Catalog

Born in Finland, educated internationally, and now living in Norway, Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi knows a thing or two about blending eclectic ideas. On her new Ravello Records release SOUNDTRACK OF AN IMAGINARY OPERA, she toys with established perceptions of music and philosophy, reconciling artificial language and acoustic explorations with deconstructionist ideas.

Lifelong guitarist Alex Lubet has created a unique niche, combining his instrumental experience with his traditional studies of composition. On SPECTRAL BLUES, a full album of his works for steel-string acoustic guitar, Lubet combines the characteristics of blues and Eastern styles with classical methods of composition to create remarkably unique pieces that push the boundaries of the instrument. Combining natural harmonies with single-string multiphonics and dyads, Doppler bends, and more, Lubet presents multi-layered guitar music with an edge.

Violist Shelly Tramposh has led an extensive career as chamber musician, orchestral player, and teacher, and her varied experiences allow her to play her instrument with an effortless grace that can only be described as having SPREZZATURA. Tramposh, accompanied by Cullan Bryant—one of the most active collaborative pianists in New York—performs works by Paul Chihara, Paul Siskind, Benjamin Britten and Paul Hindemith with the emotion and intensity of each piece’s inspiration, whether it be the doldrums of illness and celebration of health in Chihara’s Sonata for Viola and Piano or Hindemith’s tumultuous sonata, written after being blacklisted by the Nazi party in Germany. Tramposh and Bryant form a masterful duo, and are able to capture the tone of each piece with virtuosic flourish and clarity.

From the opening notes to the last few seconds of the album, the fullness of the experience in SPRING SHADOWS is impossible to deny. Like emerging from the dark, the way the album hits the listener feels fresh and rejuvenating.

Our human history, our search for something greater than ourselves, and our discoveries in the process are reflected in the tales we tell. As with words, music can express our stories, and composers David Liptak and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon present several sonic narratives, referencing authors, poets, astronomers, folk musicians, and more on their debut Ravello Records release, STARS STORIES SONG.

The trailblazing duo of Kimberly Patterson and Patrick Sutton are champions of the budding cello & guitar genre of chamber music. The Patterson/Sutton Duo and composer Stephen Goss have worked together over many years and this album represents the fruits of their musical collaboration. This collection of Goss’s complete works for cello and guitar is a kaleidoscopic journey through the evocative sound world of this instrumental pairing. It represents a substantial contribution to the standard cello and guitar repertoire by one of the guitar world’s most sought after composers.

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.

Inspired by the worlds of literature and nature, composer Michael Matthews, in his Ravello Records release, STRING QUARTETS, follows in the tradition of such 20th-century composers as Webern and Shostakovich, using his expressive musical language to explore existential and humanistic discourses about society, nature, and our place as individuals in the world.

Fresh from Ravello Records is the McCormick Percussion Group’s STRINGS & HAMMERS. In this latest offering, the MPG tackles a program of new and politically charged works. They are joined by the violin-bass-piano trio Strings and Hammers. Together, the ensemble of string and percussion players employs rhythm, eccentric timbres, and even their own yelping, whispering voices to express powerfully relevant themes.

Scott Barton, contemporary composer and Assistant Professor of Music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, engages in a rather unusual hobby: He designs and builds musical robots. Hardly unexpected then, that Barton's first Ravello Records release STYLISTIC ALCHEMIES is an electroacoustic box of surprises. Balancing diverse musical elements with the virtuosity of a skilled playwright, Barton takes the listener on a journey that pushes the boundaries of established genre definitions.

With SUFFICIENT TROUBLE, his debut release on Ravello Records, composer and performer Brian Belet offers a selection of computer music composed over the last twenty years. Featuring acoustic instruments and responsive electronic materials the disc offers a degree of variety in timbre and musical content that is sometimes lacking in electronic music. In Lyra, the album’s opening track, Belet establishes an aural world in which the organic material and electronic content merge seamlessly, clearly defining the musical language to come as the album progresses.

