Fifty-five years after the release of their first recording, Katia and Marielle Labèque celebrate an extraordinary artistic journey with this new triple album, bringing together new recordings and archive selections spanning more than half a century. The Labèque sisters have consistently crossed boundaries between classical, contemporary, jazz, minimalism, and popular traditions. Commissioning works from composers such as Philip Glass and …

With a release timed to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial, America/Beautiful is a five-volume collection conceived, commissioned, and performed by pianist and arts advocate Min Kwon, comprising 76 new piano works by American composers inspired by “America the Beautiful.” Kwon brings together a sweeping range of individual voices into a unified musical vision that invites listeners to experience the United …

The partnership of pianists Wu Qian and Juho Pohjonen began over a decade ago, having originally collaborated as artists in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Since that first introduction, both soloists have returned to their duet to explore the piano duo repertoire — a most intimate form of chamber music – two musicians sharing a single instrument, breathing …

The latest release from Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov combines the fire and virtuosity suggested by the album’s title (and cover), tempered with the musical depth and poetic communication for which he is equally acclaimed. Inferno begins with music by Carl Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven and a teacher to Liszt best known for his technical exercises from The School of …

Pianist Idith Meshulam Korman and the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey, present the first complete modern recording of the surviving keyboard music of Marianna Martines (1744–1812): a composer, keyboard virtuoso, and cultural force in eighteenth-century Viennese musical life. Admired in her lifetime for her brilliance as both performer and composer, Martines occupied a central position within the city’s …

Inspired by William Ernest Henley’s (1849–1903) iconic poem of the same name, Stacy Garrop’s new piano concerto INVICTUS was commissioned by and written for Chicago native and multi-Grammy-nominated pianist Marta Aznavoorian, who performs it with the Chicago Philharmonic under Artistic Director Scott Speck. Despite a difficult life beleaguered with health issues, William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus, Latin for “unconquered,” is …

Pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko made history as the first Canadian to win the Grand Prize at the Concours musical international de Montréal in 2024, the same year he was named Gold Medalist at the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition. His second solo album for Naxos is a souvenir of his recital from the 20th Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition (2022), …

Jonathan Biss concludes his Beethoven/5 commissioning project bringing to a close one of the most ambitious and innovative Beethoven release series of the 21st century. Over the course of five years, Biss selected a composer to write a piano concerto in response to one of Beethoven’s. The final installment of the project, featuring the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Malin …

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 …

Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki returns to the concertos of Mozart a decade after recording Nos. 20 and 21 for his Deutsche Grammophon debut. Joined by the Bamberg Symphony directed by Manfred Honeck, Lisiecki’s latest recording presents a contrasting but complementary pair of works in E-flat major: Concertos Nos. 9 and 22. “Recording these two works was a dream of mine,” …

Isata Kanneh-Mason’s latest recording stems from a long and personal relationship with the composer’s music, which reached a major public milestone when she made her BBC Proms solo debut in 2023, performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Since she first heard the concerto at the age of 18, the work and has been a key part of Kanneh-Mason’s concert life. …

The third solo album from German pianist Esther Birringer surveys music by 15 different composers, bringing the masters such as Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, and others into dialogue with modern voices like Lera Auerbach, Ludovico Einaudi, and Valentin Silvestrov. “The term spectrum is usually associated with physics: when white light passes through a prism, it breaks into a full rainbow of …

Cuban pianist-composer Aldo López-Gavilan presents world-premiere recordings of three of his own orchestral and solo works highlighting the composer’s distinctive musical voice—one that seamlessly blends classical virtuosity, improvisational freedom, jazz inflections, and Afro-Cuban rhythmic vitality. The title work is a three-movement piano concerto originally conceived during an improvisation session as a musical gift for the composer’s daughters. The album also …

Vyacheslav Gryaznov’s Rhapsody in Black is a stunning and original work that blends classical and jazz influences, showcasing Gryanznov’s extraordinary skill as both a pianist and a composer. Based on themes from the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Black picks up the story where the opera leaves off: Bess in New York, Porgy following in her footsteps. Rhapsody in Black …

Pianist Alice Sara Ott presents world premiere recordings of piano transcriptions of music by the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. The program includes some of the composer’s most iconic works from different films as well as from his studio albums Orphée and Englabörn. “What’s so incredible about Jóhannsson’s music,” writes Ott, “is how his compositions, originally written for larger ensembles …

Violinist Midori — artistic director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute program for piano and strings — presents an album of works by Robert and Clara Schumann with pianist Özgür Aydin and the Festival Strings Lucerne under the direction of Daniel Dodds. Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D Minor was composed in 1853 but withheld from publication for more than …

Regarded as one of the finest interpreters of classical and romantic repertoire, Dame Imogen Cooper presents Beethoven’s Sonatas No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110, and No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111. “It has taken many years for me to perceive the last three sonatas by Beethoven as the evolving journey I …

Myron Silberstein, Brooklyn-born (in 1974) and a long-term resident of Chicago, belongs to that centuries-old tradition of the composer-pianist. But here the distant roots are not so much in Mozart and Beethoven as in Copland and Barber. Silberstein’s language echoes the tradition of earlier American composers like Paul Creston, Peter Mennin, and Vincent Persichetti, and his tonal harmony may remind …

Considered to be the most gifted and promising pianist of his generation in Poland, Szymon Nehring is the only Pole to have won first prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv (2017). He was also a finalist at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw at age 19. His new album is dedicated to Karol Szymanowski, one of …

Born in Moscow in 2001, Alexander Malofeev has already become one of the most captivating pianists of his generation thanks to his phenomenal technique and the remarkable expressiveness of his playing. In 2014, at just thirteen, he won first prize at the junior edition of the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition. For his debut solo album, Malofeev has selected four composers …

Known for her refined neoclassical voice, the new album from Italian composer and pianist Olivia Belli draws inspiration from Homer’s Odyssey. Belli was fascinated by Odysseus’s destined return to Ithaca and the idea that every life follows a journey toward its true purpose. This concept shaped her new piano concerto, Daimon, recorded with the German Chamber Orchestra Berlin and influenced …

Pianist Orli Shaham has been the curator, host, and pianist of Pacific Symphony’s “Cafe Ludwig” chamber music series for nearly two decades. This new album of contemporary chamber music is the product of her long relationship with the musicians of the symphony, which is based in Southern California. The program demonstrates the diversity of chamber works by leading American composers …

Boris Giltburg, widely recognized as a leading interpreter of Rachmaninoff, continues his ongoing series for Naxos dedicated to the composer. Composed at the age of 19, Rachmaninoff’s earliest published cycle of piano pieces, the Morceaux de Fantaisie, contains the Prélude in C sharp minor, destined to become a signature work, and the Mélodie in E major, much loved by Tchaikovsky. …

Michael Stephen Brown is a composer and pianist hailed by The New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” Brown performs internationally and receives commissions from orchestras, soloists, and festivals around the world. Recent highlights include a recital at Alice Tully Hall for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a performance …

Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu’s new album is a personal reflection of her journey in the music world, from some of the very first pieces she played as a child to significant milestones such as her concerto debut at age 9. The repertoire centers Mozart’s Rondo in D, K. 382, performed with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The …