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.

WORKS FOR STRING QUARTET AND OTHER SMALL ENSEMBLES is a digital re-release of three albums from acclaimed composer Samuel Adler. The three albums, a collection of works for string quartet, violin, cello, and piano originally released in the mid-1990s, serves as a sampling of the historic and respected composer's compositional output for small ensemble.

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.

On WHISPERING FRAGRANCE, his first solo album with Navona Records, composer Stephen Yip merges serenity with agitation, earthiness with sophistication and the mundane with the sublime. The result is an original creation that is unapologetically post-modern, yet deeply rooted in Chinese traditionalism.

Pan-Fare, the album's starting point, is a rare modern classical piece for steel pan and a motley, jazz-inflected ensemble. Fun, energetic, and brimming with rhythmic imagination, it is set against an original percussive backdrop provided by, among others, a vibraslap, a marimba, and a Chinese opera gong.

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.

In 2005, violinist and composer Piotr Szewczyk developed the Violin Futura Project, a collection of commissioned miniatures for solo violin that highlights over thirty international contemporary composers and how they are re-imagining the solo violin. “The purpose of the Violin Futura Project,” says Szewczyk, “is to sample the creative environment of our times by showcasing the wide variety of styles present in the 21st century, and to create a body of new solo violin repertoire.” Navona Records presents the album release of Szewczyk’s project, VIOLIN FUTURA.

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.

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.

Wall Street. Salvador Dali. Gustav Mahler. Some of the sources of inspiration for composer Sergio Cervetti on his fourth solo Navona release, UNBRIDLED. Spanning over forty years of his career, the works represent Cervetti's continued aesthetic of combining traditional and postmodern techniques and instrumentation.

If there were two words to describe Nathan Froebe’s musical output, they would be: exuberant and ruminative. In fact, these two attributes might arrive at a tie on TWO BY THREE, a selection of energetic freetonal, programmatic pieces for a myriad of flutes and piano. The thoughtful nature of these works is apparent even in their respective titles: Meditation, Three Scenes for Wind and Hammer, and Essay for Piccolo, Piano, and Alto Flute, to name but a few. Meticulously composed by Froebe and impeccably performed by flutists Jessica Raposo and Mihoko Watanabe with pianist Michael Seregow, TWO BY THREE sweeps through the mind like a fresh breeze on a crisp April morning.

Ferdinando DeSena’s TURNING POINT is an experimental odyssey, an enticing collection of music that reimagines the timbres of familiar instruments like flute, piano, the human voice, and more. The title piece uses the audio synthesis technique called “convolution” in which musical audio samples are digitally joined with the sound of cymbal strikes and crashes to dramatic effect. In Sonorous Earth, DeSena conducts a different sort of experiment, this time by scoring for all the lower relatives of a woodwind quintet. An impressive tour de force, TURNING POINT leaves listeners with an expanded sense of what is possible in the realm of chamber music.

Osias Wilenski composer

Society of Composers, Inc. presents 10 works from boundary-defying composers on TRANSITION AND APOTHEOSIS, the 35th installment of their celebrated Composers’ Series. SCI renews its decades-long mission to promote and disseminate contemporary music in this Navona Records release.

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.

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.