Catalog #: RR8016
Release Date: August 23, 2019
21st CenturyChamberSolo InstrumentalElectronicPercussionPianoComposer 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.
Catalog #: RR8015
Release Date: July 26, 2019
21st CenturyOrchestralOrchestraViolinWind Ensemble"With the arts we can keep faith with our ancestors, speak for justice, and even address the most tragic and painful issues. If you are hurt and angry don't use violence — write a poem or a song. Use your feelings to create something." These words by late composer Philip Koplow (1943-2018) perfectly encapsulate both his life mission as a composer and the mission of FOR THE PEACE OF CITIES. Released posthumously, this collection features Koplow’s masterpieces for orchestra as well as three 20th-century works that commemorate the lives lost in war tragedies.
Catalog #: RR8014
Release Date: July 12, 2019
21st CenturyChamberPercussionSOLI FOR TUBA, ZHENG, HORN WITH PERCUSSION is percussionist Robert McCormick’s tenth album with PARMA Recordings. On their latest album, the McCormick Percussion Group performs five compositions from four distinct composers, each of whom contributes striking works that range from personal to global inspiration.
Catalog #: RR8012
Release Date: June 14, 2019
21st CenturyChamberPercussionPianoViolinFollow 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.
Catalog #: RR8011
Release Date: June 14, 2019
21st CenturyChamberElectronicString QuartetVoiceRebecka 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.
Catalog #: RR8013
Release Date: May 10, 2019
21st CenturyChamberElectronicPercussionSaxophoneThe 15 tracks on Thad Anderson’s LINES & SPACES are from his Lines series, based on his compositional technique called “duration lines” that create both structure and polyrhythmic interest. Anderson integrates traditional instruments with fixed media, live processing, and tuned metals to create pieces that are infinitely malleable.
Catalog #: RR8010
Release Date: April 12, 2019
21st CenturyChamberSaxophoneThe Fuego Quartet, featuring saxophonists Nicki Roman, Erik Elmgren, Harrison Clarke, and Gabriel Piqué, makes their Ravello Records debut with the innovative MIGRATION, a collection that demonstrates the versatility and complexity of the saxophone as it migrates through genre boundaries.
Catalog #: RR8009
Release Date: March 8, 2019
21st CenturyAvant-GardeElectronicPercussionPianoDEVIANT RESONANCES carries the concept of “creative listening" into new dimensions. In addition to the unconventional ways in which the everyday listener is called on to interpret the music, composer David Rosenboom literally uses the action of “listening” as an instrument.
Catalog #: RR8008
Release Date: March 8, 2019
21st CenturyChamberEast AsianLarge EnsemblePercussionComposer Frederic D’Haene creates a remarkable musical world in MUSIC WITH SILENT AITAKE’S. When he was 25 years old, D’Haene began his life-long fascination with gagaku music, or traditional Japanese court music, that has informed his compositional style throughout his career. This study of a musical style different from that of his own culture resulted in what the composer calls “paradoxophony” or “paradoxical coexistence.”
Catalog #: RR8006
Release Date: February 8, 2019
21st CenturyChamberGuitarLarge EnsembleOboeWhat can one expect from a musician who spent his youth getting into trouble by furtively composing in chemistry class? Apparently a lot, provided they are cut from the same cloth as multi-faceted composer Phil Salathé, the brains behind IMAGINARY BIRDS: MUSIC FOR OBOE AND ENGLISH HORN.
Catalog #: RR8005
Release Date: February 8, 2019
21st CenturyAvant-GardeCelloElectroacousticElectronicViolinJeff 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.
Catalog #: RR8001
Release Date: January 25, 2019
21st CenturyAvant-GardeElectroacousticPercussionMatthew Burtner returns to Ravello Records with the haunting beauty of GLACIER MUSIC, an electroacoustic collection featuring the Alaskan natural landscape as the central instrument. Most of the natural sounds were recorded on Alaskan glaciers, featuring the sounds of snow, trickling streams, and the cracks, pops, and thundering as glaciers break apart and fall. Burtner, who was born in Alaska and grew up among the glaciers, also sculpts scientific measurements of glacial melt into the music through a technique known as sonification.
Catalog #: RR8003
Release Date: January 11, 2019
21st CenturyChamberFluteSaxophoneOn CROSSWIND, flutist Erin Helgeson Torres and saxophonist Michael Rene Torres, who have performed as Tower Duo since 2007, deliver a stunning set of performances which utilize flute and saxophone. Each performance evokes a sensory or psychological experience as wide-ranging as the various sensations encountered in a wet, humid environment, or the juxtaposition of consonance and dissonance. The album accentuates the duo’s emphasis on performing and premiering contemporary works by emerging composers, such as PARMA label-mates Chin Ting Chan and Scott Brickman, as well as one of Torres’ own compositions, the complex and introspective Four Short Episodes.
