• Torrid Nature Scenes

    Catalog #: NV5915

    Release Date: May 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Stage Works
    Orchestra

    TORRID NATURE SCENES, an album of chamber works from Australian composer Nicholas Vines, presents a series of musical landscapes that instill both anxiety and ebullience in the listener. Through his innovative use of woodwinds, voice, and chamber ensemble, Vines - a composer lauded for his "crackling style" (NewMusicBox) and called "compellingly original" (Boston Phoenix) and "both humorous and unsettling" (WGBH) - asks us to consider representations of nature fueled not by a passing glance of a wondrous vista, but by a series of creative engines wracked with self-burning energy, profound fury, and breath-filled life.

  • Mood Indigo

    Catalog #: NV5913

    Release Date: May 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Concertos
    Orchestral
    Orchestra
    Piano

    Erik Lotichius, a composer unafraid of melody and accessibility, combines the sounds of traditional classics with those that took the 20th-century audiences by storm - in the composer's own words, his work presents "Bach, the Blues and the Beatles" in a spectacular, enthralling combination of genre and style.

  • Spellbound

    Catalog #: NV5911

    Release Date: May 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Large Ensemble
    Orchestra

    From mythic origin stories, to the Elizabethan stage, to the modern cinema, the human experience is bound in storytelling that has the power to captivate minds and inspire creativity. Like a good story, the composers featured on SPELLBOUND transport the listener across landscapes only limited by the imagination. These new works for orchestra behave as narrative arches, allowing tension and emotion to build and release to a euphoric conclusion or a haunting realization.

  • Cascading into Reverie

    Catalog #: NV5910

    Release Date: May 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Solo Instrumental
    Piano
    String Orchestra

    French composer Yves Ramette's (1921-2012) music is marked by its ability to broadcast "messages of the heart," offering unflinching and distinguished representations of emotion and experience using traditional forms. A student of Honegger and contemporary of Boulez, among others, Ramette's works draw from the rhythmic and harmonic elements of mid-20th-century France.

  • August Ruins

    Catalog #: NV5912

    Release Date: April 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Solo Instrumental
    Cello

    Peter Vukmirovic Stevens is a composer whose music is informed and guided by deep connections with visual media, literature, travel, and works by composers past and present. AUGUST RUINS, an album of Stevens' works for solo cello, gives these influences life through the cello's unequivocal range and timbre, allowing for a raw, isolated expression of emotion, history, and visual beauty unencumbered by accompaniment.

  • Perceptions

    Catalog #: NV5909

    Release Date: April 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Guitar
    Piano
    String Quartet

    Music represents a dialogue between composer and listener, channeled through performance and observation. Much like in spoken conversation, the works in PERCEPTIONS present us with the revealing perspectives of their composers as told through small ensembles. The listener is presented with music that entrances, enkindles, jars, lingers, connects, and engrosses–perceptions both highly incisive and deeply personal.

  • A Single Breath

    Catalog #: NV5908

    Release Date: April 1, 2013

    Classical
    Solo Instrumental
    Piano

    Praised for her "boldly inflected readings" (Jeremy Eichler, New York Times), "powerful technique" (Allan Kozinn, New York Times), and "purely pianistic panache" (Richard Dyer, Boston Globe), New York-based pianist Beth Levin has honed her interpretive and expressive skills since her days as a child prodigy in Philadelphia.

  • Dances Of Eternity

    Catalog #: NV5907

    Release Date: April 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Large Ensemble
    Orchestra

    DANCES OF ETERNITY presents a group of orchestral works by composers who explore music's potential to capture the more overlooked aspects of human experience. Ranging from representations of optimism and energy to the surging power of nostalgia, to lighthearted frolics and the eternality of life, DANCES OF ETERNITY asks the listener to ponder life, death, and everything in between.

  • Imaginary Symphony

    Catalog #: NV5904

    Release Date: March 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Orchestral
    Choir
    Flute
    Orchestra

    New York-based Anthony Piccolo leads a vibrant and varied career as composer, choral director, pianist and conductor. Drawing on decades of performing and composing experience, he crafts clear and colorful scores in a variety of genres.

  • Cross Connection

    Catalog #: NV5903

    Release Date: March 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Orchestral
    Orchestra
    String Quartet

    CROSS CONNECTION features the works of Henry Wolking and James Scott Balentine, two composers whose works perfectly complement each other through musical studies of crossed paths and human togetherness. Both composers works consider the meaning of life, love, and music, and the relationship between each: Gone Playin', a spirited musical riff on epitaphs and their connection of life and death; The Old Gypsy, a Hungarian-influenced piece for string quartet that reflects on the perpetuity of musical themes and influences; and Dun Eideann Blogh, a recollection of times past with friends and family.

