Catalog

The long-awaited release from the chamber ensemble Duo Sequenza, YES…IT’S A THING!, includes works by five critically acclaimed contemporary composers. David Noon is one of the most prolific composers in the U.S.; Jerry Owen’s numerous achievements include two Pulitzer Prize nominations; Jorge Muñiz has had his music performed by chamber ensembles, chorales and orchestras throughout the world; Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation and one of the most performed and recorded living composers in the United States; and Amin Sharifi’s recent works have been performed in the United States, Europe, and his native Iran.

WITH PASSION is the latest release from Navona Records featuring the works of French composer Yves Ramette (1921-2012). Exquisitely beautiful, these cascading works for solo piano stand alone within a palate of tine, color, and space that Mr. Ramette crafted and honed throughout his studies and professional career.

WIND DEVIL & CO. is a selection of sound scores commissioned by choreographers and dance companies that were performed nationally and internationally at venues such as Berlin's Akademie der Kunste and three Next Wave Festivals at Brooklyn Academy of Music. WIND DEVIL & CO. was created, composed, and performed by Sergio Cervetti, and is his third Navona release.

Eleanor Alberga explores the whole gamut of the human experience in  WILD BLUE YONDER, an equally diverse and coherent set of four contemporary chamber music pieces. While written over the course of twenty-two years, these pieces burst the limits of both space and time. No-Man’s-Land Lullaby reaches back over a century to World War I; Shining Gate of Morpheus enters the realm of the mystical; Succubus Moon explores the dark sides of the  human psyche; and The Wild Blue Yonder offers a glimpse into a world that is at once alien and  wonderful. Undauntedly, positively unsettling album; perfect listening for these unsettling times and a worthy addition to the much hailed album of Alberga's three string quartets from 2019.

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.

WANDERINGS, the debut album from pianist Brian Woods, reflects the beauty that can emerge in dark times. Woods performs Chopin's Ballades alongside pioneering compositions from Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger, and Amy Beach. The album was born as an artistic response to the horror of the war in Ukraine; through these emotive and technically-demanding performances, Woods offers comfort and inspiration for people everywhere suffering displacement. Just as Chopin wrestled with what it meant to be Polish while living outside of Poland, Woods seeks identity and transformation through exile. In WANDERINGS, Woods leverages the power of music to bridge the gap between despair and hope.

Michael Clark’s knowledge and reverence for Florence Price shines in WALTZES & CHARACTER PIECES OF FLORENCE PRICE. Opening with the first waltz in Price’s musical catalog, Valsette Mignon, and closing with one of her final waltzes, Waltzing on a Sunbeam, Clark’s respect and intimate understanding of these elegant piano works is evident in his delicate treatment of each passage down to the single note. The sheer musicality Clark presents in the rolling melodic line of character pieces such as Dreamboat and Barcarolle honors Price’s work in a way that both uplifts and exceeds expectations. Clark hopes that the fragment of her vast repertoire showcased in WALTZES & CHARACTER PIECES OF FLORENCE PRICE will implore listeners to further explore her works, continuing to give Price her long overdue flowers.

WALTON & BARBER from famed British violinist Thomas Bowes celebrates the works of two early 20th century composers, William Walton and Samuel Barber. The album includes Walton’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and Two Pieces for Strings from Henry V, as well as Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra op. 14 and the touchstone Adagio for Strings op. 11. Throughout the album, Bowes’ breathtaking virtuosity is on full display. His playing, which has been characterized by Gramophone Magazine as “deeply human” and “unusually communicative,” teases out subtleties and rises to the challenge of the most technically-demanding passages. With the violin at centerstage, WALTON & BARBER brings the full power of the orchestra to bear.

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.

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.

The four works on UNEXPLORED, offer an expansive variety of musical genres while introducing listeners to previously unrecorded cello repertoire. Premiere recordings of works by Tchaikovsky, Cassadó, Rudnytsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov are presented by cellist Nada Radulovich and pianist Cullan Bryant.

Yuriy Bekker, violinist on Navona Records release TWENTIETH CENTURY DUOS, is joined by renowned pianist Andrew Armstrong in some of the most beautiful and rarely-performed works of the twentieth century by Jewish composers Erich Korngold and Aaron Copland. Bekker says of the album, “The idea for this project finally came to fruition with the help of the rare 1686 Ex-Nachez Stradivarius violin.  This is the first sound recording of this violin and I believe these particular selections by Korngold and Copland highlight its most magical qualities.”

TREASURES FROM THE ARCHIVES, composer Carol Barnett's debut solo release on Navona Records, presents shining choral arrangements and originals from the composer's diverse catalog as interpreted by several choral groups, which gives the pieces an added tonal quality and presence. Many of the featured works were arranged by Barnett for the Minnesota-based Dale Warland Singers during her nearly decade-long residency with the group.

