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This album, Throwback to Dance, explores how composers turn to dance forms to carve out new paths: predominantly court dances, folk dances but also the more ‘modern’ waltz. The album is inspired by the charming meeting between Ravel and Grieg back in 1894, and looks at Grieg’s influence on Ravel, seldom documented, as well as that on Pejacević and Chaminade. "Beautifully played and presented, the music put together by Gavrić gives us a unique view of music that not only makes you think but also dance."- Interlude "It’s hard to imagine any aficionado of the piano not looking forward to hearing more of the artistic playing of Gavrić, whether she evokes dancing or singing, or simply makes music in her own inimitable style." - Gramophone “The entire recital, given with brio and affection, is aimed at those with a spirit of musical adventure; an exceptionally stimulating issue” - The Art of Pianists "Lovely programming and fine playing"- International piano -
To mark the 150th anniversary of Ravel’s birth, Ivana Gavrić releases a little amuse-bouche: Ravel's short waltz in the manner of Borodin, one of his favourite composers. Despite its brevity, it is as if À la manière de Borodine takes us on a whirlwind spin around the clubs in Paris Ravel frequented nightly; it beautifully captures much of Ravel’s spirit, his love for dance, especially the waltz. Ravel reportedly believed that every composer secretly wished they could write an excellent waltz, but most were put off by the difficulty and the wealth of enviable examples already in the repertoire.
Stream here: https://lnk.to/IvanaRavel -
"As technology becomes ever more inextricable with our existence, it has evolved the art around us. But to me music has stayed quite binary here - either traditional instruments or synthesised textures - sometimes layered together, but still separate. What if we could evolve more seamlessly between different sounds? Production allows us to do things we couldn’t in the concert hall, and over the last few years I’ve been experimenting with transforming sounds, developing a series called Morphations - of which Evolutionary Etude is the first. Recorded in 2023 with the brilliant violinist Fenella Humphreys, the Philharmonia and Tenebrae choir, and collaborating with Jon Opstad on synth design, Evolutionary Etude takes the form of a traditional classical arpeggiated study, but where the violin (and at times the orchestra) actually evolves into a synth and back again. I hope it feels like something you’ve never quite heard before!" - Rebecca Dale -
‘Rêverie in London Rain’ is the first solo piano piece I've released, beginning its life as a theme in a film which I then expanded. The channel-crossing title is a nod to both the French composers who influence this style, and the experience of being lost in thought as you wander along the banks of the Thames on a grey, drizzling day. I think within the music you can hear the raindrops' - Rebecca Dale -
Four-time BAFTA winning composer Christopher Gunning, has composed twelve symphonies as well as concertos for the piano, violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and guitar. Here the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Kenneth Woods, perform his eighth and ninth symphonies, recorded in Hoddinott Hall in March 2024. “Each scored for a moderately sized orchestra (the 8th has only one trumpet and no lower brass, while the 9th adds a second trumpet, a harp, and a small percussion section) and both [grapple], in Gunning’s highly individual way, with the legacy of classical symphonic form” - Richard Bratby. [9th Symphony] “I believe this piece has a strong emotional flavour but if you try and untangle the story you’re going to end up with your own story - and to me, that is absolutely perfect.” - Christopher Gunning. ★★★★ - BBC Music Magazine "This is well worth acquiring by those who are not yet acquainted with Gunning’s symphonic odyssey." - Arcana "This recording not only establishes Christopher Gunning as an essential symphonic composer of our time, but also confirms Kenneth Woods as one of the most refined and intelligent conductors in the field of contemporary music." - Sonograma “Gunning’s [...] symphonies, numerous concertos and sundry orchestral pieces are as meticulously wrought as they are powerfully conceived.” – Gramophone -
Head Space: Candlelight is the first in The King’s Singers’ Head Space series, aiming to connect choral music with calmness and reflection. Inspired by compline, the Catholic night service, it features plainchant, including “In manus tuas Domine” and “Salva nos Domine vigilantes,” emphasizing breath-led pacing. The album also includes wordless Orlando Gibbons “Songs,” contemporary pieces by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Judith Bingham, and Arvo Pärt, and the experimental “4’33”” by John Cage, concluding with Robert Parsons’ “Ave Maria” and Edvard Grieg’s “Ave Maris Stella,” all designed to create a contemplative atmosphere. 9/10 - “If you enjoy superlative a cappella singing the King's Singers are still up with the very best.” - CrossRhythms -
