The years 2023-2028 mark 200 years since the final five years of the life of Franz Schubert, leading up to the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death in Vienna on November 19, 2028. Paying homage to this important event, baritone Samuel Hasselhorn and pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz created SCHUBERT 200: a multi-genre international project aimed at a new, young generation of …

Marking Earth Day, Grammy-nominated harpist Yolanda Kondonassis releases her new album Terra Infirma featuring the titular work by Reena Esmail – a concerto for harp and percussion both performed by Kondonassis with the Interlochen Center for the Arts Orchestra conducted by Andrew Grams. Terra Infirma was directly informed by Esmail’s experience living in Los Angeles during the catastrophic fires of …

Cellist Seth Parker Woods, Artist-in-Residence at the University of Chicago, presents a new album exploring identity, intimacy, and human connection with music by André Previn, George Walker, Tania León, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The album’s title is drawn from Toni Morrison’s poetry – setting the tone for a program that elevates the everyday into something resonant and revelatory. “I’m still on …

Decca Classics presents a recital by soprano Lise Davidsen and pianist James Baillieu recorded at the Metropolitan Opera in September 2023. Their program reflects the full spectrum of Davidsen’s range, moving effortlessly between opera, song and musical theatre. Davidsen demonstrates her mastery of the music of Richard Strauss with four songs: “Allerseelen,” “Befreit,” “Zueignung,” and “Morgen.” Opera highlights include  “Dich, …

The all-women a capella ensemble Lyyra (the only one of its kind based in the United States) presents their debut album with a genre-defying program that showcases the multifaceted beauty of upper voices. Created by VOCES 8, Lyyra’s members are Anna Crumley, MaryRuth Miller, Elizabeth Tait, Ingrid Johnson, Aryssa Leigh Burrs and Cecille Elliott, representing a wide range of specialisms …

Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion have emerged as superlative interpreters of Bach. They continue their exploration of the composer’s major works with this new recording of the St. John Passion. With their exemplary articulation and dynamic flexibility, the Pygmalion chorus is at the center of this striking drama. Raphaël Pichon’s precise direction restores the Passion’s original dramatic arc, instilling …

Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars present world premiere recordings of works written for them by Nico Muhly. Phillips says that Muhly “immediately understood our particular sound and a succession of masterpieces followed, each as powerful as the last.” The title work is a setting of Jeremiah’s Lamentations, interspersed with contemporary interviews with people from the Windrush generation of Caribbean …

The Grammy-winning Los Angeles-based chorus Tonality presents the world-premiere recording of Running From, Running To, an eight-part suite reflecting on the life and death of Ahmaud Arbery, the young Black man whose killing on February 23, 2020 while jogging sparked a national outcry. Composed by Founding Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake, Running From, Running To is scored for chorus, soloists, …

The first album in The King’s Singers’ Head Space series, aims to connect choral music with calmness and reflection. Inspired by compline, the Catholic night service, it features plainchant, including “In manus tuas Domine” and “Salva nos Domine vigilantes,” emphasizing breath-led pacing. The album also includes four of Orlando Gibbons’s wordless song settings (two of which include an additional voice …

For two decades now, Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 have been dedicating concerts and numerous recordings to the work of Jan Dismas Zelenka, the long-underrated composer from their homeland. To mark their 20th anniversary, Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 present another work from Zelenka‘s extensive sacred vocal oeuvre: the solemn Missa Circumcisionis, for the feast of the Circumcision …

The Amsterdam Sinfonietta under the direction of violinist Candida Thompson and the Netherlands Chamber Choir led by Martina Batič present an innovative program of Baltic and English works recorded live in concert. The program is bookended by two performances of Arvo Pärt’s meditative work Spiegel im Spiegel, the first with cellist Tim Posner, and the original version for violin (Candida …

Emily — No Prisoner Be is a 24-part song cycle by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts, setting the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Written for Grammy Award-winning artists Joyce DiDonato and genre-defying ensemble Time for Three. Emily is a powerful meeting of voices across centuries—each one distinct, yet in perfect harmony. With music which feels at once familiar and new, brimming …

