French pianist Alain Planès could not let the centenary of Satie’s death go by without paying tribute to this composer whom he admires above all others. Planès is the heir of the great 20th century French pianism as a student of Jacques Février, the renowned interpreter of Satie who studied with Marguerite Long and was a favorite of both Poulenc …

On his new album Canadian virtuoso pianist Jan Lisiecki brings the diverse sounds of the prelude to life, illustrating the genre’s potential to be more than just a curtain-raiser to something else. Frédéric Chopin’s extraordinary 24 Preludes Op. 28 are inspiration and centerpiece of this recording. For Lisiecki, Chopin was a “master of the short form” who “brought the prelude …

Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni is internationally recognized for his technically impeccable pianism, stupendous virtuosity, clarity of articulation and finest sensitivity. In recent years he garnered international attention by winning numerous awards, including the bronze medal at the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition and fourth prize at the 2021 the Leeds International Piano Competition. His debut solo album on for Naïve Classiques …

The years 2023-2028 mark 200 years since the five last years of Franz Schubert’s life. This leads up to the 200th anniversary of Schubert’s death in Vienna on 19 November 2028. In homage to this important event, baritone Samuel Hasselhorn and pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz have started a multi-genre international project titled SCHUBERT 200 which includes the release of one album …

On her debut solo album, pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason takes listeners on a journey that explores connections across different composers’ sound worlds – whether they met, influenced each other, or simply existed in resonance. From Claude Debussy, Frédéric Chopin and Alexander Scriabin to Florence Price, Margaret Bonds and William Grant Still, Jeneba presents a program which is also very personal to …

In a career spanning less than twenty years, Georges Bizet produced works in every genre: orchestral music, piano pieces, cantatas, operas, songs and more, characterized by a mastery of orchestration and a taste for orientalism and folklore. This comprehensive 4-CD portrait album and accompanying 159 page book from the musicological record label for Palazzetto Bru Zane – Center for Romantic …

Anthony de Mare’s landmark commissioning project, Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano, reaches Volume II with a roll call of contemporary composers from the worlds of classical, jazz, film, indie, pop and musical theatre, including Jon Batiste, Stephen Hough, Meredith Monk, Max Richter, Conrad Tao, and de Mare himself. Sondheim, the ever-eloquent wordsmith, proclaimed he was “thrilled” with the music …

Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s latest release features Aram Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto, recorded live with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The concerto is complemented by a series of solo piano works including Khachaturian’s Pictures of Childhood piano suite; Oscar Levant’s transcriptions of the “Sabre Dance” and “Lullaby” from the ballet Gayane; and the premiere recordings of Thibaudet’s own transcriptions of the …

While the nocturne — a short, dreamy, and melodically expressive work that evokes the night — is often associated with Chopin, it was pioneered by the lesser-known Irish composer John Field. Alice Sara Ott’s recording of his 18 Nocturnes celebrates the music of the man credited as the inventor of form. “Engaging with Field’s nocturnes was a deeply rewarding experience,” …

The music of Gaetano Donizetti has been a source of inspiration for the founders of the Opera Rara, the company that restores, records, and performs neglected vocal repertoire from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Spearheaded by Artistic Director Carlo Rizzi, the Donizetti Song Project is curated by musicologist and Opera Rara’s Repertoire Consultant Roger Parker. Over the course of …

This new release features world premiere recordings of Shawn E. Okpebholo’s complete song cycle Songs in Flight. Drawing inspiration from 18th and 19th century print advertisements for the recapture of runaway enslaved individuals, Songs in Flight explores their untold stories with texts by poets Tsitsi Jaji, Crystal Simone Smith, and Tyehimba Jess. The work incorporates styles including spirituals, folk tunes, …

The duo of violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien present their tenth album for Hyperion Records. Previous collaborations for the label include acclaimed recordings of the complete violin sonatas of Brahms, Mozart, and Felix Mendelssohn, as well as complete works for violin and piano by Schubert and Ravel. “In a word, delicious” was Gramophone’s verdict on the duo’s last …

