Catalog

Observing the landscape of contemporary classical, one might assume that the art music community has shifted its focus away from the melodic, harmonious, and accessible. CONVERGENCE, an album of works by David Nisbet Stewart and George Gershwin, presents just the opposite: imaginative, expressive works that appeal to performers and audiences alike.

CONTINUUM features the modern orchestral works of Stephen "Lucky" Mosko, Tim Sullivan, Dan Crozier, and Michael G. Cunningham. From Mosko is the premier recording of Transliminal Music, one of only three of the composer's orchestral works. From Sullivan is Polychrome, a piece based in instrumental colors that finds the perfect balance between experimentalism and accessibility. From Crozier is Fairy Tale, an "opera scene without words" that explores the narrative power of music. From Cunningham is TransActions, which is driven by actions, gestures, and lines on one orchestra level bringing about reactions on other levels.

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.

I met the Swedish saxophonist Anders Paulsson in the early 90s through my friend and mentor John Corigliano. Anders, always a very entrepreneurial sort of musician, was to be the focus of a 1996 concert on Swedish Public Television. Fortunately for me, the program included funding for a commission of a new concerto, and Anders kindly asked me to compose something for soprano sax and large orchestra.

Jan Järvlepp's first Navona release, CONCERTO 2000, presents a tonal concerto, scored for orchestra – one might think Wagner or Mahler when listening. Except that Wagner and Mahler might not quite have agreed with the directness of his tonal language: for Järvlepp's work unabashedly aspires to appeal on a popular level.

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.

Michael G. Cunningham composer Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra | Vit Micka conductor Slovak National Symphony Orchestra | Kirk Trevor conductor

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 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.

CARMEN'S REVENGE is Osias Wilenski's humorous homage to Bizet's Carmen. Wilenskidraws from the works of Bizet, Mozart, and others to create a sort of operatic medley that places Carmen within modern society. This recording features soprano Maria Rosa López and baritone César Puente.

In 2008, PARMA Recordings acquired Capstone Records, the highly respected New York-based classical label founded by composer Richard Brooks in 1986, with the intent of shepherding the company and its music into the digital era. This album was originally released on Capstone and is being re-released by PARMA Recording's Navona Records.

Recognized as Malta’s foremost musical institution for half a century, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra keeps the fire burning with an album featuring works from Alexander Borodin, Joseph Vella, and Paolino Vassallo. While all three pieces wield their own compositional characteristics, an underlying theme of pride and victory in the face of adversity is present throughout, with Vella’s Rebbieħa subtly referencing fragments of Malta’s national anthem, Vassallo’s Malta reflecting the patriotic ideals of Romantic period artists, and Borodin’s Second Symphony depicting the imagery and celebration of war heroes. Enjoy the sonorous roar of the full philharmonic orchestra as they tell tales of triumph through music.

BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL from Dr. Diane Retallack and The Eugene Concert Choir is an ode to hope in the face of injustice. This Navona Records release showcases music by Black composers that shed light on the Black experience including two choral masterworks: Seven Last Words of the Unarmed by Joel Thompson and the world premiere recording of Dr. Undine Smith Moore’s oratorio Scenes from the Life of a Martyr. Thompson’s composition is modeled after Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ; in this work, Joel Thompson quotes the last words of seven unarmed African American men killed by police or authority figures. Moore’s oratorio depicts the life of Martin Luther King, Jr, from birth to carefree childhood, young love, a calling to amplify the voice of his people, the hatred he experienced for his commitment, the grief of his untimely death, and the power of his message. These works are joined by the world premiere of The Hymn! by Stacey V. Gibbs and an arrangement of Glory from the film Selma by Dr. Eugene Rogers.

In this stunning tour through the concerti of Beethoven’s early and middle periods, pianist Eliane Rodrigues captivates her listeners with graceful keyboard virtuosity, accompanied by the renowned St. Petersburg State Orchestra, Maestro Walter Proost at the podium. The technicality is so precise, the performance so true to period, that one might think the composer himself was at the piano.

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.

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.

Navona Records presents ANTHELION, showcasing favorite works from composer Adrienne Elisha (1958-2017). The works that comprise the album are technically demanding and rich in philosophical significance. Anthelion, for one, is a sonic contemplation of a natural phenomenon in which the sun’s light is projected across the sky, reflecting itself on the opposite horizon. The two-movement work, scored for flute, clarinet, violin, violoncello, percussion, and piano, expresses moments of “sonic abstraction” and continuous reverberation by way of unique instrumental timbres. In TranscenDance, on the other hand, Elisha makes a humanistic statement about the Syrian civil war, borrowing joyful melodies from Arab music and reimagining them in an orchestral setting. In this way, the music of ANTHELION is at once abstract and deeply contextual, challenging yet ultimately transcendent.

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.

"Havel havalim hakol hevel," — “Merest breath, all is mere breath.” In the throes of lockdown, Nicholas Weininger found himself reflecting on this Hebrew verse; what is the nature of our collective life sustained on if not breath and breath alone? It was a breath robbed and convoluted during the COVID-19 pandemic: the ravaged breath of the afflicted, the fear of coming too close to the breath of another. Our world seemed to pause and take a breath, busy city streets gone barren amid our collective anxieties. Debuted and recorded by the Empire City Men’s Chorus, ALL IS MERE BREATH asks us to question the nature of our changed society in the thought of mere breath alone, and offers us refuge in the breath of song, perhaps, now and then, the purest form of it.

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.