Instrumentation: Piano

Amy Briggs brings to life a variety of tangos from different composers on TANGOS FOR PIANO. Proposed by composers from UC Davis, the disc features works from Laurie San Martin, Yu-Hui Chang, Pablo Ortiz, Ross Bauer, Yvar Mikhasoff’s International Tango Collection, Astor Piazzolla, and many more. The different backgrounds and compositional variety of each composer highlight the breadth and possibilities of the tango, which Briggs captures impeccably on the solo piano.

MUSIC FOR THE END OF WINTER: NEW AMERICAN WORKS FOR SOLO PIANO features Kate Boyd performing contemporary works from Halle, Frazin, Felice, Schelle, and Koontz. The pieces range from improvisations to classical challenge studies to experimentations in aural resonance. Their variety showcases Boyd's versatility and adaptability at the piano.

DREAMS is the latest release from New York-based composer Craig Madden Morris. This album features a variety of Morris’ compositional styles, including the passionate Violin Concerto, the Caribbean-flavored Tropical Dances, the intimate Piano Trio, the elegiac Cello Rhapsody and the loving, gentle Dream Songs. Known for his intelligently complex and unique-yet-accessible compositions, Morris complements his works with his knowledge of the instruments for which he composes.

THE MUSIC OF GUI SOOK LEE is the latest release from Ravello veterans the McCormick Percussion Group, featuring the works of South Korean composer Gui Sook Lee. The McCormick Percussion Group, directed by Robert McCormick, has recorded and released over two dozen CDs since its formation.

MUSIC FOR SOLO PIANO AND VIOLIN AND PIANO was originally released in 2006 and was lauded as “an attractive release” (American Record Guide) and as having “distinctive harmonic and melodic language” (JIAWM). Featuring the complimentary performances of pianists Robert Conway, Lenore Hall, and Tomoko Deguchi and violinist William Bouton, MUSIC FOR SOLO PIANO AND VIOLIN AND PIANO highlights Laurel Firant as an expert of small ensemble and instrumental composition.

RESONANT EDGES was originally released in 2007 and features performances by pianists Dianne Frazer Cross, Peter Henderson, Mark E. Hussung, and Denise Fillion, clarinetist Karen Dannessa, flutists Deanna R. Little and Lisa A. Jelle, soprano Dorothy Maddison, and the Seattle New Music Ensemble.

Throughout his musical career and childhood, American composer Scott Brickman has gathered influences ranging from the European-American classical tradition of the 2nd Viennese School to Elvis Costello and The Beatles. On WINTER & CONSTRUCTION, his debut release on Ravello Records, Brickman maintains these disparate influences and brings them together into well-crafted whole to create sharp, pointed, and modernistic 12-tone pieces for guitar, piano, and violin.

PRELUDES & BAGATELLES is the latest release from renowned composer Michael Matthews, featuring his dramatic 14 Preludes, selections from his collection of Bagatelles, and the epilogistic Postlude. Expertly performed by acclaimed Belgian pianist Daan Vandewalle, the pieces on this disc encapsulate Matthews’ brilliance with solo piano composition and highlight his versatile craftsmanship, which he is able to alter to accommodate a wide variety of moods, emotions, and aspects of musicality.

Bruce Mahin’s TIME CHANTS was originally released in 1995, and was lauded as “a well-constructed essay” by Twentieth Century Music.

With THE PALEST ROSE, a collection of works for solo piano, chamber ensemble, chorus, and orchestra, Oregon-based composer Mark Vigil strives to appeal to the listener's heart, urging them to hear the music based on its beauty alone. This release serves as a retrospective of Vigil's varied works for a variety of configurations, and serves as an astute sampling of his compositional output as a whole.

CONCERTO FOR PIANO WITH PERCUSSION ORCHESTRA is the fifth Ravello release from the acclaimed McCormick Percussion Group. Living up to their reputation as vanguards of percussion repertoire, the Group uses this album to explore the possibilities of collaboration between piano and percussion wherein neither steals the spotlight. Along with Ji Hyun Kim ("a masterful pianist" - Piano Magazine), the McCormick Percussion Group performs the works of Igor Santos, Mel Mobley, David Gillingham, and David Noon with precision, emotion, and purpose.

