Instrumentation: Piano

NIGHT VOICED, the new release by San Francisco composer Mark Winges, is a collection of warm sounding and texturally rich works featuring the viola in a lush variety of solo, duo, and trio contexts. The title of the album is based on the individual composition of the same name, which is from a poem by Carolyn Forché, "a viola, night-voiced, calls into its past but nothing comes," and reflects the often nocturnal feeling of the program. Other titles such as wary-gliding, ghostly, "Melted Red, Frozen Black", and "Here (marginally buoyant)," offer a hint of the delightful vignettes and turns the music takes along the way.

On TRIUMVIRATE, composer Walter Ross' second release on Ravello Records, the concerto is showcased as a genre, illustrating that tension and opposition can create balance and richness. Throughout the three concerti, themes, timbres, rhythms, and tempos juxtapose each other, building webs of contrasting musical elements and textures. In Ross' Clarinet Concerto, the two outer movements, "Fantasia" and "Capriccio," move with the energy of dance rhythms while the middle movement, "Romanza," drifts with dreaminess and impressionistic lyricism.

Ravello Records is pleased to announce the first installment of its compilation series, VANGUARDS VOL. 1, presenting a deep cross-section of the label's contemporary and eclectic catalog. The album features performances by the London Symphony Orchestra, pianist Kate Boyd, the McCormick Percussion Group, the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet, pianist Amy Briggs, the Grammy-nominated Strung Out Trio, and many more in works by contemporary composers such as Alan Beeler, Stefan Poetzsch, Michael Veloso, Lisa Miles, Hubert Howe, Scott Brickman, Alan Schmitz, and others.

An individual's experiences might well be laid out like a map: some moments connected to others, some isolated, and still some yet to be explored. Composer Matthew Malsky creates an aural map of emotions on his debut Ravello release, GEOGRAPHIES & GEOMETRIES. The composer remarks, "More specifically, in composing I'm trying to adapt the sensations and the emotional responses evoked by particular places and incidents (real or imagined) into sonic form."

The breadth of musical textures and colors capable of being produced by a piano and saxophone pairing is larger than expected. Turning expectations upside-down, METROPOLIS, the debut release on Ravello Records by the Harrington/Loewen Duo, comprised of saxophonist Allen Harrington and pianist Laura Loewen, highlights the adventurous and unpredictable approach to the two instruments.

Addressing the man who greatly contributed to the theory of our evolutionary ascent, DEAR DARWIN, the second release on Ravello Records by composer Scott Brickman, explores several themes relating to Charles Darwin's studies and interests including birds, love, world travel, and human boundaries. The song-cycle Dear Darwin is set to 26 poems by Kathleen Ellis and arranged as an abecedarium. Many of Ellis' poems discuss observations of nature and human behavior, some proposing questions and others suggesting answers, while Brickman's compositions consider different relationships between the piano and the soprano voice: he places the piano in three different roles in respect to the soprano - as an imitation, as a supplement, and as harmonic support.

Illustrating the impact of Appalachian folk music on his often unconventional yet appealingly direct style, APPALACHIAN INSPIRATION, composer John Beall's debut album on Ravello Records, features three piano and string pieces that display a strong, expressive grasp of folk tunes and traditional classical techniques.

This album features works by composer Michael Sidney Timpson that combine three different "spheres of influence:" European avant-garde, American jazz and pop, and various Asian musical traditions. These spheres "collide" with inventive friction, often fuse to "reinvent" convention, and merge to "fertilize" the mind with inspirational seeds for further hybrid creativity.

On the Ravello Records release WISCONSIN SOUNDSCAPES, pianist Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi performs solo piano works by six Wisconsin composers that highlight people, places, scenes, and events chosen by each composer to create a well-rounded portrait of the state.

Ravello Records announces the second installment of its compilation series, VANGUARDS 2, presenting a deep cross-section of the label's contemporary and eclectic catalog. The album features performances by the London Symphony Orchestra, pianist Gregory Hall, the McCormick Percussion Group, mezzo-soprano Elaine Huckle, the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, guitarist Alex Lubet, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and many more in works by contemporary composers including Mary Ann Joyce-Walter, Herbert Deutsch, Walter Ross, Rachel Lee Guthrie, Mark Vigil, Kim Halliday, Andrew May, Mel Mobley, Marga Richter, and others.