“Music is a game we play… It is to be respected, but not to be taken too seriously. It belongs to all of us. It is ours to create and recreate, to mess around with, as long as we give credit.” In his own words, Toker expresses the freedom that can be found within the written page of every musical score. A whole world can be discovered, rediscovered, and recreated in a single piece, and TOKER MESSING AROUND seeks to do just that.

PARMA is proud to present THROUGH TIME AND PLACE, an ambitious cross-section of James Lentini's extensive catalog. The award-winning guitarist and composer impresses with massive tonal landscapes which can be considered exemplary in contemporary American serious music. THROUGH TIME AND PLACE's title is aptly chosen: the album contains a collection of previously unreleased recordings made over the course of Lentini's long career.

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of composer Deems Taylor’s death (1885-1966), an opportune time to revisit his music by releasing his previously unrecorded piece Three Century Suite. This piece, in the form of a Baroque dance suite, is delightfully accessible, full of beautiful melodies, exquisite harmonies, and marvelous orchestration. Three Century Suite was performed once before, in Interlochen, Michigan, in 1961, conducted by A. Clyde Roller.

From the iconic groove of his Take Five to the infectious melody he composed in Blue Rondo À la Turk and beyond, Dave Brubeck was an innovative musical figure who left an indelible footprint on the history of jazz. His groundbreaking approach to composition stretched far beyond the barriers of genre, however. THE VOICE OF BRUBECK, VOL. 1 from Navona Records showcases the legendary artist’s contributions to symphonic, chamber, and sacred vocal music, and explorations of new musical forms. Spearheaded by producer Arthur Gottschalk and the Lago Vista Community Concerts Foundation, this album offers a diverse palette of celebrated and previously-unrecorded choral and orchestral works that Brubeck regarded as some of his finest. Featuring the GRAMMY® Award-winning Houston Chamber Choir alongside a 19-piece orchestra and the Brubeck Brothers and Paul English Quartets, THE VOICE OF BRUBECK, VOL. 1 carries on the legacy of the widely influential pianist and composer’s body of work so that future generations may enjoy his music for years to come.

THE ROAD OF PROMISE represents a concert adaptation of Kurt Weill’s 1937 opera-oratorio The Eternal Road. Performed by members of the New York City-based performing arts organization MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale), under the baton of Ted Sperling, this pseudo-allegorical work was conceived by European Jewish emigrants in the US as an attempt to inform the American public about Adolf Hitler’s persecution of German Jews.

Kevin Lee Sun delivers an electrifying call to action in THE PEOPLE UNITED, a monumental set of 36 variations by the late American composer Frederic Rzewski. Derived from a global lineage of inspiration, the theme originated in Chile when the composer Sergio Ortega heard the soul-stirring chant of a street singer in Santiago, months before the 1973 Chilean coup d’etat. Inspired in turn by Ortega’s music and Chile’s upheavals, Rzewski combined the chant with revolutionary songs from various cultures to deliver a clear message of solidarity in his 1975 hour-long masterpiece, eponymously named The People United Will Never Be Defeated! Recorded in 2023, fifty years after Chile’s coup d’etat, Sun’s interpretation reckons with the historical weight of Rzewski’s variations. His strikingly dynamic and empathetic playing seeks to re-center the suffering and heroism of the Chilean people at the core of the musical narrative. Rather than pooling the lived experiences of the Chilean people into a blanket revolutionary statement, Sun invokes the voices of the chanting street singers, the people at the very start of it all.

Artists are liminal figures — they cross thresholds and collapse boundaries between past, present, and future.  In THE NEW EPOCH, three musicians from the Boston Artists Ensemble interpret works by French composers Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, and Lili Boulanger, infusing these pieces with unprecedented freshness and clarity. Each celebrated in their own right, cellist Jonathan Miller, violinist Lucia Lin, and pianist Diane Walsh join forces in every duo setting possible from this assortment of instruments. Exploring works written at the threshold of the First World War — with the world crossing into the violent twentieth century and composers reacting with music that looked both nostalgically back and innovatively forward — they underline the commonalities between each composer’s unique voice and reinterpret this music for our turbulent present. Each celebrated in their own right, cellist Jonathan Miller, violinist Lucia Lin, and pianist Diane Walsh join forces in every duo setting possible from this assortment of instruments. Exploring works written at the threshold of the First World War –– with the world crossing into the violent twentieth century and composers reacting with music that looked both nostalgically back and innovatively forward –– they underline the commonalities between each composer’s unique voice and reinterpret this music for our turbulent present.