This week’s releases focus heavily on artists who call Chicago home. Long-time friends and pianists Inna Faliks and Daniel Schlosberg present Alexander Zemlinsky’s transcription of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 for piano four-hands – a work they have performed to acclaim across the country. Hometown trailblazers Third Coast Percussion explore the evolution of their decade-long partnership with Pulitzer Prize-finalist composer/performer/electronic musician Jlin. Apollo’s Fire and Tallis Scholars, both ensembles that perform often in Chigao, present fresh and intense interpretations of early music treasures. Plus, Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s 2024 composer in residence Jessie Montgomery presents a new arrangement of Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerilla, while Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir reimagines her earlier works with orchestral accompaniment.
New Releases October 26: Chicago Sounds
Apollo’s Fire led by Jeannette Sorrell with soloists soprano Rebecca Myers, mezzo-soprano Aryssa Leigh Burrs, contralto Emily Marvosh, tenor Jacob Perry, baritone Edward Vogel, and bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton, present a fresh, intimate, and intense interpretation of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor. The recording preserves the passionate elan and dancelike joy of critically acclaimed live performances given by the Grammy Award-winning ensemble last year in its home cities of Cleveland and Chicago. Chicago Classical Review cited their performance of the mass as one of the “Best 10 Concerts of 2025.” saying it was “Easily one of the most memorable concerts of recent years… the 20-member vocal ensemble was inspired throughout the performance. The instrumental consort was in brilliant form… Presiding over it all was Jeannette Sorrell, who with understated grace led her charges on a moving traversal of Bach’s unsurpassed canvas.”
The New European Ensemble under the artistic direction of Emlyn Stam present three landmark works by Julius Eastman, one of the most compelling and visionary voices in late 20th-century music. The album explores Eastman’s unique concept of “organic music,” where repetition, accumulation, and performer agency create powerful, ever-evolving musical landscapes. Jessie Montgomery’s acclaimed arrangement of the title work, Gay Guerilla, is presented alongside imaginative interpretations of two rarely-heard ensemble works – Joy Boy and Buddha.
Founded and led by Peter Phillips, The Tallis Scholars present a live concert album recorded at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice on July 14, 2017. Renaissance polyphony permeates this program, which was conceived around the 450th anniversary celebrations of Claudio Monteverdi’s birth in 2017. Alongside music by Monteverdi himself are compositions by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Antonio Lotti, and Gregorio Allegri, among them Allegri’s celebrated Miserere and Palestrina’s Magnificat – works with which The Tallis Scholars have become closely identified over the years. The concert also features music by Arvo Pärt and the Armenian priest, composer, and ethnomusicologist Komitas. In the album’s liner notes, Peter Phillips explains that he and the ensemble “wish to pay tribute to the centuries-old heritage of the Armenian community in Venice”, creating a connection between the musical traditions of the city and the living cultural memory of its Armenian presence.”
Long-time friends and each with a distinct musical profile, pianists Inna Faliks and Daniel Schlosberg have played four-hand and two-piano repertoire by Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Pärt, and Mahler, at the Ravinia Festival, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, among many others. The duo now presents Alexander Zemlinsky’s transcription of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 for piano four-hands, a work they have performed to acclaim across the country. “Preparing, performing and recording this earth shattering, larger-than-life canvas of a work requires absolute comfort and trust, on a human and musical level,” says Faliks. “The many years we have spent pondering this magnum opus transcription have created some of my most treasured musical memories,” adds Scholsberg. The Washington Post hailed their Mahler 6 as “a herculean performance…brimming with character.”
Revered for her multi-award-winning scores for film and TV (Chernobyl, Joker, Tár), Hildur Guðnadóttir released her debut album, Mount A, in September 2006. Mount A’s 20th anniversary was an opportunity to take stock. “Seeing that number on the horizon felt like a good moment to pause,” says Guðnadóttir. “When I was trying to be a one-person string orchestra, I always dreamed of having more people playing with me. I decided to give that young person the anniversary gift of hearing her music played by an orchestra.” On her latest album, she presents orchestral versions of eight tracks that first appeared on Mount A, her 2009 album Without Sinking, and Saman from 2014, as well as two newly written pieces. Guðnadóttir herself plays solo cello on the album performing with the Berlin German Symphony Orchestra led by Robert Ames.
Grammy Award-winning percussion ensemble Third Coast Percussion and Pulitzer Prize-finalist composer/performer/electronic musician Jlin join together on an album that explores the evolution of their decade-long partnership. In a collaboration that could have only originated in Chicago, these new works deliver a fresh sound, as TCP’s contemporary classical training meets Jlin’s visceral and innovative electronic practice. A new composition written for TCP by Dirty Projectors frontman David Longstreth and a new arrangement of a piece by Philip Glass complete the album.