Featuring two new operas from composer Emma O’Halloran, with librettos by Mark O’Halloran Irish National Opera present Trade and Mary Motorhead. Featuring singers Oisín Ó Dálaigh, John Molloy (Trade) and Naomi Louisa O’Connell (MM) the Irish National Opera Orchestra are conducted by Elaine Kelly. TRADE In a guesthouse in Dublin’s north inner city, a vulnerable and confused young rent boy sits with a middle-aged client. The older man has blood on his shirt. A lot has happened since the two last met. Mary Motorhead: Mary Motorhead has been locked in a prison cell after stabbing her husband in the head with a 12-inch carving knife. While he lies in intensive care, Mary reflects on the events that have brought this turbulent rural marriage to such a crisis. ★★★★★ - "Ultimately, it's the razor-sharp combination of emotional directness and complexity that compels the audience to step into the characters' lives in all their fury violence, savage loneliness and agonisingly tender love." - BBC Music Magazine “Rarely, if ever, does every element - score, text, singers, instrumentalists, conductor, director, sets, costumes, lighting, sound design—all come together. This is that rarity.” - Los Angeles Times “Emma and Mark O’Halloran’s complex opera double bill Trade/Mary Motorhead is remarkable” - Irish Independent "Tenor Oisín Ó Dálaigh and bass-baritone John Molloy simply astonishing throughout." - The Arts Review -
'Little Wanderer’, from William Blake’s dream world, seemed the perfect title for an album in which we are surrounded by myriad landscapes in songs by Benjamin Britten, Imogen Holst and Daniel Kidane. Since meeting on our first day at the Royal College of Music, we have long enjoyed programming Britten’s masterful folk song reimaginings, and we adore the texts and music in his powerful Hardy cycle, Winter Words. It has been a joy to discover songs by Imogen Holst, Britten’s close friend and assistant, and we are proud to be able to make the first recording of Dan’s Songs of Illumination, commissioned for us by Leeds Lieder in 2018. For over a decade, song in English has played a major part in our musical lives and performing relationship, and we are delighted to present this programme together. ★★★★★ - BBC Music Magazine “This enormously impressive performance bears comparison with other recorded greats.” - Musicweb International -
An album of newly recorded works for Christmas by rising star composer Kristina Arakelyan. This is the first recording by the Choir of King’s College London, conducted by Joseph Fort on Signum Records. “While preparing this album, I have been struck by many aspects of Kristina’s music, and have talked with her about it at length... She approaches the compositional task as an exercise in conveying this emotion and stirring it in her listeners, and I hope that this comes through in our performances” - Joseph Fort 9/10 - “Arakelyan's music is melodious, pays careful attention to the well-chosen texts she is setting, and rewards the careful listener.” - CrossRhythms "This is a breathtakingly good selection in which we hear the influence of modal chants and Armenian church traditions fused with an English choral blend" - Gramophone -
A Thousand Charms invites listeners into two centuries of English song, from Campion’s intimate ayres to Purcell’s theatrical masterpieces and Handel’s deeply expressive arias. The programme traces how solo song evolved from lute-inspired simplicity to richly ornamented drama, blending poetry with music of striking clarity and depth. Grace Davidson’s pure, agile voice and Julian Perkins’s sensitive harpsichord accompaniment bring freshness and immediacy to this repertoire, emphasising its refinement, inventiveness and humanity. For anyone drawn to the beauty of early music, this recording offers an engaging journey through some of its most timeless works. ★★★★★ - BBC Music Magazine "an attentive, communicative and deeply respectful reading of the text and style, but at the same time lively and expressive." - Sonograma -
With a voice that stirs the soul and a story that inspires millions, Tom Ball continues his extraordinary journey with the release of his latest single, Timeless - a soaring, cinematic masterpiece that blends orchestral elegance with heartfelt emotion. -