The works of Andrew May nearly defy classification, seamlessly blending the personal expressiveness of traditional classical performance with the alien landscape of ambient computer music. On IMAGINARY FRIENDS, his debut release, May invites the listener to experience the drama of people and machines making intimate chamber music together, blurring the lines between human and inhuman, and traditional and experimental.

FANTASIES FOR ADULTS AND OTHER CHILDREN was originally released in 1999 was lauded as "awesome" and "at times Cageian and Crumbian" (ClassicalNet).

Phillip Schroeder's SONGS OF MY AFFINITIES was originally released in 2003, and was lauded as "gems of the American repertoire" (New Music Connoisseur) and "striking and beautiful" (Sequenza21).

JAMES ADLER & FRIENDS, an album of works by and commissioned for pianist, composer, and Yamaha Artist James Adler, features works by Leo Ornstein, Paul Turok, Seth Bedford, Franz Liszt, Stephen Sondheim, and Adler himself, showcasing his penchant for both contemporary and traditional concert repertoire. These pieces offer a career-spanning glimpse into Adler's career, from his first publicly performed piece, to works sprouted from personal collaborations, to his own original compositions and arrangements. Adler's performances on JAMES ADLER & FRIENDS are joined by saxophonist Jordan P. Smith and baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather.

COMPOSITIONAL IMPROVISATIONS: FROM THE MYSTERIA, VOL. 1 is Gregory Hall's debut collection of improvisational classical music based on contemporary music theory, performed by the composer himself. Hall's improvisations feature sprawling-yet-contained passages that weave in and out of harmonic motives, drifting away from centralized themes and seamlessly returning to the source material. The tracks on COMPOSITIONAL IMPROVISATIONS draw from Hall's live concerts of compositional improvisation, which harken back to the days when improvisation was commonplace in classical performance.

Written in the summer of 2011 for David J. Martins and the Boston University Wind Ensemble, Boston-based composer Ketty Nez's thresholds is a piano concerto inspired by music of different eras, including the canonic manipulations of Renaissance vocal music, piquant harmonies of Elizabethan virginal composers, Stravinskian reinterpretations of Baroque idioms, and occasionally, a huge barrel organ. As a kind of musical actor, the piano soloist theatrically leads the ensemble in abrupt changes of style and character so as to create a fractured world with sonic allusions changing rapidly and repeatedly.

Joyous and energetic, sad and lyrical, images of light and cascading colors-these varied striking moods can all be used to describe composer Kirk O'Riordan's six chamber works on his premiere Ravello Records release, STRANGE FLOWERS. The six pieces on the album tell a story together, captivating the audience with its accessible but nuanced sound.

Musical idioms have changed and adapted over the centuries. AN EVOLVING CYCLE, Gheorghe Costinescu's second Ravello release features four works for solo piano in which the composer explores the transition of these idioms from Baroque to 21st-century contemporary, charting the evolution of form and technique with a deft control of style. Stephen Gosling, a ubiquitous NYC pianist hailed as "brilliant" and "luminous and poised" (New York Times), performs the four works: Theme and Variations, an energetic, virtuosic, and challenging piece with a chorale-like theme; Sonata for the Piano, a combination of classical sonata and variational forms with elements, toward the end, of ragtime and jazz; Evolving Cycle of Two-Part Modal Inventions for Piano, a multi-part piece whose character, from simple to complex and from traditional to innovative, sets the tone for the entire album; and Essay in Sound, a reflection of Costinescu's own experience, thoughts, and feelings regarding the piano.

RUNES, the new album by composer Robert Dusek and pianist Bryan Pezzone, is a compilation of specially selected solo piano works, and provides the listener with an immersive and cohesive listening experience. Often sparse, sometimes impetuous – "The music is at once very stark, and then seems to propel itself to the next scene or chapter with some unseen, and unheard, energy", says PARMA Recordings Lead Producer, Andy Happel.