction to the “Three Quotations" to the physical reactions in “Echoes of Yesterday," Volker creates an atmosphere that both conveys the optimistic and ominous.

Following their Navona Records debut in 2019, Duo Sequenza returns with YES… IT’S STILL A THING!, a new program geared towards building new audiences for today’s classical music and promoting the work of living composers. Comprised of flutist Debra Silvert and classical guitarist Paul Bowman, Duo Sequenza brings an enchanting and harmonious quality that showcase the complementary capabilities of their respective instruments. From emotive and introspective works to scenic vistas painted in sound, the duo once again proves their musical chops and adaptability across a wide array of compositional styles.

Navona presents WINDOW PANES, a cross section of works by compositional veteran Elizabeth R. Austin. The collection is the first to comprise a lifetime of the American's works into one album: and as the title insinuates, it is an album full of interwoven associations, subconscious reminiscences and intense melodic reflections, with decades of labor condensed into an hour of listening.

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.

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.

From Navona Records comes an exciting new CD bundle of five previous releases featuring the piano at its most prepared and extended. WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO THAT PIANO? features composers and artists dedicated to finding the most adventurous and compelling sounds that the piano has to offer. Opening with SONATAS AND INTERLUDES IN A LANDSCAPE, composed by John Cage, the virtual godfather of prepared piano, and performed by the virtuosic Kate Boyd, this CD bundle contains one of the most eclectic collections of solo piano music a listener will ever encounter.

Exalted and expressive to just the right degree, Ohio-born pianist Vytautas Smetona fuses his American upbringing with his Lithuanian heritage in his recordings of Brahms, Chopin and his own work. His second release on Navona exhibits technical command of the highest order, profound musical understanding and a clarity of interpretation which is seldom heard.

Composer Simon Proctor and pianist Tyler Hay join forces to bring a dynamic collection of Proctor’s original compositions to life on VIRTUOSO PIANO WORKS from Navona Records. With works spanning decades of his musical career, Proctor delivers a variety of celebrated classical styles with his own personal twists on this album. From rhapsodies to nocturnes, and everything in between, the composer-pianist duo’s mutual love for virtuosic piano music shines throughout, a perfect pairing that makes for a vicariously exciting listening experience.

Hailed by the New York Times as a “promethean talent,” Canadian pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico performs compositions from six American composers on VINTAGE AMERICANA. In an exhilarating show of virtuosity, Petrowska Quilico steps unflinchingly from tonality to atonality and back again. While the solo piano is the unquestioned star of the album, moments of electronic manipulation and other unexpected instrumentation offer surprising new textures. In VINTAGE AMERICANA, Christina Petrowska Quilico reimagines what this centuries-old instrument is capable of. The result is a captivating collection of masterfully-performed works from some of America’s most gifted composers.

Greg d'Alessio's VEIL offers a cross-section through all the facets encompassing modern classical composition as well as an impressive portrait of the composer's unique voice and development over two decades. VEIL's chronological track order allows the listener to follow the progression of both the music and the man behind it. Veil and Thread are D'Alessio's early chamber works, very much reflective of the conviction and clarity characteristic of the young composer, built on a thoughtful yet passionate blend of traditional structure and instrumentation with experimental effects.

Very few genres are as difficult to interpret pianistically as that of contemporary serious music: it often requires a superhuman degree of both virtuosity and patience, and the potential pitfalls of expression are ever-present. Enter Korean pianist Koeun Grace Lee, who zestily breezes through the most varied contemporary repertoire imaginable, with a level of self-assurance and musical competence that borders on being a revelation. While also featuring folkloristically-inspired works by David Burge and Jean Ahn, the heart of VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY STEFAN WOLPE is the similarly-titled work by Robert Gross, spanning no less than twenty variations on a theme by Stefan Wolpe, the German-American interdisciplinary modernist. Sprawling yet precise, decisive yet eclectic, it's the perfect canvas for Lee, and the resulting symbiosis is mesmerizing.

UNCOMMON VOICES from Natasha Stojanovska explores the music of female composers from Eastern Europe. This collections of piano works includes the music of Croatia, North Macedonia, the former Soviet Union, and other Eastern European countries, combined with elements of the western musical tradition. The album includes two of Stojanovska’s compositions, Phantasy No. 1 and Phantasy No. 2. The former borrows metrical patterns found in Macedonian folk music; along with elements of tonality and atonality, the piece examines the uncertain boundary between the Macedonian and American cultures. The album also features the works of contemporary composers like Bojana Petrovic Aleksova, as well as historical composers like Maria Szymanowska. Stojanovska is especially proud to bring the music of Szymanowska to the attention of modern listeners; while Szymanowska’s music is not performed as often today, her compositions—including the enchanting Nocturne in B-flat major—likely inspired Frederic Chopin. UNCOMMON VOICES offers a long overdue celebration of female composers from Eastern Europe, as interpreted by the capable hands of Natasha Stojanovska.

Osias Wilenski composer

If there is one thing that is important to Richard E Brown, it’s clarity; it would be impossible to listen to any of his compositions without finding one’s emotions immediately and intuitively seized, no explanations necessary. Brown’s music is at once neoclassical and aesthetic, and his selection of TRIOS & SONATINAS makes for a perfect introduction. Aforementioned clarity is also the secret ingredient which allows Brown to breezily and naturally unite polar opposites: the Western classical piano trio with Korean folk themes, the simple sonatina form with musical complexity, and the frail violin and resounding horn as equals in another trio. Simplicity is supposedly the ultimate form of sophistication, and TRIOS & SONATINAS makes a strong point indeed.

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.

Navona Records is proud to release TRANSIT VOICES from composer Carl Vollrath. Featuring a series of works for clarinet, the album grapples with existential questions; who were the humans of prehistory, and what defining qualities do our spirits share in common with theirs? Vollrath imagines these clarinet pieces as found archaeological objects, voices from long ago that have somehow made their way to our present-day ears. Inspired by Andrew Robinson's book Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts, the music plums a cavernous underworld for clues toward a deeper understanding of human existence.

Composer Ferdinando DeSena is no stranger to variation; from his previous electro-acoustic concoctions to this dynamic blend of chamber orchestrations in TOCCATA MIAMI, a world of enticing conversation between tonal opposites begs to be uncovered in these expressive compositions. Oboe and piano dance in an ominous sonata soundscape, harps and flutes seek to sooth in Three Attitudes, and solo piano works shine with a latin flair in the album’s titular track.

Don't mistake the inference in the title of Emmy Award-winning composer Bruce Babcock's multi-faceted new Navona Records album TIME, STILL - the music is serious and contemplative at points to be sure, but the effervescence of Babcock's metrically shifting style and sound percolates to the surface throughout.

TIME AND THE HOUR from Israeli-born composer Ayala Asherov is a selection of chamber works tied together by the theme of the passing of time. Asherov’s acknowledgment of time moving us forward in constant motion is a significant piece of the composer’s compositional process, translated into her work with titles such as Seasons and Crystal Watch. This carefully curated collection of Asherov’s pieces commissioned and performed throughout the years provides a thorough taste of the composer’s communicative and powerful musical style.

Navona Records presents some of the finest American voices of modern serious music on THROUGH GLASS, a brand-new compilation of recently-created works for piano – both solo and in chamber setups.