• Fine Music, Vol. 4

    Catalog #: NV5916

    Release Date: May 1, 2013

    21st Century
    Concertos
    Orchestral
    Oboe
    Orchestra
    Saxophone

    FINE 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The Last Musician of Ur

    Catalog #: NV5891

    Release Date: November 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Orchestra

    In April 2003, the earliest stringed instrument ever found, the Gold Lyre of Ur, was damaged by looters at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. In 2004, British harpist Andrew Lowings constructed an authentic and playable replica, and enlisted the help of composer Michael Mauldin to promote the project. Moved by the instrument's legacy and the narrative possibilities of the project, Mauldin composed The Last Musician of Ur for orchestra and harp, crafting a flowing narrative following the last musician to play the historic instrument as she is torn between inescapable destruction and the hope of timeless, international peace.

  • Of Birds and Lemons

    Catalog #: NV5887

    Release Date: October 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Orchestra

    With OF BIRDS AND LEMONS, Navona Records presents the diverse orchestral works of two composers united by their affinity for energetic, stylistic, and rhythmic composition. José Elizondo and David Tanner, whose respective works simultaneously complement and challenge those of the other, share their varied backgrounds and experiences to create a glorious whole with international appeal.

  • Paradigms

    Catalog #: NV5880

    Release Date: August 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Concertos
    Orchestral
    Oboe
    Orchestra

    PARADIGMS explores the notion that music of varied influences, backgrounds, and techniques can be strung together to represent modern classical as a whole. With orchestral works that dive into the dramatic and expressive, ponder the impressionistic through textured and rhythmic motifs, and compare the bright with the chaotic, this album posits that music of all studies and methods of creation are pieces of a larger puzzle that shape the American contemporary soundscape.

  • Fire & Time

    Catalog #: NV5871

    Release Date: May 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Orchestra

    With FIRE & TIME, Navona presents a compilation by six American composers of orchestral works united by an expansive and sublime musical vision. With programmatic influences ranging from Jungian philosophy to musings on ancient Korean art to descriptions of contrasting mountain vistas, each piece on this album asks us to not only reflect on our collective past but our communal future as well.

  • The Conscious Sleepwalker

    Catalog #: NV5870

    Release Date: March 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Concertos
    Orchestral
    Orchestra
    Saxophone

    Through his Argentinean tango-infused classical works, composer Alejandro Rutty has carved an original, unique niche in classical music, blending tango, electronic, and classical elements into a cohesive whole. On the multifarious THE CONSCIOUS SLEEPWALKER, his first album on Navona Records, Rutty presents works for saxophone quartet and orchestra that explore concepts ranging from explorations of tango within pop culture of the future to half-dreams versus fictional reality.

  • Fine Music, Vol. 3

    Catalog #: NV5868

    Release Date: January 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Chamber
    Orchestral
    Electronic
    Orchestra
    Piano Trio

    FINE MUSIC, VOL. III is the third compilation of the Navona Records Fine Music digital series. This installment features the works of Lawrence Siegel, Sergio Cervetti, Tony Piccolo, Adrienne Albert, Daniel Perttu, Gerhard Stabler, Jane O'Leary, Jim Scully, Meira Warshauer, Piffaro, John Carollo, William Vollinger, Peter Van Zandt Lane, Lawrence Ball, and Benjamin Yusupov. This collection both highlights some of Navona's choicest tracks and offers a preview of things to come.

  • Polyhymnia

    Catalog #: NV5867

    Release Date: February 1, 2012

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Vocal Music
    Choir
    Orchestra
    String Orchestra

    With works described as "an inspired creation" (Music & Vision), "original and quite brilliant" (Fanfare), and "immensely poetic" (Tempo), Jonathan Little has planted himself as a luminary contemporary composer. On POLYHYMNIA, his first release on Navona Records, Little is able to transform traditional influences into rich, intense, and finely structured music that lives up to his reputation.

  • Diurnal Thoughts

    Catalog #: NV5863

    Release Date: September 1, 2011

    21st Century
    Concertos
    Orchestral
    Clarinet
    Orchestra

    DIURNAL THOUGHTS is a collection of four previously unreleased works for orchestra by composer Francis Fairman. Fairman, who was born into a prolifically musical family and began his studies at a very young age, is able to translate his vivid imagination and vision directly into his music. His compositional style and musical experience allow him to craft pieces that reflect their visual inspirations, as we hear in The Fox, Diurnal Thoughts, and New York Taxi.

  • Sound Spectrum

    Catalog #: NV5862

    Release Date: November 1, 2011

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Orchestra
    Piano
    Voice

    SOUND SPECTRUM features works for piano, soprano, and orchestra by composer Allen Bonde. Bonde draws from his personal experiences and feelings to craft beautiful pieces with a wide range of styles: Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra, a cohesive work cast in traditional harmony; Three Elizabethan Songs and Three Elizabethan Songs Revisited, a set of works blending simplicity and sophistication; Symphony No. 1, a kaleidoscopic orchestral piece with astounding instrumental color; Rose Window, a musical representation of the breathtaking Rose Window at Mount Holyoke Chapel; Sonus I, a 12-tonebased and freely composed piece in variation form; Four Shakespeare Songs, a fresh take on the Bard's work stylistically reflective of the 1920s; You Were The One, based on the sensitive poetry of Mary Jo Salter; and Encore Blues, a one-take improvised celebration of the recording sessions. Often performing the works himself as pianist, and in collaboration with the "Bonde Family," his oeuvres provide warmth, intimacy and compositional diversity with each piece.

  • Divergence

    Catalog #: NV5858

    Release Date: September 1, 2011

    21st Century
    Orchestral
    Orchestra
    String Orchestra

    DIVERGENCE is a collection of violin concerti written by three living composers. These works by Nicholas Sackman, Scott Michal, and William Thomas McKinley follow the traditional frameworks of the concerto with the individual stylings and influences of each composer worked into each piece; Sackman’s Concertino for Violin and Orchestra features delicate melodies surrounded by punchy rhythms, Michal’s Encomiums pays homage to three great masters of counterpoint, and McKinley’s Concert Variations takes a Mozart-like theme and gives it a 20th century fantasy variation treatment.