Composer Debra Kaye's debut Ravello Records release, AND SO IT BEGINS, catapults the listener into her deep universe of sound - an expedition down one New York City street and up another, through the warp and weft of interior landscapes, to Taos Mountain, on a journey through a dream, a dying, a love - as she blends her classical roots with traces of jazz, pop, world music, the pulse of city rhythms, and the expansiveness of spacious landscapes.

From the passion of a new romance to the devotion and deep affection of parents for their children, love can take many forms. On his Ravello Records release CIRCLE OF LOVE AND OTHER CHORAL OFFERINGS, composer Craig Madden Morris presents a song cycle for chorus and piano set to traditional texts from The Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, The Book of Ruth, Malachi, and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as well as original verse by the composer. This CIRCLE OF LOVE portrays the blossoming and growth of love, from the initial passion to the poignancy of later years.

On their debut Ravello Records release, PLAYFUL EDGE OF THE WAVE, composers Robert J. Martin and Neely Bruce join a love of beauty with the willingness to engage in spirited, magical, even outrageously unexpected sounds and gestures. These composers, with pianist Shirley Blankenship, present a collection of image-based works whose titles and descriptions open a direction to understanding the music.

Composer Joseph Koykkar, described by American Record Guide as writing “music with a crystalline kind of clarity and rhythmic urgency that places him among the more exciting of contemporary composers,” presents his debut full-length release on Ravello Records DOUBLE TAKES AND TRIPLE PLAYS. Featuring works spanning a 20-year period in the composer’s career, this album exemplifies Koykkar’s practical approach to writing, dictated by the bounds and the interplay within chamber ensemble combinations, occasionally using computer-generated sounds.

On his debt release on Ravello Records, JUST MUSIC: MUSIC FOR PIANO IN FIVE LIMIT JUST INTONATION, Croatian composer Zoran Šćekić presents an open series of compositions aiming to explore the harmony of a non-tempered microtonal system based on integer harmonics, or just intonation. Performed by Croatian pianist Ana Žgur, the pieces on this album explore the use of intervals in five limit just intonation, a method in which intervals are built on the prime numbers 2, 3, and 5. Šćekić’s economical use of notes emphasizes the contrast between consonant and dissonant intervals in harmony and melody, chord inversions, and use of the syntonic comma.

On his Ravello Records release BALANCING ACTS, composer and sound designer Russell Pinkston showcases a selection of his compositions for acoustic instruments and electronic sounds. Most of these pieces combine the two, capitalizing on the absolute precision and unlimited sonic potential of electronic media, while still taking advantage of the spontaneity and expressivity of live performance. Several works feature interactive software written by the composer, which tracks a live performer and generates an electronic accompaniment in real time.

Delivering a diverse cross-section of dynamically rhythmic and tonally expressive chamber works, composer John K. Leupold II presents his debut release on Ravello Records, EXASPERATING PERPETUATION. Described by the Washington Post as “an imaginative exploration of instrumental timbres,” Leupold’s music seeks to enhance the tonal possibilities of the instruments through the use of tension, personification, and imagery.

On her debut release on Ravello Records, PIANO SONORITIES, composer Betty R. Wishart presents a collection of her solo piano works, performed by award-winning pianist Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi, which highlights the composer’s use of distinctive harmonic structures, tension, and space. In many of Wishart’s works including Toccata II, Toccata III, Sonata, and Night Visions, the composer employs the intervals of seconds, fourths, and sevenths to create melodic and harmonic material which unifies the style of her writing while creating a variety of colors and textures throughout the album.

The trumpet is a robust instrument which has been widely employed in several genres of music, from the jazz and free form music of Miles Davis, to the world and electroacoustic music of Jon Hassell. Trumpeter James Zingara continues to expand the performance repertoire of the trumpet with TEXTURES, his debut release on Ravello Records. Hinged on the 21st-century art music style of composition, the works in this collection, all written after 2002, strengthen the trumpet’s diversity and adaptability in settings with computer-generated sounds, syncopated rhythms, blues forms, and atonal harmonic structures.

Works For Electronics & Piano Sidney Bailin composer "I write what is inside me," says Sidney Bailin. "To me, revealing the psyche’s vulnerable parts is the essence of serious art. With each piece I write, I am trying to tell my secrets." On his first Ravello release, 16-2-60-N-5: WORKS [...]