Period: 21st Century

Navona Records is proud to present NOVA, the 27th edition of the acclaimed Society of Composers, Inc. CD Series and the third SCI release on Navona. This entry in the series features chamber works by eight SCI composers.

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.

Belgian-native Jan Van der Roost leads a prolific career as a composer, writing works that span a variety of genres and styles, from oratorios and symphonies to lieder cycles and wind band chamber pieces. Van der Roost's unique style has ushered international renown, with his works recorded and performed worldwide, in addition to his guest professorships across four continents.

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.

A protégé of Rogers, Carter, Sessions, Britten, and Finney, Sydney Hodkinson emerged as a highly regarded composer and professional in his own right early on, serving as artist-in-residence, director, and educator across the United States and Canada, including at the Eastman School of Music where he catapulted the renowned Musica Nova into the public spotlight through innovative artistic direction and programming.

The poet has long been considered a vehicle for expressing human thought and emotion through literary device, setting the seemingly indescribable to text, offering direction to the enamored and forlorn alike. The human voice adds a new element to the text, providing an additional level of complexity and expressiveness.

Hailed as "convincing, emotional, passionate and vivid" (The Musical Review) and "destined to enter the ranks of the standard classical repertoire" (New York Times), Fredrick Kaufman resonates with worldwide audiences through impassioned and prolific compositions that go beyond mere interpretation. He thoroughly digests inspiration, internalizing and individualizing his ideas to create moving and impactful works that do more than simply relay a message. Kaufman's music captures feeling and emotion, reaching the listener with convincing sincerity.

THE PARMA SESSIONS: KAROLINA ROJAHN presents a series of recordings featuring longtime PARMA collaborator and pianist Karolina Rojahn. Showcasing the artist's skill, adaptability, and dedication, this digital compilation features Rojahn performing works by a diverse set of composers with myriad influences and styles.

DEDICATION, a compilation of newly recorded works by composer Howard Quilling, features two sonatas for violin and piano, a suite for saxophone and wind orchestra, and a trio for violin, cello, and piano.

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.

CYCLES OF THE MOON, the new release from composer Ayala Asherov, is a colorful and poignant cross-section of works from various cycles of the composer's life. As a native of Israel, Ms. Asherov's music is largely informed by Hebrew chamber music. The music is tonal and intended to be accessible, says Asherov, "I didn't want to write what I thought a listener would not want to hear. My guiding light-or should I say melody-is something one can hold on to while exercising the imagination."

SCATTERING LIGHT, SCATTERING FLOWERS, the third release by composer Marty Regan in the Selected Works for Japanese Instruments series was recorded in Japan, and features large ensemble works for traditional Japanese instruments, including two concertos. Composed for female voice, shakuhachi, and the relatively rare 25-string koto, the title track is based on a deeply poetic text written by Japanese poet Haruka Nakanashi that echoes with references to traditional Japanese noh theater.

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.

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.

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.

SHAKESPEARE'S MEMORY is the first offering Navona's The Shakespeare Concerts Series. A salmagundi of selections from composer Joseph Summer's The Oxford Songs, this album includes previously unreleased recordings spanning the life of the series. This first volume includes Summer's original chamber and vocal compositions set to Shakespeare's dramas and sonnets and the poetry of Milton and Yeats, performed by a slew of musicians: the Kalmia String Quartet, baritone Chad Sloan, soprano Andrea Chenoweth, mezzo-soprano Kellie Van Horn, tenor Justin Vickers, pianists Miroslav Sekera and Ian Watson, and harpist Lydie Härtelovä.

KEYBOARD3 Navona's second all-Sergio Cervetti album takes the listener to a world of kinetic and emotionally charged sound forged from three keyboard instruments. Sometimes it is the pianoforte, the king of instruments or the double keyboard of the harpsichord.

Here at Navona, we believe that despite varied influences, styles, and techniques, contemporary works by a variety of carefully selected composers can unite to represent the classical landscape as a whole. On MOTO PERPETUO, a collection of moving works for cello by March, Bartholomew, Beeler, Sherrill, Gottschalk, and Ascioti, the music is bound by the instruments simultaneous steadfastness and adaptability and the composers' shared ability to seize and control the instruments expressive timbre and range.

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.

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.