A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever
Kara-Lis Coverdale returns to Smalltown Supersound with her fourth full-length album, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever, a collection of nine pieces, dedicated to solo piano. Known for her musical innovations at the intersection of experimental electronics and minimalist traditions, Coverdale’s previous albums Aftertouches, Grafts and, most recently, From Where You Came (Smalltown Supersound) garnered special acclaim for their deep exploration of timbre. On A Series of Actions in a Sphe…
Ivory
*2025 stock* Born in Athens, Greek composer Zinovia Arvanitidi is best known as one half of the duo Pill-Oh in Vanishing Mirror as well as her debut solo The Gift of Affliction. Zinovia returns with her first solo piano album titled Ivory, and like its precursors, further highlights her mastery in crafting piano ambiances of austere beauty and melancholia, led by mesmerizing melodies and evolving cinematic textures. Fully self-produced, the now France-based composer navigates through her own tim…
Mercy is called down by mercy to the last
As a development of the work done by “I lost myself in finding you”, the trio of Rasha Ragab, Christoph Nicolaus and Lucio Capece is joined by cellist Judith Hamann. In this Quartet piece Capece created the structure, time line and the tones combinations, taking as a departure point the tuning of one specific Stone Harp, that takes the group into a carefully calibrated microtonal tuning. The piece is a slow conversation, alternating long tones and overtones, repeated sequences of multiphonics, …
+The Sydney Symphony Orchestra
A meeting of worlds. A new kind of resonance. Godtet's upcoming release captures the alchemy of their landmark performance with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House. At once bold and nuanced, this album explores the friction between improvisation and orchestration. Where the orchestra is anchored in fully composed material, Godtet remains free – navigating the work's harmonic architecture with instinct and spontaneity. Structures are fixed, but expression is fluid.
Orchestrate…
Rispecchiato in Quarzo
Rispecchiato in quarzo, Dal nero immenso, lèvita, and Traspare assente albore unfold as structured sequences of transformation—transparent, hypnotic, fairy. Each solo instrument (piano, contrabass clarinet, bass flute) interacts with multi-layered electroacoustic textures built entirely from acoustic sources. These “electronics” remain sensitive and natural, shaped through breath, resonance, and subtle manipulations. An 1876 Steinway, spectral clarinet multiphonics, and whispered flute tones for…
A Bridge Between Spaces
A Bridge Between Spaces traces a decade of Andrew Greenwald’s singular compositional journey—across rigorously constructed sonic terrains and into freer, more intuitive musical dialogues. Drawing from two major violin cycles and culminating in the expansive title work, this album captures a shift from analytical exploration to expressive openness. With sound worlds that feel both extraterrestrial and deeply human, Greenwald’s music invites us into a landscape where metaphors fail and sound speak…
Luigi Nono Volume 2: Works with Flute
Luigi Nono (1924 –1990) was a great innovator in the use of spatialization of sound and experimentation with performance space, non-linear time and the collapsing between sound and silence. Beginning in 1959, he distanced himself from serial orthodoxy and the Ferienkurse compositional scene. His new works reflected a concern in political and cultural events and introduced the use of tape and electroacoustic technology. His compositional process was increasingly involved with specific performers,…
Cosmic Clarinets
Clarinetist Michele Marelli channels Stockhausen’s visionary spirit in this album of works for clarinet, basset horn, and bass clarinet—joined by pianist Gianluca Cascioli in Tierkreis—merging cosmic intensity with masterful interpretation and devotion.
Marimba & Percussion Solo
1987 release ** Includes recordings of: Toshimitsu Tanaka-Two movements / Minoru Miki – TIME / Dmitri Schostakowitsch – Polka & Oportunist from his Ballets Nebojsa / J. Zivkovic – Drei Phantastische Lieder, Tensio, Strah*Ctpax
12²
1998 release ** "Wendy Mae Chambers (b 1953) is known for the scope and originality of her works, typified by large and unusual instrumental combinations. In Chambers’s own words, Twelve² is a voodoo tone poem in eleven movements for twelve percussionists. Each movement is about 4 minutes in length. The last movement is 4'33" of lots of sound (in tribute to John Cage's 4'33" of silence). Voodoo drumming [calls] forth Cage’s spirit and the bells, chimes, and gongs [celebrate] ... celestial qualit…
Atrapós
Evis Sammoutis’ music is a dynamic fusion of physicality, virtuosity, and cultural depth. Drawing on his Cypriot roots and diverse training, his compositions explore tactile soundscapes, poetic contrasts, and neurological aesthetics. Works like Echopraxia and In Darkness challenge conventions of imitation and vulnerability, while Rhymes and Engravings evoke intricate structures and materiality. Inspired by literature, visual art, and the expressive potential of sound, Sammoutis crafts music that…
Piano Works
Apart from musical considerations, it is entirely appropriate that the work of Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) stands beside the compositions of three younger Americans on this program of recorded premieres. By example and deed, Bernstein served like no other major American artist as a true role model for at least a couple of generations of aspiring musicians in this country. Moreover, his eclecticism as a composer and performer exemplified the polyglot nature of the arts in America.
