Catalog

Stefan Poetzsch composer

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.

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.

ESSAYS AND SKETCHES is an album unreleased works of American composer and longtime Sam Houston State University faculty member Newton D. Strandberg. Featuring performances by orchestras and ensembles from around the globe, the four pieces on this recording—Essay for String Orchestra, Amenhotep III, String Trio, and Acts for Orchestra—serve as an astute collection of Standberg's output as a composer. More than a musical release alone, ESSAYS AND SKETCHES serves as a retrospective of Strandberg's prolific career, housing a collection of writings, visual art, scores, and more, all compiled by Strandberg's peers, students, and admirers from SHSU.

The rush and restlessness of our daily lives can be like a fog, an opaque shroud that can distract from the enlightening experiences of nature. On her debut Ravello Records album THROUGH THE MIST, composer Pamela J. Marshall presents several works that find their origins in the composer's experiences with the natural world.

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.

Violinist Mikylah Myers and flutist Francesca Arnone perform diverse electroacoustic pieces on their first collaborative album REACT, released on Ravello Records. The works on this album demonstrate well the potential range of electroacoustic music in facilitating both experimental and traditional compositional ideas. The featured composers explore new ways of creating and organizing sound, and as performed with either computer or other interactive electronics, the violin and flute help construct unique sonic landscapes.

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.

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.

Composer Steve Rouse constructs unique and indelible sound worlds on his album MORPHIC RESONANCE, his first release with PARMA Recordings. The album is a revue of Rouse’s chamber music from the last two decades and beyond, and the works featured on MORPHIC RESONANCE demonstrate Rouse’s powerful gifts to create compelling and idiosyncratic musical statements.

On 3: THE MUSIC OF GINA BIVER, her debut recording on Ravello Records, composer, guitarist, vocalist and producer Gina Biver presents five selections featuring the concept-based new music/new media performing collective Fuse Ensemble, a group in which she has played an integral part for the past decade. Not only did Biver compose the five tracks on the album, she either performed on, produced, mixed and/or engineered many of them.

Follow composer Richard Carr as he guides you through his world-travel experiences in his Ravello Records release PLACES I’VE WALKED. The feeling of authenticity cannot be understated in these compositions, divided into four parts.

Welcoming the new day in the world of composer Maija Hynninen is not soft like early morning rays. In DAWN BREAKS, Hynninen does away with the cliches of warmth and comfort in the morning. Performing all of the electronics on this album, Hynninen characterizes everything in her world, presenting soundscapes that are truly unique.

In his first album with Ravello Records, composer Leonard V. Ball, Jr. presents WORLDS TRANSLUCENT, a collection of works completed across the span of nearly a decade that capture the joys, fears, and fascinations of everyday life. The album, which features music for violin, viola, and piano, deals with the gravity of human mortality alongside the simple amusements of domestic life that counterbalance it.

Christopher J. Keyes’s new album, Ravello Records’ A CONNOTATION OF INFINITY, speaks directly to why listeners should embrace the transgressive element of electronics in traditional classical music. Keyes, who wrote as much software for the album as he did music, employs what he calls a 3D audio for a more immersive listening experience. Keyes’s latest release, which features performances of select pieces on video, envelopes and entrances the minds of listeners from all walks of life.

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.

Stuart Weber's PIECES OF ROAD is a heartfelt, profound homage to the spirit of the American West. At once traditional and original, the classical guitarist manages to capture the essence not only of his native Rocky Mountains, but of nature and comfort at large.

Legendary composer, author, and educator Herbert Deutsch presents his newest album, ENCOUNTERS: JAZZ, SONGS & CHAMBER MUSIC, on Ravello Records. The music, performed by the American Chamber Ensemble, is unflaggingly groundbreaking; Deutsch, who in 1964 collaborated on the development of the Moog Synthesizer and composed music for its first live performance, deepens his legacy of innovation with this latest collection.

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.