Inscribed to the memory of Grace Williams’s friend Nancy Elizabeth Jenkins, who died of cancer shortly before the work was completed, Grace Williams’s Missa Cambrensis is a full-scale setting of the Mass in Latin and Welsh, scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, mixed chorus, boys’ choir, orchestra and speaker. The orchestral forces required consist of two flutes (second doubling piccolo), two oboes, (second doubling cor anglais), two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, two tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, percussion (two players: cymbals, glockenspiel, tubular bells, tamtam), piano and strings.

The album's musical material based on the use of chorale and hymn themes as a significant and fundamental element of world musical culture over the past few centuries, especially within the European musical tradition. The solo piano compositions are improvisational; with only the themes are approximate form prepared. In contrast, the pieces for the cello and piano strictly notated and require the most precise adherence to the written text.

The Promises of Darkness marks the next chapter in the visionary collaboration between Roger Reynolds and Mathias Reumert. This landmark album showcases world premiere recordings of four major works, tracing four decades of Reynolds’s trailblazing contributions to contemporary music. The title work, The Promises of Darkness (1975), pays homage to Reynolds’s mentor Roberto Gerhardt. Scored for an ensemble of 11 players, this piece masterfully conjures vivid colours and an almost cinematic sense of dread, revealing Reynolds as a composer unafraid to probe the edges of musical and emotional experience. This release follows the critically acclaimed Wind Concertos, the first in the Reynolds/Reumert series, which earned Album of the Year (The Five Best) from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in 2024.

This music was written by Chris Jonas over the course of three years of winter solo camping during the pandemic. The location was the 2 million acre Barry Goldwater Missile Range in the far southwest corner of Arizona along the USA-Mexico border. Accessible by permit only, the scorched white playas or the Missile Range are bombed regularly, but the “sky islands” of its many mountain ranges are wilderness preserves that contain unique species of animals and plants that were stranded here after the ice age.

A heterogeneous ensemble in terms of experience and nationality of the artists (of French, Italian, Dominican, Swiss, Chilean and American origins), born from their meeting at the National Jazz Academy in Siena (Italy), which, as the title of the project itself states, wants to testify to the ability of music to overcome borders of any kind, be they cultural, linguistic, physical or mental, in favour of a common and shared expressive language, in this case a jazz-sound that links tradition and modernity, with influences from rock, funk, hip-hop and free improvisation.

Lewis Saccocci is a young lion of national jazz, a pianist and organist of pure talent who is carving out an important space for himself in the Italian jazz scene thanks to his undoubted qualities. This new chapter of his recording, which includes the release of two singles, Il Prenestinato on Friday 21 February and One for Sara on Friday 28 February, consists of eight original compositions born from Saccocci's creativity, conceived in the contemporary jazz vein.

Clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh bridges the gap of Middle East and jazz with this richly swinging collection of concert material during his band’s stay in Berlin. Azmeh’s clarinet unites the team of Kyle Sanna/g, Josh Myers/b and John Hadfield/dr to walk the tightrope of the mystical world of the Middle East and modern tones, rhythms and passions. The melding is a richly textured album that is as flavorful as Turkish coffee freshly brewed in hot sand.

There is something wistful and empowering about wanderlust pianist/composer/electronics Rachel Eckroth's acoustic sensibility that holds a lot of sway with many of her listeners. This falls into direct opposition to her electronic side which, as cool as it sounds, can lean a tad too easily into the blurry, pop-oriented tendencies of Vangelis, Kraftwerk, or Gary Newman. Sure Eckroth makes these endearing old genres sound exciting now, but it is her pure piano playing that truly does the trick.

Kajetan Galas Organ Spot band returns after 12 years with a new album "Oitago", containing six original songs and two jazz standards. For several years, the trio has also performed in an enlarged line-up with saxophonist Marcin Kaletka. Oitago is a musical story inspired by the legend of a young musician Dżet-San, who discovered mystical wisdom flowing from a river. The Oitago philosophy, based on the harmony of life and music, has become a metaphor for the band's creative journey.

Heritage presents the latest instalment in the ongoing series of BBC recordings of Havergal Brian symphonies. All four performances on this disc are conducted by champions of Brian’s music; Myer Fredman, Lionel Friend and Sir Charles Mackerras. The studio recordings are taken from the original tapes in the BBC archives and have been sensitively re-mastered.

Rising stars mezzo-soprano Leandra Ramm and pianist Michael Delfín perform a wide range of vocal works by some of today’s leading, living composers. Experience an recording of contemporary music as Leandra Ramm and Michael Delfín present works for mezzo-soprano and piano by some of today’s most innovative living composers. This project features acclaimed pieces by Lisa Bielawa, Douglas Knehans, David T. Little, Cyril Deaconoff, and Daron Hagen, showcasing the unique talents of these creators who are defining the future of classical music.

Albert Harris (1916–2005) was an English musician who worked in Hollywood for most of his life as an orchestrator, arranger and composer for several of the big film Studios and for such pop icons as Barbra Streisand, Roberta Flack and Cher. He was born in London and studied piano from age 6, becoming also a self-taught guitarist. His knowledge of the guitar enabled him in later years to compose pieces specifically for it (his Variations & Fugue on a Theme by Handel was recorded by Andrés Segovia). In the mid-1930s he began to make a name for himself as a session musician in London where he featured on many recordings, most notably as session guitarist with the Lew Stone band, his delicate but swinging improvisations enhancing many of Stone’s records during 1934/35. Harris came to New York in 1938 and started playing piano in big bands across the US then began studying at the NYU College of Music, where he earned a doctorate in 1944. He finished the PhD remotely, having moved to Los Angeles in 1942, where he studied composition with Mary Carr Moore and Eugen Zador and conducting with Richard Lert. He served as professor of orchestration at UCLA and was Assistant Musical Director for broadcaster NBC from 1946 to 1949.

Featuring several world-premiere recordings, the most comprehensive set ever released of Pizzetti’s song output.
Art song occupies a substantial space in Pizzetti’s oeuvre, with over 40 pieces, and yet the composer is still remembered mostly for his opera Murder in the Cathedral, and more tangentially for chamber and choral pieces such as the Cello Sonata and Requiem. Pizzetti composed songs for almost his entire life as a composer, starting with Nuvole (1899), a romanza still unpublished, up to the Tre canti d’amore, which belong to the group of his last works, from the second half of the 1950s.

The music of Gerald Finzi (1901–1956) is rooted in the tradition of Elgar, Parry and Vaughan Williams, but Bach was also a very significant influence for him. This album’s programme features the ‘Benedetto Marcello’ Chamber Orchestra under Flavio Emilio Scogna tackling the British composer’s complex personality with contextual awareness of the great trajectories of 20th century musical thought.

Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838) is still best known for the early period in his career when he studied with Beethoven and then became his secretary; copying scores and handling correspondence for a composer whose relationship with the outside world only became more unpredictable with the onset of deafness. However, Ries (like his master, born in Bonn) fled Vienna in 1807 and thereafter embarked on a well-travelled career – in Paris, then Vienna again, venturing as far as St Petersburg and London, before settling in Frankfurt. Within a prolific output, he wrote 30 separate works scored for a solo flute, almost all of which date from his period in London (1813-24), where he won a reputation as a piano teacher to the well-to-do while producing his own music for London’s vibrant concert life.