Instrumentaion: Ensemble

LUMINESCENCE brings to light six works for small and large orchestra, showcasing the inspired directions and composers of contemporary orchestral music. Marvin Schluger's Manhattan Suite for full orchestra is being released 14 years after its recording. New York, 2013 by Raymond Bokhour is another piece alluding to the Big Apple, as experienced by the composer that year. 

Since the late 1980s, Swiss Composer Schlumpf has been widely active in the borderlands between improvisation and composition. With STREAMS, the follow-up to his 2012 Navona Records release SUMMER CIRCLE, Schlumpf presents three concertos that are representative of a creative period in his career marked by the influence of minimalism and jazz, new tonal concepts, a strong emphasis on rhythm, and clear-cut formal designs.

THE PARMA SESSIONS: Vít Mužík presents a series of recordings by longtime PARMA collaborator and violinist Vít Mužík. Showcasing the artists skill, adaptability, and dedication, this digital compilation features Vít Mužík performing works by a diverse set of composers with myriad influences and styles.

The chamber ensemble format has historically been able to intimately interpret works with a variety of emotional nuance, and retains flexibility to perform music with myriad influences. ALLUSIONS, an album of evocative chamber works, showcases the expressive and interpretive abilities of contemporary composition and features works by five composers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Navona Records is proud to present the debut commercial release from the critically acclaimed Coro Allegro, Boston's chorus for members and friends of the LGBT community. This album, AWAKENINGS, features two extraordinary works by composers from the Pioneer Valley region of Western Massachusetts: Shofar by Robert Stern, an intensely dramatic and deeply moving oratorio inspired by the four arresting calls of the shofar; and Why I Wake Early by Ronald Perera, with text drawn from the poetry of Mary Oliver.

With QUADRANTS, Navona presents a collection of modern string quartets that meld the old with the new, combining traditional forms with contemporary influences to present expressive, emotional works that both make and break the mold. QUADRANTS features the contemporary works of Marie Incontrera, Michael Cunningham, Alan Beeler, Ulf Grahn, and Virgil Thomson performed by the Boston String Quartet, the New England String Quartet, the Moravian Philharmonic Chamber Players, and the Boston Composers String Quartet.

WORKS FOR STRING QUARTET AND OTHER SMALL ENSEMBLES is a digital re-release of three albums from acclaimed composer Samuel Adler. The three albums, a collection of works for string quartet, violin, cello, and piano originally released in the mid-1990s, serves as a sampling of the historic and respected composer's compositional output for small ensemble.

A collection of works by Curt Cacioppo celebrating and lamenting the history of the Native American peoples. Composed and performed with impeccable attention to detail and historical accuracy, these vibrant and emotional tone poems urge the listener to consider the vibrancy and plight of Native American culture as they guide us through musical narratives of the past.

CAUSAL DUALISM, Keith Kramer's second full-length release on Navona, is a celebration of dichotomy and relationships between all things. Duality, for soprano, saxophone, bass trombone, and string quartet, explores the interaction and relationships of the ensemble; Causality represents the string orchestra's journey of expression and highlights the action and reaction that permeates through all events; Flame of Attention, for soprano saxophone, the beginning of a long-term collaboration between the composer and Gottfried Stoger.

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.

EMERGE is a two-disc album featuring the works of Boston-based composer Keith Kramer. Kramer's constant search for new modes of expression through music nestles itself into his music, and each piece represents another discovery in his search. His exploratory journey has helped him create a prolific catalog of music, ranging from the subtle and restrained to the ferocious and demanding.

Swiss composer Martin Schlumpf is a man of many talents. From his early practice of jazz bass and classical cello to academic writings on composition to formal education on clarinet, piano, conducting, theory, and composition-not to mention the decades of experience as a perform across a variety of genre - Schlumpf proves that the jack of all trades can be the master, as well. With SUMMER CIRCLE, Schlumpf combines his myriad influences to craft expressive, complex chamber pieces that marry the sophisticated intricacies of jazz with the studied nuance of modern classical.

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.

NIGHT OF LIGHT is the latest CD from Cypriot composer Sophia Serghi featuring five of her works for orchestra and voice: Night of Light, a musical reaction to Easter in Manhattan and a document of the composer's spiritual growth; Serghi's earliest work for orchestra and voice, Cantus Integritatis, comprised of four introspective and meditative movements based on the composer's own Latin poetry; Full Moon Haiku, a collaboration with poet Nancy Schoenberger setting the mensal characteristics of the full moon to music; Ikon, inspired by an unusual Ikon in Paris; and Night of Light: Reprise.

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.