Motion Studies
Catalog #: NV6614
Release Date: April 5, 2024
21st CenturyVocal MusicChoirSaxophoneThe Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, returns to Navona Records with MOTION STUDIES, performing works by commissioned artist Justine Chen’s Shallow Breath and Stealth and commissioned artist Nicholas Cline’s watershed. Reflecting on a culture where data mining and government traceability have become normalized to the point of population complacency, Chen encapsulates the dissecting points of poet Jena Osman’s musings on the 21st-century reframing of paranoia, privacy, and the pervasive desire to run away from the data that follows us. Evidence of these reflections is present in the tittering, whispering, and often frantic conveyances of the ensemble in an unnerving collection of sequences that paint an antagonistic image of the modern machine. watershed designates motion as boundary rather than as escape: the movement of water as a crux point of political power and community resource. Joined by Matthew Levy on tenor sax, the ensemble ebbs with lap and flow as the American history of water is sung and dictated, leading the question of the damage nationalistic attitudes towards shared water resources have caused to our environment. A 2024 Best Choral Performance GRAMMY® nominee and multi-GRAMMY® winning ensemble, The Crossing continually proves itself to be at the forefront of new choral literature and performance. MOTION STUDIES is a release not to be missed.
Light & Shadows, Waves & Time
Catalog #: NV6154
Release Date: April 13, 2018
21st CenturyChamberSolo InstrumentalClarinetSaxophoneWind EnsembleAn exploration of the unique timbral characteristics and technical extensions of wind instruments, Gregory Wanamaker’s LIGHT AND SHADOWS, WAVES AND TIME is comprised of eight compositions that collectively illustrate the composer’s ability to integrate various genre influences into a distinctive whole. His music has been lauded as “pure gold, shot through with tenderness and grace” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “achingly beautiful” by the Palm Beach Daily News.
Inner Music
Catalog #: NV5954
Release Date: June 1, 2014
21st CenturyChamberPianoSaxophoneOn his debut release on Navona Records, INNER MUSIC, composer Ruud van Eeten presents three works that highlight the refinement and control evident in his compositional style. Throughout the four movements of Piano Quintet No. 1, the composer adds no excess; every note has a role. Yet the piece exudes emotion, particularly the second movement which develops a deep sense of longing.
I Give You My Home
Catalog #: NV6513
Release Date: March 10, 2023
21st CenturyOperaPercussionSaxophoneVoiceI GIVE YOU MY HOME is a site-specific chamber opera inspired by Rose Standish Nichols and the Nichols House Museum in Boston MA that premiered June 3, 2022. This elegant new opera paints a portrait of Rose, a professional Bostonian woman, and highlights her professional work as a landscape architect as well as her efforts to affect change through activism in the Women’s Peace Movement and Women’s Suffrage. Soprano Aliana de la Guardia portrays Rose in this opera, and is joined by saxophonist Philipp A. Stäudlin and percussionist Mike Williams.
Formika
Catalog #: NV6129
Release Date: February 9, 2018
21st CenturyChamberPianoSaxophoneWind EnsembleMexican composer Felipe Pérez Santiago introduces the follow up to his 2013 album, Mantis with his first Navona release, FORMIKA, an album of chamber music. Pérez Santiago continues his series with a vast notational layering and timing propelled by traditional instrumentation. Masterful playing by choice ensembles like Tamayo and Onix, create a particularly kaleidoscopic nostalgia in this pitching album.
Fleeting Realms
Catalog #: NV6107
Release Date: September 8, 2017
21st CenturyChamberPercussionPianoSaxophoneFLEETING REALMS is an inviting compilation of chamber music featuring six composers. Though the album obviously mixes different compositional voices, the different pieces share many characteristics. FLEETING REALMS is defined by a pervasive uplifting quality. Many of the album’s works feature driving rhythms and a joyfully relaxed sensibility. Even dissonance is used playfully or as a counter weight to beautiful lyricism. Such consistency in manner across six pieces by six diverse composers is obviously remarkable, and it makes FLEETING REALMS a very special musical collection.
