Catalog

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 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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Illustrating the impact of Appalachian folk music on his often unconventional yet appealingly direct style, APPALACHIAN INSPIRATION, composer John Beall's debut album on Ravello Records, features three piano and string pieces that display a strong, expressive grasp of folk tunes and traditional classical techniques.

The breadth of musical textures and colors capable of being produced by a piano and saxophone pairing is larger than expected. Turning expectations upside-down, METROPOLIS, the debut release on Ravello Records by the Harrington/Loewen Duo, comprised of saxophonist Allen Harrington and pianist Laura Loewen, highlights the adventurous and unpredictable approach to the two instruments.

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.

SOLO NON SOLO, the debut Ravello Records release of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's bass clarinetist Sauro Berti, presents contemporary works for solo bass clarinet as well as for traditional and unusual duos, including those with percussion, saxophone, narration, and electronics.

As leading instrumentalists of their generation, the musicians of Trio Verlaine, David Harding (viola), Lorna McGhee (flute), and Heidi Krutzen (harp), offer spellbinding interpretations, and a kaleidoscopic range of colors in their debut Ravello Records release SIX DEPARTURES, including both old and newly commissioned works.

Presenting contemporary works that blend multiple genres, from classical and avant-garde to heavy metal and world music, the McCormick Percussion Group, hailed as "a very skilled and important contemporary percussion ensemble" by Audiophile Audition, expands the boundaries and possibilities of the percussion ensemble's repertoire on their latest Ravello Records release BETWEEN ROCK AND A HARD PLACE.

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.

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.

Ravello Records announces the second installment of its compilation series, VANGUARDS 2, presenting a deep cross-section of the label's contemporary and eclectic catalog. The album features performances by the London Symphony Orchestra, pianist Gregory Hall, the McCormick Percussion Group, mezzo-soprano Elaine Huckle, the Kiev Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Musica Viva, guitarist Alex Lubet, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and many more in works by contemporary composers including Mary Ann Joyce-Walter, Herbert Deutsch, Walter Ross, Rachel Lee Guthrie, Mark Vigil, Kim Halliday, Andrew May, Mel Mobley, Marga Richter, and others.

The conch shell exemplifies the versatility, sublimity, and transcendence of nature - a natural dwelling, a biological work of art, and, as shown by the City of Tomorrow, an instrument. NATURE, the debut Ravello Records release by the City of Tomorrow wind quintet - consisting of Elise Blatchford, flute; Stuart Breczinski, oboe; Camila Barrientos Ossio, clarinet; Laura Miller, bassoon; and Leander Star, horn - showcases works by four contemporary composers that explore the evolution of humanity's relationship with nature.

This album features works by composer Michael Sidney Timpson that combine three different "spheres of influence:" European avant-garde, American jazz and pop, and various Asian musical traditions. These spheres "collide" with inventive friction, often fuse to "reinvent" convention, and merge to "fertilize" the mind with inspirational seeds for further hybrid creativity.

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.