Ember – a trio comprising harpist Emily Levin, violinist Julia Choi, and cellist Christine Lamprea – releases its debut album celebrating both historical and contemporary women composers while addressing the cultural significance of the contributions of women in classical music. The program showcases three compelling works: French harpist and composer Henriette Renié’s groundbreaking Trio in B-flat Major (1901), the first …

Chicago-based Duo FAE (violinist Charlene Kluegel and pianist Katherine Petersen) pay tribute to three pioneering women composers whose work and lives defied the social confines of their time. Featuring Cécile Chaminade’s Trois Morceaux, and sonatas by Dame Ethel Smyth and Amy Beach, these chamber works for violin and piano stand as acts of bold artistic and political expression. Anchored in …

The Malmö Opera Chorus and Orchestra led by John Jeter, a noted champion of the music of Florence Price, present world premiere recordings of Price’s largest choral work, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, and of the spiritual-inspired Song of Hope, set to the composer’s own text. A series of shorter choral works with piano accompaniment complement the two pieces with …

This album comprises three works by three composers of three different nationalities performed by Finland’s Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra led by artistic director Malin Broman (who is also an accomplished violinist). The Sea Sketches by Welsh composer Grace Williams opens the program, inspired by the beaches of Glamorganshire and by its seascape. Grażyna Bacewicz’s Fourth String Quartet is played here in …

Pioneering twentieth-century Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz’s vibrant and dynamic musical language bridges the gap between neoclassicism and modernism. This second volume of conductor Sakari Oramo’s Bacewicz series features three rarely recorded works. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra was written in 1949 for the Frédéric Chopin Composers’ Competition, organized by the Polish Composers’ Union to commemorate the centenary of Chopin’s …

Tania León was the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence for two seasons concluding in July 2025. The orchestra’s new album on their in-house label presents four of León’s works which the orchestra has premiered in the UK and Europe including an LPO commission. Horizons (1999) is a shimmering tapestry of asymmetrical rhythms and Latin inflected orchestration. Stride (2020) is a Pulitzer …

The WDR Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Elena Schwarz present orchestral works by Elsa Barraine, a composer who has long been unjustly neglected. Born in Paris in 1910 and a pupil of Paul Dukas alongside Olivier Messiaen, Barraine won the Prix de Rome in 1929—a remarkable achievement for the fourth woman ever to receive it. The album centers Barraine’s …

The internationally acclaimed German label CPO has been enthusiastically filling the niches that larger companies in the industry have sometimes overlooked. The latest release is the label’s sixth album dedicated to the music of Emilie Mayer, and their third in a series presenting the composer’s symphonies with the NDR Radio Philharmonic. Orchestrator Andreas N. Tarkmann reconstructed the lost score of …