Flare
Catalog #: NV6177
Release Date: August 10, 2018
21st CenturyChamberSolo InstrumentalLarge EnsemblePianoSaxophoneNavona Records proudly presents Flare, recordings by members of the Society of Composers, Inc. Now in its 32nd installment, it offers a veritable cross-section of some of the most original voices in composition today. The album opens with 19-year-old Vaibhav Mohanty's Rhapsody No. 1 (2017), traveling through elements of Western classical composition, jazz, and Indian traditional music with such well-proportioned naturalness and ease, it bears all the telltale signs of an instant repertoire classic.
Fine Music, Vol. 4
Catalog #: NV5916
Release Date: May 1, 2013
21st CenturyConcertosOrchestralOboeOrchestraSaxophoneFINE MUSIC, VOL. 4 is the fourth compilation of the Navona Records Fine Music digital series. This installment features the works of David Nisbet Stewart, Brian Noyes, Jonathan Little, Daniel Perttu, Curt Cacioppo, Santiago Billoni, Alejejandro Rutty, Joanne Carey, Ludwig van Beethoven, Joseph Summer, Roger Bourland, Kjell Magne Andersen, and Jan Van der Roost.
Figments Vol. 2
Catalog #: NV6259
Release Date: November 15, 2019
21st CenturyChamberSolo InstrumentalGuitarSaxophoneString QuartetFIGMENTS 2, which follows the success of 2016’s FIGMENTS, is a compendium of chamber music that sparks the imagination. The album features the works of Yuan-Chen Li, Peter Dayton, Hans Bakker, Navid Bargrizan, and Charles Corey—innovative composers whose works draw inspiration from the world around them, be it the tribal dances of indigenous peoples, art history, 16th-century keyboard music, the science of acoustics, or the idiosyncrasies of language.
Exhaling Space
Catalog #: NV6145
Release Date: March 9, 2018
21st CenturyChamberGuitarSaxophoneString QuartetWith EXHALING SPACE, Alejandro Rutty and his cast of remarkable performers create one hour of fresh, captivating music combining Latin and world music styles with the classical tradition. With tracks like the futuristic tango Martian Milonga and the meditative More Music for Examining and Buying Merchandise, Rutty composes the album like a breathing exercise, taking in an anxious pace in one movement, and then in the next, letting the melodies exhale gently through the piece.
El País Invisible
Catalog #: NV6395S1
Release Date: July 8, 2022
21st CenturyChamberPianoSaxophoneMiguel Zenón composer and alto saxophone José A. Zayas Cabán soprano saxophone Ryan Smith tenor saxophone Casey Rafn piano EL PAÍS INVISIBLE “happened by accident,” says composer Miguel Zenón, like it was “almost meant to be.” Serendipitously, the project developed when Zenón was wrestling with critical questions about [...]
Dedication
Catalog #: NV5926
Release Date: September 1, 2013
21st CenturyChamberOrchestralPianoSaxophoneViolinDEDICATION, a compilation of newly recorded works by composer Howard Quilling, features two sonatas for violin and piano, a suite for saxophone and wind orchestra, and a trio for violin, cello, and piano.
Dashing Vol. 2
Catalog #: NV6374
Release Date: November 12, 2021
21st CenturyBaroqueHolidayOrchestraPianoSaxophoneNavona Records presents DASHING VOL. 2, a festive assortment of new classical and jazz arrangements and compositions inspired by staples of the holiday season. Unwrap this gift from Sarah Wallin Huff, Joseph Turrin, Kristina Marinova, Jordan VanHemert, David W. Solomons, Elizabeth J. Start, Alan Rinehart, and Joseph T. Spaniola to find a variety of new works and familiar favorites. All of the traditional holiday sounds are featured in this album, embellished with distinguished compositional twists that complement seasonal standards. Experience the holidays in a refreshing way with reharmonizations of Silent Night, Carol Of The Bells for solo guitar, a jazz arrangement of Christmas Time is Here, and more.