Among the com…
Winter Pages, Bright Music
Ned Rorem's music strives for clarity. He distrusts the convoluted, the pompous, the grandiose. To some degree this is a legacy of his years in Paris and his exposure to figures such as Poulenc, Auric, and Cocteau. However, Rorem treated the neoclassical aesthetic not with French irony and emotional distance, but with American openness and first-name intimacy, adding clarity of emotional expression to intelligibility of means. Winter Pages and Bright Music exemplify Rorem's subtle, direct style …
Trio In C-Sharp Minor / Trio For Violin, Violoncello And Pianoforte
Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) lived for most of his career in Chicago where he spent more than 40 years on the faculty of the American Conservatory and nearly as long as organist-choirmaster of St. James Cathedral. His music can be described as "eclectic" in the best sense of the word.
German theory, French composition, English and American folk music, liturgical music and jazz (he toured with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra) all figure among the influences on his vast body of work. He produced more than…
Symphony No. 7/Balada: Steel Symphony
William Schuman was born in 1910 in New York. His earliest musical interests were at first confined to current popular music. In 1930, after hearing his first concert of symphonic music－Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic in a program of music by Wagner, Kodaly, and Robert Schumann－he redirected his life. Schuman later graduated from Columbia University and studied privately with Roy Harris. Symphony No. 7 premiered on October 21, 1960, under the direction of Charles Munch, who succeeded Kou…
Piano Works
Pianist Peter Serkin is renowned for his performances and recordings of contemporary music. He has worked closely with composers such as Olivier Messiaen, Toru Takemitsu, Luciano Berio, and Peter Lieberson; he also was a founding member of the chamber group Tashi.
Igor Stravinsky's 1925 Serenade en La was originally composed to suit phonograph players, with each movement designed to fit the three-minute capacity of each of four ten-inch 78rpm sides. The title, Stravinsky explained, did not mea…
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, John Nelson (5), Jennie Hansen, Neil Rosenshein, Charles Martin Loeffler
La Mort De Tintagiles / Five Irish FantasiesThe music of Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935) was a rarity in the United States. Much admired for its artistry, it was yet so individual and its Symbolist aesthetic so unusual that Loeffler acquired a reputation that set him apart from other American composers of his generation. Loeffler came to America at the age of twenty. Behind him he had a cosmopolitan European background: He was born in France and had lived there and in Germany, Hungary, Russia, and Switzerland.
As a composer Loeffler w…
Piano Concerto
The Piano Concerto was Peter Lieberson's first orchestral work and was, from the outset, conceived with Peter Serkin in mind as the soloist. He wrote it after a long period of immersion in the study of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. Throughout what Lieberson regards as the "journey" of the Piano Concerto, the character of each movement changes dramatically, though the very tune that unfolds at the opening of the work returns in full just before the end. Each of the three movements reflects in a mus…
Music of the Federal Era
Music of the Federal Era is an excellent overview of late 18th and early 19th century compositions by Benjamin Carr, Oliver Shaw, Raynor Taylor and others, performed on period instruments. The variety of styles represented on this disc reflects two kinds of music that existed quite separately: one centered in the cities, essentially European in origin, and the other in villages and the countryside. For while America found itself politically independent at the end of the Revolutionary War, cultur…
When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd
Of the numerous settings of Walt Whitmans poetry, and this poem in particular, Sessions's is generally agreed to be one of the very finest and most sensitive. His mature style - a highly personal, instantly recognizable mix of severity and control with passion and serenity - projects the poetry now in simple chordal declamation, now in the long, high-arched melodies of which he is the master, conveying wonderfully the feel and variety of Whitman's lines. Over the years, Sessions's elegy has ta…