Period: 21st Century

THROUGH THE REEDS is a collection of woodwind concerti from American composer Walter Ross. Ross, a lifelong musician and composer, has historically worked most closely with instruments in the woodwind family; the four concerti on this album, all of which feature a woodwind solo, highlight his preference for the family and his keen ability to compose works for oboe, bassoon, and flute.

Composed in the wake of 9/11, Barry Seroff's Democracy is a multifaceted, genre-spanning examination of the spiritual and philosophical roots of American thought. Calling on texts from Quaker preachers, American poets, Japanese haiku, and Nietzsche, Seroff forms a flowing narrative charting our cultural development from the innocence and purity of infancy through the growing awareness of adolescence and adulthood, to our ultimate peacemaking with the joy of childhood. Seroff draws influences including classicism, jazz, hardcore punk and more and stitches the seemingly disparate elements of inspiration and source materials into an organic, evolving piece that seeks to explain the intricacies and history of American culture.

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.

TRACER, a collection of recent chamber works by composer Richard Cornell, explores the nature of art and the collaboration that occurs naturally among artists and the interaction between creator and influence. Comprised of live recordings, this album highlights the performers' instincts to respond to one another, interpreting the music as individuals and as a group, and exploring the intricacies of the works as they are played. This release includes a visual version of Tracer, the centerpiece of the album, which serves as a computer-rendered survey of art and culture that guides and morphs the music to match the viewer's progress through time and space; as the viewer travels among an imagined world, the music responds to the imagery.

Composed with integrity, mystery, and ambition, the orchestral works of Marga Richter thrive on the emotional and the visceral, conjuring vast and majestic imagery with poetic and dramatic underpinnings. POETIC IMAGES BEYOND POETRY includes three of Richter's works for orchestra, each of which present a tonal and moving representation of their various influences: Out of Shadows and Solitude, inspired by the flight of a condor over clouded mountaintops; Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quark, based on Richter's early dance music and boogie-woogie; and Spectral Chimes: Enshrouded Hills, permeated with imagery from Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

LEANING TOWARD THE FIDDLER is a recording of original works by Seattle-based violinist and singer Hope Wechkin, which also includes her inventive arrangements of traditional Balkan folk songs. Wechkin's virtuosic and innovative pairing of voice and violin, which she performs simultaneously, fuses folk, classical, and world music into a blend of genres that emerges "full-bore, all-out, utterly unselfconsciously" (Seattle Times). The works on LEANING TOWARD THE FIDDLER range from themes of passionate longing to humorous musical feuds between lovers, highlighting Wechkin's ability to perform in a wide breadth of styles with great ease and skill.

THE ETERNAL TAO, a one-act multimedia opera for voices instruments, video, electronics, dancers, and lighting presents the text of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching translated and re-imagined in the context of modern society. Through this opera, which has parallels with traditional opera, but differs from singer-oriented opera in the sense that the vocalists are a part of the ensemble as a whole, composer, director, and choreographer Kyong Mee Choi seeks to have viewers experience a shared moment of seeing ourselves with open eyes and understand our purpose in the world.

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.

CASINO UMBRO is the debut Ravello release from Israeli composer Amos Elkana, bringing listeners into a sonic world comprised of thoughtful, expressive, and emotional works for chamber ensemble, voice, and orchestra. Ranging from the dreamy, jazz-like Casino Umbro to the linguistic and tumultuous Arabic Lessons to the imaginative and fanfaric Tru'a, CASINO UMBRO conveys the essence of humanity and international relations through communicative and sophisticated musical expression.

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.

MUSIC FROM 3 CONTINENTS presents the choral works of Bruce Mahin and Graham Hair performed by Scottish Voices, harpists Jacqueline Pollauf and Helen Thompson, and clarinetist Alex South. Representing an international collaboration between artists from around the globe, the works on this album draw from various texts and inspirations, uniting to illustrate the connectedness of music and its influence. Included on MUSIC FROM 3 CONTINENTS are Bruce Mahin's Time², three settings of poems by Robert Penn Warren, unified by the nexus of "time passing," and Whitman Psalms, a piece considering the enormity of God and attempting a hypothetical conversation between man and God; and Graham Hair's O Venezia, a progressively accumulating song cycle drawing texts from Venetians and visitors, and Songs from the Turkish, a piece exploring the mysticism of Islam.

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.

The McCormick Percussion Group returns to Ravello Records for their sixth release, SOLI FOR SOPRANO WITH PERCUSSION ORCHESTRA. In the vein of their past work, this album showcases the collaboration of solo soprano, featuring critically acclaimed soprano Jamie Jordan and percussion orchestra. Lyrically, the pieces are influenced by the modernist texts of poet Wallace Stevens, the holy influence of the Bible, and the concept of opposites. This unique combination of voice and percussion explores traditional human values, freedom as a necessity of expression, and the sensuality of sound and imagery.

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.

CHIAROSCURO, Chamber Music by Richard Lavenda is a bright and engaging new album of some of composer Richard Lavenda's favorite chamber works–all written for personal friends. The title track refers to the visual art technique of a strong contrast between dark and light, and this motif aptly describes the listening experience.

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.

WINE DARK SEA is the debut Ravello release from "music's new rare pair", COULOIR (The Georgia Straight). With evocative, emotional music by today's living composers, WINE DARK SEA will take you to "...a full-hearted space, with a sense of deep compassion for and with the world..." Deftly interpreted and expressively performed by Canada's outstanding contemporary music duo, this music by Jocelyn Morlock, Baljinder Sekhon and Glenn Buhr allows a journey into deep listening. "A profoundly beautiful piece of art." (Glenn Sutherland, Composer)

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.