Catalog #: RR7872
Release Date: February 26, 2013
21st CenturyVocal MusicViolinVoiceLEANING 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.
Catalog #: RR7873
Release Date: January 29, 2013
21st CenturyOperaStage WorksChoirElectronicVoiceTHE 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.
Catalog #: RR7865
Release Date: January 29, 2013
21st CenturySolo InstrumentalGuitarLifelong 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.
Catalog #: RR7863
Release Date: November 13, 2012
21st CenturyChamberVocal MusicClarinetString QuartetVoiceCASINO 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.
Catalog #: RR7870
Release Date: August 27, 2013
21st CenturySolo InstrumentalPianoCOMPOSITIONAL 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.
Catalog #: RR7877
Release Date: July 30, 2013
21st CenturyChamberVocal MusicClarinetVoiceMUSIC 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.
Catalog #: RR7876
Release Date: July 30, 2013
21st CenturyConcertosPianoWind EnsembleWritten 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.
Catalog #: RR7884
Release Date: January 28, 2014
21st CenturyChamberPercussionVoiceThe 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.
Catalog #: RR7883
Release Date: November 19, 2013
21st CenturyChamberClarinetFlutePianoJoyous 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.
Catalog #: RR7878
Release Date: November 19, 2013
21st CenturySolo InstrumentalPianoMusical 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.
Catalog #: RR7882
Release Date: October 29, 2013
21st CenturySolo InstrumentalPianoRUNES, 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.
Catalog #: RR7881
Release Date: October 29, 2013
21st CenturyChamberString QuartetWind EnsembleCHIAROSCURO, 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.
Catalog #: RR7880
Release Date: October 29, 2013
21st CenturyChamberGuitarPianoViolaNIGHT 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.
Catalog #: RR7879
Release Date: September 3, 2013
21st CenturyChamberCelloWINE 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)
Catalog #: RR7893
Release Date: August 12, 2014
21st CenturyConcertosOrchestralClarinetOrchestraPianoOn 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.
Catalog #: RR7892
Release Date: July 8, 2014
20th Century21st CenturyChamberSolo InstrumentalElectronicPercussionPianoRavello 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.
Catalog #: RR7891
Release Date: July 8, 2014
21st CenturyChamberCelloPianoViolinAn individual's experiences might well be laid out like a map: some moments connected to others, some isolated, and still some yet to be explored. Composer Matthew Malsky creates an aural map of emotions on his debut Ravello release, GEOGRAPHIES & GEOMETRIES. The composer remarks, "More specifically, in composing I'm trying to adapt the sensations and the emotional responses evoked by particular places and incidents (real or imagined) into sonic form."
Catalog #: RR7889
Release Date: June 10, 2014
21st CenturyChamberPianoSaxophoneThe 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.
Catalog #: RR7888
Release Date: June 10, 2014
21st CenturyAvant-GardeVocal MusicElectronicPianoVoiceAddressing the man who greatly contributed to the theory of our evolutionary ascent, DEAR DARWIN, the second release on Ravello Records by composer Scott Brickman, explores several themes relating to Charles Darwin's studies and interests including birds, love, world travel, and human boundaries. The song-cycle Dear Darwin is set to 26 poems by Kathleen Ellis and arranged as an abecedarium. Many of Ellis' poems discuss observations of nature and human behavior, some proposing questions and others suggesting answers, while Brickman's compositions consider different relationships between the piano and the soprano voice: he places the piano in three different roles in respect to the soprano - as an imitation, as a supplement, and as harmonic support.
Catalog #: RR7887
Release Date: April 29, 2014
21st CenturyChamberPianoString QuartetViolaIllustrating 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.