Catalog #: RR8002
Release Date: November 9, 2018
21st CenturyAvant-GardeElectroacousticElectronicGuitarUsing 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.
Catalog #: RR8000
Release Date: November 9, 2018
21st CenturyChamberSolo InstrumentalGuitarPercussionPianoWhile New Zealand guitarist and composer Campbell Ross cites influences as varied as Claude Bolling, Manuel Ponce and Benjamin Britten when discussing the works featured on CONCERTANTE, it is clear that his own distinctive style is manifested throughout the album. The first of CONCERTANTE’s Modern Works For Guitar opens with the three-movement Concertante for guitar, jazz trio and strings - a work that allows all of the album’s performers to be featured as soloists. Its kaleidoscopic first movement reveals elements of Latin, Blues, Jazz, and Classical genres that, when combined with the Spanish touches in the final movement, encompass the major musical styles that have influenced Ross over the past 30 years.
Catalog #: RR7999
Release Date: November 9, 2018
21st CenturyChamberClarinetPianoTrumpetMANY NEW TRAILS TO BLAZE showcases three musicians in an intellectually driven, globally inspired set of compositions. Each work, from the genre-crossing Sonata for Three to the tonal balancing act in Flying Over Water, presses boundaries, and the three instruments work together to draw every ounce of potentiality from the notes. Notable trumpet and cornet player James Zingara has performed around the globe and his album of trumpet recordings, Textures, is already a key member of the Ravello Records catalog. With his colleagues, pianist Chris Steele and clarinetist Denise Gainey, Zingara performs a collection of works that show off the virtuosity of each musician alongside intricate compositions.
Catalog #: RR7998
Release Date: October 12, 2018
21st CenturyAvant-GardeChamberElectroacousticElectronicPercussionPianoINTERFACES explores the different ways a computer can fit in a modern jazz ensemble and still be true to itself. Technology performer Jeff Morris is joined by free jazz icon Karl Berger on vibes and piano as well as innovative New York percussionist Joe Hertenstein. Morris takes sounds from his partners live in the moment and transforms them into his own musical voice with the DNA of acoustic sounds and the fingerprints of digital processing. This live sampling improvisation results in expressively shifting quasi-loops and glitchy melodic gestures, drawn from music that just happened and influencing what the performers will do next.
Catalog #: RR7997
Release Date: September 14, 2018
21st CenturyAvant-GardeChamberElectroacousticElectronicMIND & MACHINE VOL. 2 is the second electro-acoustic compilation to be released on Ravello Records. Each of the seven composers featured on MIND & MACHINE VOL. 2 offers his or her own striking exploration into the means by which technology can be used to alter time and form to create entirely new musical experiences. This diverse assortment of composers have all taken different paths to reach that goal. The sounds of nature are manipulated or integrated into pieces such as Tom Prescott’s The Singing Forest and Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz’s Les Crapauds de la Fontaine, while Joshua Tomlinson’s Convergences utilizes the natural elements of metal and wood.
Catalog #: RR7996
Release Date: September 14, 2018
21st CenturySolo InstrumentalGuitarDREAMS LAID DOWN brings to life the works of several acclaimed composers, evoking a tender, reflective atmosphere. Inspired by sources from the Beatles to the poetry of Rinehart’s wife, the album creates an intimate aural experience that is as personal to the listener as it is to the artist himself. The title track, composed by Michael Karmon, is named after a book of poems by Rinehart’s wife Janice Notland. Karmon animated six of her poems with thoughtful, evocative compositions.
Catalog #: RR7995
Release Date: September 14, 2018
21st CenturySolo InstrumentalPianoEd Martin's Ravello Records debut JOURNEYS could not be more aptly titled. This album of highly original piano compositions invites the listener on a voyage through mysterious realms where the limits of the sensual and the intuitive dissolve – a journey that is at times epic, and at other times epically quiet. The album commences with Three Pieces for Piano (2006), a modernist melange whose gamut ranges from dissonant serenity to rhythmic agitation. They're perfectly, intimately rendered by pianist Jeri-Mae G. Astolfi, who performs the entirety of JOURNEYS with great clarity, structural insight and precision, never losing touch with the primal, emotional appeal of the compositions.