Catalog

THE PETRIFIED FOREST PROJECT from cellist Rhonda Rider pays homage to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, where Rider carried out a residency in 2015. The forest is home to Triassic fossils and an over 200 million-year-old ecosystem. The works here, all commissioned as part of the residency, highlight elements that make the park so special. Pari by Mischa Salkind-Pearl takes its movement titles from flora native to the park. Raven Chacon created a piece, Invisible Arc, inspired by a traditional Navajo hunting song. Kurt Rohde’s credo petrified is for amplified cello, and personifies both life and glacial decay in nature. In Meditation on Impatience, Ian Gottlieb evokes sediment through coalescing layers of sound. Laurie San Martin’s Vast Steppe and Eric Moe’s Verklaerte Holz reflect on the idea of natural beauty and the many transformations it endures. Rich in metaphor and imagination, THE PETRIFIED FOREST PROJECT resonates at the intersection of music and ecology.

Indianapolis saxophonist Cecily Terhune dives headfirst into an exploration of heroism on her genre-defying debut album BOON BESTOWED. Harnessing the principles laid out in Joseph Campbell's seminal theory of mythology, Terhune creates a captivating, musical microcosm in which the listener is invited to take center stage as the audacious protagonist. The theory goes as follows: Most myths in human history have an archetypal heroine/hero who answers a call to journey through a supernatural world. After undergoing a transformation of strength and character, the heroine returns equipped with material and/or incorporeal boons to bestow upon her community. Marveling at the highly diverse and exquisite mastery of the saxophone on BOON BESTOWED, one is apt to wonder what supernatural landscapes Terhune might have traversed herself.

Saxophonist Jeffrey Siegfried explores new possibilities for his instrument's dynamic and versatile voice on SHADES from Ravello Records. The title work, Shades, composed by Sean Friar, is a dark and capricious piece, pairing bursts of musical complexity with unsettling stillness. The album also includes Candlewood by Gala Flagello and water-witching by Nicholas Cline, and and Homage to C.P. by Joan Arnau Pàmies, all of which were composed specifically for Siegfried.. The works are inspired by the natural and supernatural worlds; Siegfried aims to express the ineffable through saxophone techniques like multiphonics, which require careful control of the embouchure, fingering, and air-pressure. The resulting music is hauntingly beautiful and deeply compelling.

Montréal percussionist David Therrien Brongo dexterously creates dynamic musical worlds on CONFLUENCE, a highly melodic album of solo percussion compositions by French Canadian contemporary composers. Both meditative and stimulating, the album makes for an impressive demonstration of the possibilities of this rare genre. Brongo's world-class performance is not only highly virtuosic in the technical sense, but also emotionally rich, nuanced, and deeply saturated with empathy. There is a zen-like quality to his interpretations, in which the silences are given as much gravitas as the sound around them, and both notes and rests are searing with constant energy. It's a remarkable approach, and instantly recognizable.

Martin Daigle skillfully unearths the melodic qualities of the drumset on DRUM MACHINES from Ravello Records, an album featuring the works of composers Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and Sylvain Pohu. Daigle, the 2022 winner of Music NB’s “Innovator of the Year” award, performs two solo pieces that feature innovative applications of technology in this release, producing unique timbres through electronic augmentations of the drumset. These unique flavors paired with Daigle’s adept musicality and inventive grooves make for a one-of-a-kind listening experience that’s sure to stir the senses.

Pianist Anne Goldberg and Ravello Records are proud to present PERMUTATIONS, an album highlighting Goldbergs qualities as an interdisciplinary artist. An educator, composer, and cross-disciplinary researcher, Goldberg’s artistry crosses boundaries and permeates her work as a musician with a deep-seated passion for promoting, premiering, and interpreting new music by living composers. Each piece on PERMUTATIONS was written by dear friends of the composer who explore different facets of the human experience. From deeply meditative music to tonally and rhythmically complex miniatures, each piece offers a new realm in which to get lost.

While it isn't entirely unusual for musicians to raise musical children, it is fairly rare for a composer to have not one, but two sons who also compose. This is the case for composition professor Alan Schmitz, who, together with his sons Christopher and Eric, presents of ACE COMPOSERS II, a curated selection of contemporary chamber music which proves that the apple sometimes does fall further from the tree, at least in some regards. It would be impossible to mistake either one's works for that of any of the others: too distinct are the individual idiosyncrasies – the swooping, late-Romantic phrases, the sober, experimental minimalism, and the jazzy groove. Nevertheless, they are all united by one commonality – aesthetic appeal seems to run in the family.

The piano is the powerhouse of musical instruments: with its vast tonal range and its ability to simultaneously supply chords and melodies, it generally takes the dominating place in virtually any setup. So what happens if you compose and play music for two of these behemoths? Pianists Sang-Hie Lee and Martha Thomas answer this question on their aptly-titled new album GLOBE, TRAVEL, HOMELAND.

