Presented as ‘An Experiment in Modern Music’ when it was premiered in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue made George Gershwin famous, and he soon set to work on a version for solo piano, recorded here by Claire Huangci. In her first solo disc for Alpha Classics, Claire was keen to celebrate this centenary alongside her roots in America, where she was born, studied music and made her debut as a concert artist at the age of nine. The brilliant improviser and transcriber Earl Wild (1915-2010) took Gershwin’s songs (Liza, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Somebody Loves Me, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, Oh, Lady Be Good, The Man I Love) to form the basis of his Seven Virtuoso Etudes for solo piano.

Welcome to Palette. Each work on this album invites you to a unique sonic universe. Together, the pieces represent a new era in my repertoire and practice. In several of these works, I have actively participated in the compositional process as a co composer, contributing with my creativity and knowledge. The pieces are constructed in partnership with a number of open and creative composers, and in several cases, years of collaborative work prepared the ground for their blooming colors. They result from intertwined contributions, generating works that none of us could have imagined alone.

For Georgian pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze, there is no more beautiful place in the world than her homeland.

Ancient traditions, folklore, landscapes, and the natural world are central themes in the music of the distinguished Chinese composer Xiaogang Ye.

With this latest volume in their ongoing cycle, recorded in 2023, the Quartetto Noûs passes the halfway mark of Shostakovich’s 15 quartets. The previous instalments have been recognised and praised for their full-blooded intensity and uncompromising address to the detail of these absorbing scores.

On their latest recording, the acclaimed Molinari Quartet delves into the complete string quartet cycle of iconoclast Italian composer, Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988).

Chopin, minimalism and Armenian flair come together on Études Mélodiques, the debut DG album from composer-pianist Marie Awadis. Its 12 tracks for solo piano reveal her individual and unique voice, a product of the diverse influences that enrich her music. The classical foundations of her conservatory years persist – with Chopin providing the obvious formal starting point – but they’re interwoven with aspects of everything from Bach to Kancheli, via jazz and the Armenian folk tunes she has known since childhood. And, reflecting a more recent musical discovery, the dual strands of US and European minimalism also play a key role here.

The name of the wind quintet ArteCombo reflects its core identity: the fusion and combination of the arts in its projects. Founded in 2007, the quintet’s aim is to innovate and surprise, both in the repertoire it plays and in the unusual venues in which it performs.

This album features performances of less frequently recorded orchestral works by Igor Stravinsky. They showcase the versatility of the Russian composer, who was never a supporter of any particular genre of aesthetic expression. On the contrary, he saw composing as an intellectual game, an attempt to solve self-imposed musical problems that could be kindled equally by Italian Baroque music, by the polyphonic structures of the Renaissance, by jazz, or by Anton Webern’s serial tone complexes. As both an opera conductor, orchestra director, festival director and author, Ingo Metzmacher is noted for his consistent and especial commitment to 20th- and 21st-century music.

Following the success of last year’s release of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London turn their attention to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel. As in the case of the previous release in the series, this world première recording of the complete score features every note of music played at the first Broadway performance, here in the full thirty-five-piece orchestration made by Don Walker for the original production. The outstanding cast, led by Nathaniel Hackmann (Billy Bigelow), Mikaela Bennett (Julie Jordan), Sierra Boggess (Carrie Pipperidge), and Julian Ovenden (Enoch Snow), also features Francesca Chiejina (Nettie Fowler) and David Seadon-Young (Jigger Craigin).

Kronos Quartet's groundbreaking 2002 collaboration with composer Terry Riley, Sun Rings, is available as a recording for the first time via Nonesuch Records on August 30, 2019.

The original semantic value of re-ligio, therefore considered as a restoration of contacts, as a meeting point of distant but related cultures. Referring to the genesis of the work, the composer herself states: Reading these works has significant inner similarities: contemplation and sophistication. The lines from the work of IV Oganov - "the pain of a flower's test", "… The roar of the singing garden grew", "… The revelation of the rose… ", "… The lotus was set on fire by the music", "… The white garden began to resound again with diamond borders… " - encouraged me to a concrete sound perception of this garden. On the other hand, however, all this ecstatic flowering was expressed naturally in Tanzer's reflections on the world in it's entirety. At the basis of the musical rendering of this piece there is in fact the opposition of the bright and diaphanous timbre of the natural harmonics with the sad coloratura of the intervals of minor second and minor third.

This recording presents the entire output to date for guitar of Toshio Hosokawa, one of Japan's most prolific composers for the instrument. His affinity for the guitar stems from his familiarity with popular songs accompanied by the guitar and from his knowledge of the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument from which he has adopted certain playing techniques. Although the works gathered here call for a variety of forces - guitar solo, guitar and voice, guitar and instrumental ensemble - they all present a fundamental aspect of Toshio Hosokawa's output: the music seems to be born like a calligraphic line 'at the limit of time and space'.