  • Moto Perpetuo

    Catalog #: NV5901

    Release Date: March 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Solo Instrumental
    Cello
    Piano Trio

    Here at Navona, we believe that despite varied influences, styles, and techniques, contemporary works by a variety of carefully selected composers can unite to represent the classical landscape as a whole. On MOTO PERPETUO, a collection of moving works for cello by March, Bartholomew, Beeler, Sherrill, Gottschalk, and Ascioti, the music is bound by the instruments simultaneous steadfastness and adaptability and the composers' shared ability to seize and control the instruments expressive timbre and range.

  • Al Combate

    Catalog #: NV5902

    Release Date: February 1, 2013

    Baroque
    Orchestral
    Vocal Music
    Orchestra
    Voice

    AL COMBATE, the debut release from the Chicago Arts Orchestra (Javier José Mendoza, Artistic Director), highlights New Spain as a mecca of baroque and galant music through a handpicked selection of works from two of eighteenth-century colonial Mexico's most prolific and influential composers, whose music explores the period's transatlantic cultural flow from Europe to New Spain: Ignacio Jerusalem, a master of the galant style who brought modern European styles and techniques across the Atlantic; and Santiago Billoni, whose harmonic experimentation and erudite voice helped shape late baroque repertoire.

  • Keyboard3

    Catalog #: NV5900

    Release Date: January 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Solo Instrumental
    Piano

    KEYBOARD3 Navona's second all-Sergio Cervetti album takes the listener to a world of kinetic and emotionally charged sound forged from three keyboard instruments. Sometimes it is the pianoforte, the king of instruments or the double keyboard of the harpsichord.

  • Shakespeare’s Memory

    Catalog #: NV5899

    Release Date: January 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Vocal Music
    Piano
    Voice

    SHAKESPEARE'S MEMORY is the first offering Navona's The Shakespeare Concerts Series. A salmagundi of selections from composer Joseph Summer's The Oxford Songs, this album includes previously unreleased recordings spanning the life of the series. This first volume includes Summer's original chamber and vocal compositions set to Shakespeare's dramas and sonnets and the poetry of Milton and Yeats, performed by a slew of musicians: the Kalmia String Quartet, baritone Chad Sloan, soprano Andrea Chenoweth, mezzo-soprano Kellie Van Horn, tenor Justin Vickers, pianists Miroslav Sekera and Ian Watson, and harpist Lydie Härtelovä.

  • Pacific Ridge

    Catalog #: NV5898

    Release Date: January 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Concertos
    Orchestral
    Orchestra
    Percussion
    Piano

    Santa Barbara-based composer Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927) is a fixture in the Californian classical music community, having received commissions and performances from orchestras and ensembles throughout the state and worked throughout her career to advance the musical community.

  • The Music of Sparky Davis

    Catalog #: NV5897

    Release Date: January 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Solo Instrumental
    Orchestra
    Piano

    About 100 years ago, classical music made a jagged turn away from the harmonic structures that had comprised its underpinnings for several centuries. This departure was early-on dubbed atonalism, and opposed the functional harmony that prevailed during the great musical flourishing of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Composer Sparky Davis, who takes a "modern, not modernistic" approach to writing his music, continues this forward movement, expanding the vocabulary of music to include non-traditional elements and adding to the functional uses of long-established note combinations.

  • Messenger

    Catalog #: NV5896

    Release Date: January 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Electroacoustic
    Orchestra
    Piano

    Composer Jeffrey Stadelman's unusual, arresting, exacting musical voice has evolved over 25 years, amounting to a complex musical practice that suggests no obvious counterpart. MESSENGER, an all-Stadelman release on Navona, includes a variety of his orchestral, instrumental, and electroacoustic works.

  • Islas

    Catalog #: NV5894

    Release Date: January 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Electroacoustic
    Electronic
    Percussion

    Mexican composer Juan Sebastián Lach Lau's music presents an amalgam of technology and sound without self-prescribed historical justification. With subtle influences ranging from Stockhausen, Cage and the New York avantgarde of the 50s, up to Satie, dub music and Thelonious Monk, Lach Lau's music blends programming and algorithmic generation with traditional instruments, creating diverse, unique works that define their own aesthetic.

  • Dimensions

    Catalog #: NV5895

    Release Date: November 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    String Orchestra

    Throughout time, humankind has sought to provide explanation and justification for the pains, joys, and passions of life. With DIMENSIONS, Navona presents a collection of string orchestra works from seven composers (Gregory Hutter, Louis Babin, Reynard Burns, Andrew March, Claude Debussy, Rudy Kronfuss, Daniel Burwasser), whose music captures the fluidity of time and emotion and illustrates the impact of past experiences on the present and future.

  • Gallery

    Catalog #: NV5893

    Release Date: November 13, 2012

    20th Century
    Orchestral
    Stage Works
    Orchestra

    GALLERY is a collection of works by composer Michael G. Cunningham, containing three of his narrative ballets and the Gastein Masterwork. The ballets Nyadina, based on a Balanchine film ballet; She, based on the 1887 Haggard novel; and Chrysalis at Mardi Gras, based on the Saint Joseph story resembling Cinderella contain a narrative, choreographic flow with emotional and fable-like undertones.