Composer David Mastikosa’s ESCAPE is the work of an ambitious young composer whose skill belies his age. Born in 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mastikosa is currently one of the most active contemporary classical music composers in his home country, and writes music for film and media. ESCAPE features works composed in a variety of styles and arrangements. Poslovice is a chamber piece inspired by old Serbian folk proverbs and suggests a hidden, tongue-in-cheek storyline. Detune was written specifically to encourage younger pianists to explore the vast soundscapes locked within the instrument. Trichord for Viola and Accordion is purposefully sparse; Mastikosa leaves free space for performers to exercise their own creativity. ESCAPE is both an artistic triumph in its own right and an early milestone in Mastikosa’s promising career.

Wide skies, whistling winds, and a love for the great outdoors take center stage on Karen Sunabacka’s CURLICUE, a collection of eight works for solo piano performed by Darryl Friesen. Each piece tells a story of Sunabacka’s wilderness adventures, from the titular Curlicue’s explorations of the twists, turns, and curls of a river, to Falling in the Water’s conjuration of girls jumping into water and sheets of rain pummeling tents, to Lost’s encapsulation of the fear and dread of losing one’s way. Friesen’s crisp performance brings each piece to life, transporting listeners to the Canadian woodlands and prairies for an adventure all their own.

On INTO THE GREEN, clarinetist Wesley Ferreira takes listeners on an aural journey through a world of musical possibilities where digital and analog become one. Works for solo clarinet place it in the midst of sprawling electronic soundscapes, providing ethereal backdrops for its earthy timbre. With technical flair and blistering speeds, Ferreira perfectly blends the instrument with industrial beats, atmospheric arpeggios, and reverberating effects, creating a seamless juxtaposition of computer-based composition and classical, folk, and world music. In doing so, Ferreira and the composers create a sense of old meeting the new, where the lushness and abundance of nature live in harmony with the exciting possibilities of technology.

Ravello Records presents SOPRANO SUMMIT from revered saxophonist Paul Cohen. Alongside his work as a performer, Cohen is known for his passionate scholarship, rediscovering long-forgotten saxophone works as well as arranging related music for the instrument. In this, his latest contribution, Cohen presents an album of music for the soprano saxophone in chamber and solo settings.

Guitarist William Anderson presents GENIUS LOCI, an anthology compilation highlighting his storied career as both a composer and a performer. The album features Anderson’s work with a variety of ensembles as well as his solo guitar music. The New York Times has deemed Anderson “the alert guitarist,” and with good reason; his playing reveals his passionate attention to detail. Anderson was mentored in the musical values of late Modernism, but now seeks compelling music without strictly aligning himself with particular aesthetic ideologies. The resulting anthology from Ravello Records captures the color and breadth of Anderson’s more-than three decades in the music industry.

Ravello Records is pleased to announce the release of the late composer-performer Frank A. Wallace’s album, WALLACE PLAYS WALLACE. This multi-disc compilation is a wide-ranging culling of the noted guitarist/composer’s decades of masterful classical guitar performances of his own compositions. In the wake of the artist’s passing in 2020, the album distills his prolific output down to all of Wallace’s own solo classical guitar works that he played, recorded, and released during his lifetime. Wallace’s music, known for its extraordinary breadth of color and concept, has been heralded as “beautifully played and superbly recorded” by Classical Guitar Magazine. Wallace displays his trademark blend of sophisticated virtuosity and transfixing musicality in this crowning consummation of his recorded solo works.

Betty Wishart and Ravello Records present her latest album: MOODS, featuring her compositions for solo piano as performed by Jeri-Mae Astolfi. These impressionistic pieces, sparked by a swath of concrete and abstract inspirations, explore the full range of timbral textures and colors the piano offers.

Stuart Weber's PIECES OF ROAD is a heartfelt, profound homage to the spirit of the American West. At once traditional and original, the classical guitarist manages to capture the essence not only of his native Rocky Mountains, but of nature and comfort at large.

Work metamorphosis through various media — INTROSPECTION’s subtitle says it best. The Zagreb Academy of Music returns to Ravello Records with their characteristic forward thinking. Music professors from the Academy come together to not only release piano pieces from the Academy, but to use these pieces as the source material for new electronic compositions. The result is INTROSPECTION.

New from Ravello Records comes AUTUMN WINDS, a collection of chamber music composed by Kirk O’Riordan. The music, which features pianist and PARMA recording artist Holly Roadfeldt along with soprano Ann Moss and Peter Dutilly playing viola, is as challenging as it is alluring; O’Riordan takes listeners to the outskirts of tonality in order to elucidate questions of beauty, existence, and mortality.

In his first album with Ravello Records, composer Leonard V. Ball, Jr. presents WORLDS TRANSLUCENT, a collection of works completed across the span of nearly a decade that capture the joys, fears, and fascinations of everyday life. The album, which features music for violin, viola, and piano, deals with the gravity of human mortality alongside the simple amusements of domestic life that counterbalance it.

David William Ross, though considered a classical and jazz guitarist, consistently transcends both genres. He works extensively in collaboration with other accomplished artists, while also being a composer with an impressive library of works that accompany dance and performance art. Ross brings this multifaceted background to the fore in Ravello Records’ AMOR FATI.