Dancing in the Palm of God’s Hand
Catalog #: NV6522
Release Date: May 26, 2023
21st CenturyOrchestralSolo InstrumentalOrchestraSaxophoneVoiceDANCING IN THE PALM OF GOD'S HAND from J.A. Kawarsky and Navona Records isn't at all a typical worship album; rather, it's a cross section through Kawarsky's oeuvre that encompasses minimalist solo pieces, intimate chamber music, and grand orchestral works. The themes on this album are vast and sweeping, at once lavish and carefully measured, reflecting the great and the minute, like an interplay between human and God. It's an almost philosophical experience, and one needn't be religious to enjoy its uplifting qualities.
Conversing With Spirits
Catalog #: NV6540
Release Date: July 28, 2023
21st CenturyChamberSolo InstrumentalPercussionPianoSaxophoneFall immersed into a collection of innovative stories and sounds on David Colson’s CONVERSING WITH SPIRITS. Colson’s distinctive push-and-pull textures are both an inviting and invigorating in the aptly named Un raz-de-marée de terreur et de joie (A tidal wave of terror and of joy) for bari sax and marimba, a welcome that drifts into a call back to classical trumpet repertoire: the long lamentations and surges of havoc discovered within Duo for Trumpet and Piano. This being closely followed by Ghost Music, a virtuosic marimba solo featuring Matthew Coley, a composition most reminiscent of uncanny whisperings in shadowy atmospheres—no doubt with a touch of whimsy, and a whimsy that is no stranger to the nature of cats, or more specifically, Cat Tales, a touching tongue-in-cheek collection of saxophone and piano vignettes invoking the personality of eight cats familiar to Colson. The River within Us concludes the collection, an at-once bubbly and fluttering two-movement work featuring the Western Michigan University Percussion Ensemble. Treat yourself to CONVERSING WITH SPIRITS, and enjoy the endless surprises it has to offer.
Convergence
Catalog #: NV6608
Release Date: March 1, 2024
21st CenturyAvant-GardeElectronicSaxophoneWhat is music but a convergence of story, people, and place? It’s a question that Heidi Radtke’s debut album CONVERGENCE for soprano, alto, and tenor sax asks earnestly, an elegant meshing of the heartbeats behind the sounds of eight living composers, strung together by the laughter and conversation woven into each exploration, and the saxophone’s ability to tell its tale. The full breadth of Radtke’s capability is on display as she navigates the variety of narratives, messages, and sonic uniquities in the landscape of CONVERGENCE, sometimes bolstered forward with a bubbly charm — in the “chicken clucks” of Barry Cockcroft’s Ku Ku — and sometimes with a powerful, reminding grace, — Rahsaan Barber’s Breonna Taylor (How Many More?) – but always with a special musicality. CONVERGENCE explores the intersection of instruments, musical tradition, and the saxophone's ability to explore these soundscapes, especially in the format of saxophone with fixed media. From a reimagination of Debussy to field recordings of natural spaces and sounds taken completely from a cell phone, the fixed media selections boast a wide range of musical styles, but all are connected through storytelling. Ending with the title track, Convergence, Radtke invites the listener to take part in the conversation — the best stories are the ones told together.
Concerto For Soprano Saxophone & Orchestra
Catalog #: NV6032
Release Date: March 11, 2016
21st CenturyConcertosOrchestraSaxophoneI 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.
Centennial
Catalog #: NV6309
Release Date: September 25, 2020
21st CenturyRomanticChamberElectronicPianoSaxophoneNew from Navona Records is saxophonist José Antonio Zayas Cabán’s CENTENNIAL, an album of cutting-edge solo and chamber music reflecting on the shortcomings of the 19th Amendment during its 100-year anniversary. Rather than celebrating, this album urges listeners to recognize the significant work that remains in achieving global equality.
Causal Dualism
Catalog #: NV5886
Release Date: October 1, 2012
21st CenturyChamberOrchestralSaxophoneString OrchestraTromboneCAUSAL 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.