Instrumentaion: Piano

From Navona Records comes an exciting new CD bundle of five previous releases featuring the piano at its most prepared and extended. WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO THAT PIANO? features composers and artists dedicated to finding the most adventurous and compelling sounds that the piano has to offer. Opening with SONATAS AND INTERLUDES IN A LANDSCAPE, composed by John Cage, the virtual godfather of prepared piano, and performed by the virtuosic Kate Boyd, this CD bundle contains one of the most eclectic collections of solo piano music a listener will ever encounter.

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.

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).

Like many European composers alive during the World Wars, Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) was nomadic. But while most of these artists’ music changed drastically based on their location, Martinů’s compositional style consistently referenced the culture of his Czech heritage. SMALL STORMS – cellist Meredith Blecha-Wells’ debut record – contains Martinů’s duos for cello and piano from the latter half of his life, with the performances of Blecha-Wells and pianist Sun Min Kim fully embodying the folkloric sensibility and conservative style that typify the composer’s oeuvre.

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…”

A persistent goal of Mark John McEncroe is to create compositions that elicit an emotional response, as is echoed in the titles of his works. This is particularly true of the Australian composer’s Navona debut DARK CLOUDS OF LIFE, a conceptual release focused on overcoming addiction and depression, challenges McEncroe has personally struggled with. His sessions in Ostrava, Czech Republic with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra and pianist Helen Kennedy produced a cornerstone suite and three addendums that capture the essence of the record’s stated purpose.

FOREVER BEELER represents a sampling of composer Alan Beeler’s prolific output throughout his musical career, which is generally defined by his commitment to compositional craft and structural clarity. The works featured on this album also reveal a playfulness lying just under the surface of Beeler’s compositional perspective. This quality of Beeler’s music is most notable in the seven sonatas for piano, often accompanied by another instrument, included in FOREVER BEELER.

PARMA Recordings artists Peter Greve and Hans Bakker have come together to give us LINES TO INFINITY, a stunning album that revolves around emotive and dramatic scores for primarily piano and flute. The two composers hail from the Netherlands and share a knack for creating thoughtful contemporary chamber works that appeal to the listener’s imagination.

Sergio Cervetti returns with an exciting collection of works on his sixth Navona Records release, SUNSET AT NOON. A diverse composer, his works range from instrumental and vocal music to electronic compositions, often reflecting his South American, French and Italian heritage. His vocabulary draws from an early interest in twelve-tone and minimalism, and his current approach is flexible and free of constraint. With SUNSET AT NOON, Cervetti focuses on keyboard-based compositions for half of the album, with a foray into chamber music on the other half.

BRIGHT CIRCLE is an exquisitely programmed showcase of the interconnectivity underlying the tradition of solo piano in Classical music. Pianist Beth Levin shines as she navigates the romantic masterpieces of Schubert and Brahms, and their very new counterpart – David Del Tredici’s 2014 work, Ode To Music.

Trombonist Deb Scott makes her PARMA debut with her new Navona release PLAYING FAVORITES, accompanied by pianist Ron Petti. She performs a variety of her favorite pieces that appeal to her background in jazz and to her considerable technical skill. She writes: “What I love about each one is its ability to engage a diverse audience making for enjoyable and exciting musical moments.”

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.

American composer Marty Regan specializes in composing music for traditional Japanese instruments, a fascination he has developed since 2000. Regan describes his Japanese-style compositions as, “hybrid musical soundscapes that reflect the age in which we live, an era based not necessarily on globalization, but of partnership based on global cultural interaction.” In contrast, SPLASH OF INDIGO features a complementary side of Regan’s output, containing only works for Western orchestral instruments and voice.

Violist Jutta Puchhammer’s album PIÈCES DE CONCOURS POUR is a treasure trove of late romantic French viola music. Originating as exam compositions for students enrolled at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris from 1896-1938, this album demonstrates Puchhammer’s peerless virtuosity as a performer, as well as the expressive range of her instrument, which was largely dismissed by the mainstream of eighteenth and nineteenth century composers.

With his new album SURSUM, composer Michael Slayton presents six compelling compositions, each performed by a different ensemble or solo performer. Despite the album’s varied & esteemed assemblage of performers, there lies a common thread throughout in both the form of Slayton’s distinguished composing style – dreamy but focused, and equal parts smooth and dissonant – as well as the imagery that the music conjures.

Pianist, chamber musician, and educator Cicilia Yudha presents her Navona Records release SELECTED PIANO WORKS BY ROBERT CASADESUS AND HENRI DUTILLEUX, featuring her expertise as a solo pianist, as well as the exploration of the compositions of Robert Casadesus. Yudha’s skillful approach is demonstrated in the opening piece, Sonata No. 3, Op. 44, which has an energetic and rhythmically exciting first movement followed by a vibrant second movement, which exhibits a slow and reflective texture.

Composer Lawrence Ball has long been fascinated by the intersection of subjective human emotion and algorithmic mathematical objectivity.  In his 2012 Navona Records release METHOD MUSIC, produced by Pete Townshend of The Who and PARMA Recordings CEO Bob Lord, he took Townshend’s long-gestating concept of automatic musical portraiture first explored in LIFEHOUSE and WHO’S NEXT and turned it into reality, creating a system which could translate personal information and experiences into sound.