As the grand finale of the upcoming animated feature film, “Cosmic Rhapsody,” "Star Among the Cosmic Clouds" is more than just a musical piece; it's the emotional crescendo of an epic tale. Created by the visionary team of Susan Lim and Christina Teenz Tan, this film promises to be a stunning visual and auditory experience, and this song is its heart. It’s a powerful ballad of sacrifice, courage, and the enduring legacy of a heroine. -
Goethe-Lieder is the premiere recording of a three-song set by Billboard-charting composer Rodrigo Ruiz. These settings of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—‘Selige Sehnsucht’, ‘Meine Göttin’, and ‘Gegenwart’—trace a subtle emotional arc from the fragility of human longing, through the hope of spiritual transformation, into the radiant light of love’s presence. Nigerian-American soprano Francesca Chiejina and British pianist Jocelyn Freeman bring the cycle to life with luminous clarity and expressive depth, their interpretation marked by sensitivity and restraint. Released in 2025, the album offers a quiet nod to the 250th anniversary of Goethe’s arrival in Weimar, while inviting today’s listeners to inhabit these texts anew. -
Hans Zender’s reimagining of Schubert’s Winterreise transforms a familiar piano cycle into a vivid orchestral journey, blending intimacy and intensity. Tenor Allan Clayton and conductor Nicholas Collon lead Aurora Orchestra through a landscape of fractured memories, where folk-like simplicity collides with Mahlerian grandeur and Berg-like expressionism. Zender preserves Schubert’s vocal line but enriches the sound world with guitar, accordion, melodicas, and striking orchestral effects that evoke storms, frozen tears, and fleeting dreams. This interpretation magnifies the cycle’s raw truth about love, loss, and despair, offering audiences a deeply modern, immersive encounter with one of classical music’s most haunting masterpieces. ★★★★★ “Quite the magical mystery tour” - The Scotsman ★★★★ "Allan Clayton is superb" - The Times ★★★★ - BBC Music Magazine “A fascinating listen” - Gramophone “A compelling contemporary encounter with one of classical music’s most haunting masterpieces.” - Art Muse London Presto Music album of the week: “There’s really nowhere to hide in Zender’s scoring, which demands total synergy between singer and a veritable snowstorm of moving parts, and every unsettling detail lands perfectly here.” -
"A House of Ghosts is a sequence of a dozen short pieces concerned with the past, whether imagined, historical or (as in the case of the final piece) autobiographical. These movements are combined here with freestanding longer items, where sea music (Farewell to Hirta and Hunt's Bay) is mixed with explorations of elusive memory (Le Temps qui n'est plus and Drowned Summer). Gently distinctive in its harmonic and tonal language, this music is the work of a professional pianist-composer with a refined and subtle insight into the physical and textural properties of the instrument." - Duncan Honeybourne “Definitely worth exploring” - International Piano -
Following their debut EP Serenity, Meridian and Irene Messoloras return to Signum Classics with their first holiday release—A Meridian Christmas. Recorded at All Hallows Gospel Oak, London, this enchanting Christmas collection captures the spirit of the season with warmth, clarity, and elegance. Shaped by Meridian’s signature blend, the album offers a soundscape of carols and seasonal works that is both intimate and classic. From Ben Parry’s tender All Through the Night to Carol Jennings’s cheerful Ding Dong! Merrily on High and Ola Gjeilo’s festive The Holly and the Ivy, each piece captures a distinctive mood of the season. The program further features Paul Manz’s E’en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come, offering a moment of quiet yearning and hope, and A Great and Mighty Wonder arranged by Erling Pederson, resounding in radiant proclamation. Together, these works trace the season’s arc—from quiet reflection to joyful celebration. Meridian Meridian is a London-based professional chamber choir founded and directed by Irene Messoloras. With a sound defined by clarity, balance, and expressive depth, the ensemble brings together early and contemporary repertoire to create a richly contemplative musical experience. Meridian’s members are drawn from outstanding ensemble backgrounds such as Tenebrae, the Monteverdi Choir, and The Sixteen. This combination weaves together a broad variety of choral experience, giving the choir an exceptional range of vocal power and colour. Irene Messoloras Irene Messoloras is an award-winning conductor dedicated to inspiring musicians and audiences through excellence in choral performance. Based in Southern California, she leads professional, university, and community ensembles on renowned stages worldwide. "A Meridian Christmas is a solid programme of favourite carols in attractive arrangements." - Gramophone