Catalog

Using the sounds of handmade paper, electronics, and surf guitar among others, Ted Coffey composes a sometimes fragile, sometimes brutal order that swings from texturalism to song. Written for dance, both fixed media and live computer-mediated performance, Coffey’s music feels spontaneous without sacrificing finely calculated craft.

Jeff Morris's second album, WITH STRINGS, explores the possibilities of 21st-century counterpoint. He builds up rich musical textures by sampling violin and cello live and folding them back into the mix, influencing the performers in turn.

Celestial Images From The New General Catalog Christopher J. Keyes composer

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.

As a ferocious wind storm spins up all things in its path, The Tornado Project, conceived by composers Ricardo Climent and Paul Wilson, cuts a path through the repertoire of 21st-century electroacoustic music, presenting a collection of works for flute, clarinet, and computer-generated sound that explore the chaotic beauty of this trio. With performances by two American wind virtuosi - clarinetist Esther Lamneck and flutist Elizabeth McNutt - these works showcase the skills of the musicians, their dynamic relationships with the computer, and the composers' innovative, colorful, and resourceful styles.

The Chafe Impett Parra Trio, in partnership with Ravello Records, has released their newest album, TIME CRYSTAL. TIME CRYSTAL is a musical project like nothing you’ve ever heard before—born at the nexus of art and science, this collection of improvisational “experiments” tests the interactions between musical inputs and computer-generated responses. What listeners hear on the recording is actually a methodological documentation of a laboratory session in Ghent, during which three musicians engaged in a fluid and captivating freeform dance. TIME CRYSTAL is electroacoustic music at the very vanguard of the genre; it features violoncello, double bass, trumpet, and electric guitar, and offers listeners the chance to take part in the musical discovery.

Bruce Mahin’s TIME CHANTS was originally released in 1995, and was lauded as “a well-constructed essay” by Twentieth Century Music.

Composer Bill Whitley is no stranger to storytelling through the art of composition. Central themes in his works include that of embarking on a journey, the thrill and spontaneity of discovery, and the comfort and reflectiveness of the eventual returning home. These form a story arc as old as time, beautifully transcribed and made new through Whitley’s compositions.

Cultural pessimists might argue that we've never lived in an age as isolated and atomized as this one, and a certain recent pandemic certainly didn't help. Cultural optimists on the other hand might quote German poet Hölderlin: "But where the danger is, also grows the saving power." Whatever the truth may be, the collective minds behind THE QUARANTINE AT THE CORE OF OUR HEARTS elegantly disregarded rumination, and instead chose to act.

Avner Finberg’s album THE FOUR SEASONS OF ISOLATION is a moving meditation on the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns. Finding himself separated from his fellow musicians and beloved concert audiences, Finberg took the opportunity to focus on composition and began writing this large-scale work for solo violin and electronics. Freed from the need for an accompanist, he worked in solitude to develop this musical essay reflecting on his year in isolation. The result was a nod to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons called The Four Seasons of Isolation. Also included on the album is The Raven, which incorporates a dramatic reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s masterpiece accompanied by violin and looper. The music combines electronics and violin to create haunting, ever-expanding chords that illustrate the story.

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.

THE ELECTRIC PERFORMER was originally released in 1997 was lauded as "awesome" "at times Cageian and Crumbian" (ClassicalNet).

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.

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.

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.

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.

On the coasts of the Atlantic, sparrows whistle atop the trees, Eastern winds whisper through spartina grasses, and fiddler crabs skitter within their sandy burrows — a great symphony of shorelines soon to be left incomplete. As rising sea levels continue to threaten coastal reefs, shores, and the hundreds of lifeforms inhabiting them, the Coastal Conservatory urges us to consider our efforts of restoration and offers us an avenue for restoring coastal futures, a meditation on the music of the most integral barriers to the ever-pressing Atlantic. SOUNDSCAPES OF RESTORATION is both an exploration and a reflection, a listening experience that leaves one changed with the desire to make change further. It is a journey that cannot, and should not, be forgotten.

Composer and guitarist André M. Santos showcases his chamber works on his debut Ravello Records release SOUNDS OF A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE. Santos wrote each of the pieces featured on the album for fellow musicians and friends, resulting in a kaleidoscope of diverse personalities and styles. To this end, the sounds in his pieces indeed inhabit a different universe—his colorful chamber works bring together unexpected and intriguing combinations of instruments and timbres.

James Dashow's SOUNDINGS IN PURE DURATION VOL 2 offers listeners a unique audiophile experience. The album of Dashow’s music for electronic sounds and instrumental soloists includes the last four works in the Soundings in Pure Duration series as well as the re-release of his Bourges Magisterium prizewinning work ...at other times, the distances. The album is available on DVD, giving listeners access to surround-sound (5.0) mixdowns of the pieces as well as composer-prepared stereo mixdowns that have been spatially enhanced to approximate a wider audio field. According to Dashow, this presentation of his octophonic and quadraphonic electronic music is second only to a live concert performance in terms of realizing his artistic vision for the music.

Phillip Schroeder's SONGS OF MY AFFINITIES was originally released in 2003, and was lauded as "gems of the American repertoire" (New Music Connoisseur) and "striking and beautiful" (Sequenza21).