Genre: Solo Instrumental

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.

Phillip Schroeder's MUSIC FOR PIANO was originally released in 2004, and was lauded as "resonant music played with exceptional grace" (New Classics) and "viscerally relaxing" (NewMusicBox).

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.

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.

Daniel Adams’ SHADOW ON MIST was originally released in 2002 and was lauded as “unique and non-predictable” (Percussive Notes) and “delightful” (Twenty-First Century Music). Featuring stellar performances by the New Music Tampa Symphonic Wind Ensemble and the McCormick Percussion Ensemble, SHADOW ON MIST provides a cross-section of Daniel Adams’ works for wind ensemble, large percussion ensemble, and solo instruments.

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.

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.

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.

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.