Instrumentaion: Strings

Eleanor Alberga explores the whole gamut of the human experience in  WILD BLUE YONDER, an equally diverse and coherent set of four contemporary chamber music pieces. While written over the course of twenty-two years, these pieces burst the limits of both space and time. No-Man’s-Land Lullaby reaches back over a century to World War I; Shining Gate of Morpheus enters the realm of the mystical; Succubus Moon explores the dark sides of the  human psyche; and The Wild Blue Yonder offers a glimpse into a world that is at once alien and  wonderful. Undauntedly, positively unsettling album; perfect listening for these unsettling times and a worthy addition to the much hailed album of Alberga's three string quartets from 2019.

On THE PRIESTESS OF MORPHINE, composer Rosśa Crean and librettist Aiden K. Feltkamp create a beautifully haunting portrait of a Gertrud Günther, a young Jewish lesbian caught between her two selves during the Third Reich, who bravely sought her inner truth and passions while forced to live in the shadows.

Stanley Grill’s REMEMBER is presented by Navona Records. Featuring viola and piano, these inventive works aptly demonstrate Grill’s unique style; rooted in his passion for medieval and Renaissance music, his compositions are as pioneering and contemporary as they are fundamentally traditional. Grill’s work focuses particularly on melody, modal harmonies, and contrapuntal, interweaving lines. The result is a musical experience greater than the sum of the instruments involved.

Navona Records is proud to release TRANSIT VOICES from composer Carl Vollrath. Featuring a series of works for clarinet, the album grapples with existential questions; who were the humans of prehistory, and what defining qualities do our spirits share in common with theirs? Vollrath imagines these clarinet pieces as found archaeological objects, voices from long ago that have somehow made their way to our present-day ears. Inspired by Andrew Robinson's book Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts, the music plums a cavernous underworld for clues toward a deeper understanding of human existence.

Navona Records proudly presents BREAKING THE SILENCE from legendary Australian composer George Palmer. The works featured on this new album draw inspiration from centuries-old poetry as well as the composer’s own life experience; Breaking the Silence unpacks a 17th-century pastoral haiku depicting a lone frog’s leap into a still pond, while Not Going Quietly is a touching tribute to a concert pianist whose life was cut short by a brain tumor.

Throughout history, music has overcome culture and borders to bring people together through a universal language. Composer Shuying Li and Four Corners Ensemble present WORLD MAP, a collection of five mini-concertos for quintet, which takes listeners on a journey around the world, opening their ears to music’s evolution as an international unifier.

New from Navona Records and Craig Morris comes CHAMBER MUSIC FOR OUR TIMES, a stirring album of original chamber works. Following DREAMS, which was released in 2011 to critical acclaim, CHAMBER MUSIC FOR OUR TIMES is the work of a master craftsman with an ear for poignant lyricism. The album features four pieces, each of which exhaustively explores the colors and timbres available to the chamber ensembles.

For centuries, writers have documented the awe brought about by the pristine wilderness and untamed expanses of the American Midwest and West. Three authors in particular—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson—beautifully documented the boundless optimism and sense of opportunity that the country’s vast natural resources inspired and heralded a new era of American thought.

The creation of VIOLIN CONCERTO by Alicia Terzian marked the beginning of her 65-year (and counting) compositional career. Originally composed in 1954/55, this important piece of her repertoire was brought to life thanks to a collaboration between Navona Records and the Siberian State Symphony Orchestra. This album also features Terzian's Three Pieces, which listeners can remember from their previous Navona release, OFF THE EDGE.

In MOTO CELESTE, the fifth installment in Navona Records’ MOTO series, the internationally-acclaimed Trio Casals takes on eight new works by eight preeminent composers. It is an electrifying collection, full of drama and adventure. The compositions borrow from an eclectic array of musical traditions, including rhumba and flamenco music. MOTO CELESTE is forged into a cohesive work by the trio’s sensitive and highly-organic performances.

The music on MEMORY, the Navona Records debut by acclaimed violinist Patrick Yim, is linked together by the themes of memory, culture, and identity. The album’s title track was composed by the Chinese-born composer Chen Yi who searched for a harmonious marriage of centuries-old Western and Chinese musical traditions as she remembered her beloved violin teacher, Lin Yaoji. In the liner notes for this bittersweet and poignant piece, the composer addresses her mentor directly, saying “…I expressed my deep sorrow in the music, to remember your fatherly mentorship.”

THE RIVER OF TIME, Navona Records’ latest release, is a captivating tour de force by conductor Mike Fansler and the Western Illinois University Wind Ensemble. Recorded by legendary engineer Bruce Leek – whose recording portfolio includes the President’s Own Marine Band – this album captures the full emotive intensity of one of America’s finest collegiate ensembles.

Alicia Terzian is a world-recognized, award-winning composer, conductor, and musicologist. She is on the faculty of the Fine Arts Academy of Chile and Spain and is the conductor of Grupo Encuentros, the official group of the International Encounters for Contemporary Music Foundation and the only permanent group in Latin America.

The Society of Composers, Inc. is a “professional society dedicated to the promotion, performance, understanding and dissemination of new and contemporary music.” Having brought dozens of unique and compelling compositions to Navona Records over the years, they are now back with the latest in SCI’s series: FLUX, a collection of striking, innovative, and altogether unignorable music.

Composer Mira J. Spektor presents both sensitivity and passion in her new album DAYTIME & NIGHT SONGS. She combines masterful, original compositions with thought-provoking poetry written by a number of artists.

PATTERNS, a multi-composer compilation of contemporary chamber music, accentuates the richness, intricacy, and minimal sound that can be found in works written for small ensembles. Included on the album are works by seven composers, each offering a distinct interpretation of what defines the genre.

Can you satisfy God with one sound? This question was repeatedly posed to Lachlan Skipworth by his shakuhachi teacher during a three-year period of intensive study in Japan. It sparked a deep exploration of cross-cultural aesthetics that finds expression in this self-titled Navona Records album. At the beginning of each shakuhachi lesson, student and master begin by repeatedly playing a single note on the end-blown bamboo flute. This focuses their minds on core questions of technique: “have I made progress? Am I closer to mastery of this, shakuhachi’s most fundamental note?”

Wong Hok-yeung opens the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild’s RESONATING COLOURS 5 with Night Poem, a composition for cello and piano. Rhapsodic and ambling, the piece conjures nightly thoughts, welling up and vanishing with lifelike authenticity. Chan Chin-ting features with two pieces for solo violin: Cross-Currents, an exploration of the violin's full tonal range, and Postcards, an assortment of, in the composer's words, "six miniatures/musical gifts," which, quite like the name suggests, can be played as standalone pieces, but also feature a common theme that unites them.

It’s almost hard to believe that Andrew Anderson hails from Australia, given how deeply rooted he seems to be in the European High-Romantic tradition. The first quartet in particular is profoundly reminiscent of the virtuoso chamber works of Dussek and Hummel, with a dash of Dvořák for good measure. And yet, its sound is decidedly modern. Not only is the work stunningly well-proportioned, it effortlessly adheres to the classical sonata form – not in a rigid, miniaturized way of imitation, but completely naturally, as if it could only exist in this way and no other.

Introducing the album is Lee Actor’s Duo for Violin and Cello. The track, which won the Eva Thompson Phillips Award for Composition in 1979, is a short, textured, and powerful piece. In ABA form, the energy of the stringed instruments swings like a parabola from the height of sharp, angular rhythms down into deep and gentle expressions and builds up to a sharp, explosive climax.