The lute often conjures images of medieval bards and travelling troubadours, but the instrument’s repertoire extends long beyond the Dark Ages. On SYLVIUS LEOPOLD WEISS, guitarist and lutist Alan Rinehart pays tribute to the composer’s legacy of the high Baroque, bringing to light a collection of works that were overshadowed by the keyboard works of his contemporaries. The album exemplifies the genre’s complexity, with travelling basslines, intricate melodies, and pleasant harmony. As Rinehart’s fingers explore the frets, they bring to life the quintessential beauty and liveliness of Baroque’s climactic period and shine light on Weiss’s oft-overlooked repertoire.

SYNCHRONIES, James Dashow's second double album on Ravello Records, offers a selection of the composer's work for traditional instruments with and without electronic sounds. His approach to these two musical resources combines the intimacy and flexibility of beautifully designed chamber music with full scale sonorous constructions: some achieved by finely textured orchestrations of the classical instrumental ensemble, others by the symphonic use of rich electronic timbres that are characteristic of the composer's music. Dashow's unique sound is immediately recognizable, enhanced by his ground-breaking ideas on the spatialization of sound, where the location and movement of musical events in space are now fundamental elements of his compositional practice. The performers in these pieces are true virtuosi of contemporary art music; their artistry and subtle understanding of these works yield deeply expressive interpretations that resonate with both listeners and performers alike.

Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi's debut TACIT-CITAT-ION is a reflection of contemporary Scandinavian composition – gestural, yet empowered by painstaking attention to detail. Where other composers' work ends, Ahvenniemi only begins. Breath sounds, glottal stops, microphone static, white noise, electronic interferences, the percussive friction of instrument bows – these byproducts of music are the backbone of TACIT-CITAT-ION, yielding a truly unique auditory experience.

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.

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.

While the saxophone quartet has a relatively short history compared to traditional classical its wind and string counterparts, its repertoire has been rapidly expanding. Combining the suppleness of a string quartet, power of a brass quintet, and extroverted color of a wind quintet, the saxophone has truly blossomed as a unique and accepted voice by composers and listeners. With composers such as Glass, Cage, Berio, Flagello, Xenakis, Wuorinen, Keuris, and Bolcombe writing substantial pieces, its place in today’s classical music scene is secure and growing. On THE AMERICAN MUSE, the New Hudson Saxophone Quartet performs American music that spans beyond a century, from 1879 to 1999. Whether it is the classicist Florio, jazz-inspired Wilder, nostalgic Copland, or post-minimal Torke, each work is of a singularly different nature yet all identifiable as American in style and spirit.

Deeply immersive electronic soundscapes and haunting harmonies stir the senses in THE BLEAK NIGHT from composer David Peoples. Featuring percussion, synthesizer, electronics, and electrophonic orchestra with narration and the manipulation thereof, Peoples captivates the ear and mind with suspenseful ostinatos that melt into entrancing waves of sound. A soothing beginning dissolves into hair raising junctures in Rock Me to Sleep, subtle grooves emerge amidst an ethereal atmosphere in Shinytastic, and tensions build to a boiling point before gently floating back down in The Bleak Night.

With THE BROKEN VESSEL, Andreas Barth, Geir Hjorthol and Magnar Åm take the concept of “industrial music” to a whole new level. The recording took place in an abandoned Norwegian factory, “The Propeller Hall,” utilizing everything from the acoustics in the building to the muffled sounds of traffic outside its walls. In this way the building became a partner in a concrete as well as a metaphorical way in creating the music of this ten-track album.

Ravello Records proudly presents THE CEILING FLOATS AWAY, a groundbreaking new collaboration between sound artist Matthew Burtner, former US poet laureate Rita Dove, and ecoacoustic ensemble EcoSono. A National Endowment for the Arts commission, The Ceiling Floats Away was awarded a Special Jury Award in the 2016 American Prize in Chamber Music Composition for "Unique Nexus of Acoustics, Electronics and Audience Interaction." Since its composition, it has been selected for performance at various festivals and venues, including the Smithsonian Natural History Museum’s Accelerate Festival.