The latest album from popular classical composer Ludovico Einaudi is as a song cycle in thirteen tracks. The Summer Portraits is inspired by a series of striking oil paintings adorning an Italian villa Einaudi and his family rented last year. Einaudi discovered that the paintings were produced over many summers by a woman from Rome who owned the house for …

The new album from acclaimed pianist Orion Weiss features music by Brahms, Schubert, and Debussy paired with works from young composers after World War I and II: Ernst von Dohnányi, György Ligeti, and Louise Talma. As the final issue of his ambitious three-part Arc series, this album is a set of pieces born from the bright points of life, inspired …

Canadian pianist, composer, and recording artist Stewart Goodyear forges new territory with his new album, combining works by Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn with two of his own compositions, joined by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Andrew Constantine. Goodyear’s original works are heard in their world premiere recordings and explore two very distinct thematic threads. Goodyear …

Pianist Roberto Prosseda, a champion of contemporary music, with the London Philharmonic conducted by Nir Kabaretti, present piano concertos from four Italian composers, two of which are premiere recordings. Written between 1900 and 2015, the works by Guido Alberto Fano, Luigi Dallapiccola, Silvio Omizzolo, and Cristian Carrara provide an overview of the piano concerto in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Italy. All …

Pianist Dmitry Masleev, who took first prize in the 2015 Tchaikovsky International Competition, leads the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra (a.k.a. Russian State Symphony Orchestra) from the piano in a program that centers two piano concertantes utilizing the chant melody Dies irae: Liszt’s Totentanz, and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The program also includes Liszt’s Rhapsodie espagnole in a version …

This two-CD album presents, for the first time ever, a recording of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Symphony in F-sharp performed by the composer himself, an incredibly special historical recording from the Korngold Family Archives. The new release also presents a 1997 live performance by the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by John Mauceri, whose research into the symphony included his exclusive …

New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) presents the debut solo album of the rising star American baritone Theo Hoffman, a student of the late Sanford Sylvan and an alumnus of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, in an adventurous yet appealing program that pairs Schubert songs with Beatles songs (by Lennon-McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison) on similar themes. Hoffman tells WFMT, …

Pianist Jean-Pierre Armengaud is considered a leading interpreter of French music and a specialist in Impressionist and Expressionist repertoire. He has been director for musical programming at Radio France and is associate professor at the Paris-Sorbonne University. Following his acclaimed recordings of the complete piano works of Debussy, Armengaud embarks on a project to record all of Clara Schumann’s solo …

The music of Bach is a major cornerstone for Michael Houstoun, who has recorded the 96 pieces that comprise Bach’s Preludes and Fugues Books 1 & 2 on a four-CD set. As Houstoun says, “For a pianist like myself, someone for whom music virtually begins with Johann Sebastian Bach, he provides a series of bottom lines of incalculable value everywhere …

Francesco Tristano is a Luxembourgish classical and experimental pianist and composer who also plays the clarinet. In his new album, Tristano interprets some of JS Bach’s most challenging pieces written for keyboard. The album is branded with Tristano’s own imprint intothefuture, making its debut on the Naïve label. Tristano has previously released three other albums dedicated to the music of …

German pianist Sebastian Knauer explains the inspiration behind his new album with the Berlin German Symphony Orchestra: “My encounter with the great American film composer and conductor David Newman led me to dedicate an entire album to American film music from its beginnings to the present day.” David Newman, who made the orchestral arrangements for several of the album’s tracks, …

Carlos Simon — Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the inaugural Boston Symphony Orchestra Composer Chair, and a member of The Blacknificent 7 — has already had his music performed by the world’s leading ensembles including the National Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra for the Last Night of the Proms, the Cincinnati …

French pianist Alexandre Kantorow, winner of the Gold Medal at the 2019 Tchaikovsky competition,  presents his fourth solo album for BIS, and his ninth album overall. The centerpiece work is Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, considered to be the most virtuosic composition in his entire output. Liszt transcriptions of five Schubert lieder include the song quoted in the Wanderer Fantasy, “Der Wanderer,” …