Jordi Savall presents the world premiere recording of a new performing edition of Mozart’s unfinished “Great” Mass in C minor, K. 427, restored and completed with historical rigor and musical sensitivity. Basing their score on Mozart’s own compositions and sketches, Savall and his fellow conductor/musicologist colleague Luca Gugliemi have fashioned a new version that The Times says “goes some way …

Tenor Zachary Wilder is the descendant of a large family of Jewish immigrants, musicians who fled their small Lithuanian shtetl of Panevezys to escape the persecution of the brutal pogroms in the late 19th Century. Emigrating to America, the Steinfelds settled and flourished in their new home of Brooklyn. In Brooklyn Suite, Wilder reimagines his great, great uncles’ home gatherings …

The Malmö Opera Chorus and Orchestra led by Mark Fitz-Gerald present reconstructions of previously unheard music from two significant theatre works by Shostakovich – The Shot and The Human Comedy – and rarely heard selections from his first serious opera The Nose. Shostakovich was known for his fun-loving attitude during his early years as a composer. The colorful incidental music …

For their first recording exploring the world of Bach, Sébastien Daucé, and Ensemble Correspondances give new life to the young composer’s first sacred cantatas: Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4; Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (Actus tragicus), BWV 106; and Aus der TIefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131. These three works were written in Mühlhausen, where he …

Rolando Villazón has joins forces with period instrument ensemble L’Arpeggiata and its founder-director Christina Pluhar to present an album inspired by the myth of Orpheus. The recording is based on a conceptual program devised by Pluhar which the artists have also performed live to great acclaim. Villazón sings excerpts from Monteverdi’s Orfeo and operas on the same subject by Gluck, …

Skylark Vocal Ensemble’s A Christmas Carol represents the culmination of nearly a decade of innovative storytelling concerts that began in 2016. The original concept for this musical interpretation of A Christmas Carol was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and first recorded in 2021. Working from Dickens’s original 30,000-word manuscript, Artistic Director Matthew Guard carefully abridged the text to preserve its …

One of the UK’s foremost recording choirs, The London Choral Sinfonia marks its tenth anniversary with On Christmas Night, a festive collection of classic carols in vivid new orchestrations. Led by conductor Michael Waldron, highlights include star treble Malakai Bayoh as soloist in Howard Blake’s “Walking in the Air,” and British soprano Emma Bell singing a new arrangement of “O …

Composers Jocelyn Hagen and Timothy C. Takach partnered with the VOCES8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra and violinist Jack Liebeck to create and record Rose Ever Blooming, a new 55-minute Christmas oratorio featuring SATB choir, violin solo, and orchestra. The libretto is inspired by Patricia Monaghan’s poetry, featuring twelve poems woven together with traditional Christmas carols as musical touchstones. Rose Ever …

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge presents a new Christmas album with the Britten Sinfonia under the direction of Daniel Hyde recorded in the beloved Chapel of King’s College. The program features beautiful orchestral arrangements of carols by John Rutter alongside a selection of both well-loved and lesser-known carols by the great choral composers who have influenced him, including Philip …

The St John’s College Choir Cambridge presents their second album led by their new music director Christopher Gray. At the center of the program are the atmospheric Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noël by Francis Poulenc, and the heartfelt Three Carol-Anthems by Herbert Howells who directed the St John’s Choir during the Second World War. Other selections include the …

Under the direction of Christopher Bell, the Grant Park Chorus presents a heartfelt collection of carols and contemporary choral favorites for the holiday season. From the quiet reflection of “Silent Night” and “In The Bleak Midwinter” to the shimmering mystery of “O Magnum Mysterium” in two settings (Tomás Luis de Victoria and Morten Lauridsen), the album offers movements of both …

Baritone Kenneth Overton won a GRAMMY Award for his performance in the title role of Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by JoAnn Falletta; and can be heard as soloist on Chamber Works of Adolphus Hailstork with The Harlem Chamber Players. In addition to his international career in opera and concert, Overton …

Rising star Armenian-British composer and pianist Kristina Arekelyan is the winner of the 2010 BBC Proms Young Composers Competition. She completed her PhD in Composition at King’s College London where she was a student of Joseph Fort. Her compositions have already been featured on the BBC Proms and she has collaborated with the BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Choir …