Genre: Chamber

Navona Records presents ANCESTRAL VOICES, the Apollo Chamber Players’ next installment in their 20x2020 project. 20x2020 is an initiative to commission 20 new folk music-inspired and multicultural works by the end of the decade. This fiery release comprises four 20x2020 works from composers Gilad Cohen, Arthur Gottschalk, Malek Jandali, and Javier Farias.

Composer Garth Baxter makes his PARMA debut with a collection of his exquisite works for voice entitled Ask the Moon. This album is about the human condition and the pursuit of light in darkness. A setting of Sara Teasdale’s “Nights Without Sleep,” for voice and piano commences the album’s journey of introspection.

Even the most fearful of the cold will draw warmth from Joe Summer’s comforting NO ENEMY BUT WINTER AND ROUGH WEATHER, the sixth album honoring The Shakespeare Concerts Series, of which he is founder and executive director. Track 1 is Summer’s own Concert Overture for Piano, an icy introduction performed by SangYoung Kim. Following are two settings of “Under the Greenwood Tree.” Track 2 is the inviting setting by William Walton performed by soprano Kathryn Guthrie and pianist John McGinn. Alluring, too, is Track 3 the Erich Wolfgang Korngold setting of the text performed by Kim and mezzo-soprano Thea Lobo. Kim stays at the piano for Track 4—“When Birds Do Sing”—also by  Korngold; Guthrie delivers this spritely tune.

Composer Eric Klein immediately engages the listener with the mysteriousness of “Nettles,” a quartet for piano, violin, cello, and clarinet. This track’s rhythmic dexterity hints at Klein’s background as a film/media composer, foreshadowing the complexity of the dark, ethnographic “Myth of Tomorrow,” an exploration of the keyboard percussion instruments and the distinctive aspects of the harp.

Inspired by poetry and prose, composer Mark Volker’s latest release YOUNG PROMETHEUS is about reactions. From the philosophical reaction to the “Three Quotations" to the physical reactions in “Echoes of Yesterday," Volker creates an atmosphere that both conveys the optimistic and ominous.

Navona Records proudly presents MUSIC FOR WOODWINDS from composer Scott Pender, his fourth appearance on the label. On this album, Pender showcases his chamber works for woodwinds from the last thirty years in ensemble combinations both common and unfamiliar.

Shocking, gripping, and thought-provoking, Mara Gibson's new album SKY-BORN conjures a flurry of emotions through its moody music. In one moment, the busy strings create a fury of anxious, energetic sounds; the next, the strike of a lone piano chord paints a brooding soundscape.

Mexican 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.

British composer Robert Hugill’s new release QUICKENING is an enthralling and intimate showcase of contemporary art song. Across the album, Hugill demonstrates an exceptional sensitivity to text and melody, both of which shine through his clear and lyrical musical language. The four sets of songs on the album are consummate modern lieder, and one can easily imagine hearing them at a private vocal recital alongside the Romantic song cycles of the nineteenth century.

Michael Kurek’s PARMA Recordings debut, THE SEA KNOWS, is a charming collection of works written with an emphasis on that which is beautiful and emotive. Composing in a tonal idiom reminiscent of the great melodists of the early 20th century, Kurek creates music that tugs at the heartstrings without ever pandering, that is rich in emotive content without feeling sugary. The works on THE SEA KNOWS plumb the depths of musical sensitivity and will appeal to anyone who listens to music seeking intimacy and an emotionally-grounded experience.

ASCEND, the latest collaboration between PARMA Recordings and the Society of Composes, Inc., is an enthralling showcase of leading composers and performers from around the world. Featuring fantastic ensembles, and with works that reference far-flung locations and historical events, this album journeys fascinatingly through time and space as it compiles a competitively selected sample of today’s best compositions.

FLEETING 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.

A potent representation of Australian composer Bruce Crossman’s music, LIVING COLOURS is inspired by his strong spirituality and eclectic, multicultural interests. Both overtly and subtly, Crossman’s music seems to embody the expansive geography of Oceania. To this end, the works on the album draw explicitly on the native music of other Asia-Pacific cultures – particularly the Philippines, Korea, and China – and feature vast musical spaces that seem to symbolize the great distances that separate Australia from its neighbors. In his own words, Crossman describes his desire to evoke a “resonance of space” with his music, which arises from a “deep-felt emotion and sensibility linking heaven and earth.”

SPELLS, a new retrospective collection highlighting the music of poet and composer Juli Nunlist, marks a touching journey through the earnest, romantic, and dramatic sounds of the late artist’s compositional language. The album’s works demonstrate Nunlist’s appreciation for tradition and grandeur, and are driven by her remarkable gift for melody and clear fascination with instrumental texture.

Global guitarist and composer Giovanni Piacentini’s talents as a dual-threat musician are on full display on CHIAROSCURO, his debut album. He wrote all these works themed around his instrument of choice, and his playing appears on two pieces – Miniatures, for guitar and chamber ensemble, and a solo guitar performance on the title track. Yet, even on the tracks where he does not perform, the composer’s voice remains ever-present, namely in each work’s reverberant use of space.

Composer and pianist Jeffrey Jacob returns to Navona Records with REAWAKENING, a collection of varied works for orchestra and chamber ensembles. Jacob’s lush, mystical style pervades the album, often blending his piano’s sound with orchestral arrangements to create rich musical imagery, as in The Loch Before Sunrise and A Mirror Upon the Waters.

With his Navona debut ERGO, pianist and composer Zhen Chen makes an impressive contribution to the decades-long legacy of composers blending Chinese and western instruments and musical materials. This musical trend can be traced back 20 years, when a potent generation of Chinese and Taiwanese composers who began to explode across American and European concert stages. Luminary composers like Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, Chen Yi, and Zhou Long paved the way for younger Chinese artists like Zhen Chen, who uses ERGO to continue this blend of his native musical culture with many parts of the Western musical tradition.

This triple re-release contains a collection of works for small ensembles comprised of a diverse selection of instruments. Along with two albums from Allen Brings, this reissue includes a compilation titled CONTRA-PUNCTUS (1994).

When approaching his latest chamber album BLISS POINT, Polish-born violinist and composer Piotr Szewczyk turned to a unique lens of inspiration – food science. His interpretation of a “bliss point” in the culinary sense embodies the technique’s saturation of a flavor just before the point of diminished potency. Of course, he trades in the contents of his spice cabinet in favor of diverse instrumental pairings, and in doing so, the composer explores the “saturation limits in the full spectrum of emotions, textures, and characters.” In doing so, Szewczyk is confident that the resulting collection of chamber works “covers the entire expressive range of my vocabulary and artistic sensitivity.”

Navona Records proudly presents renowned composer Ruth Lomon’s SHADOWING, her debut album on the label. The release showcases her remarkable skill in writing for the piano, pushing the instrument’s timbre and color to its limits to create animated sound worlds such as those of the title work, Shadowing. Lomon writes of the colors in the piece: “’Shadowing’ means to have such a light touch, such a light tread, that one can move freely through the forest, observing without being observed… It is the equivalent of manifesting and then becoming like smoke, and then manifesting again…”