A new Naxos recording features the Boston Symphony Orchestra in works commissioned and premiered by the orchestra in the early years of Music Director Andris Nelsons’s tenure at the orchestra; repertoire includes Eric Nathan’s the space of a door, George Tsontakis’s Sonnets—Tone Poems for English Horn and Orchestra, Timo Andres’s Everything Happens So Much, and Sean Shepherd’s Express Abstractionism. The Minnesota Orchestra has released the digital version of its recording of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, led by Music Director Osmo Vänskä, on the BIS label; the recording comes out on CD in the U.S. on January 3. Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra will release the first in a series of four recordings of music by Clara Schumann in spring 2020 on the Analekta label, led by Music Director Alexander Shelley. The recording cycle will explore connections between Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. The North Carolina Symphony is featured in Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, with cellist Zuill Bailey and violinist Philippe Quint, on a new Steinway & Sons release; the recording also features Bailey and the U.K.’s Philharmonia Orchestra in Schumann’s Cello Concerto, Bloch’s Prayer, and Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. The Miami Beach-based Nu Deco Ensemble has released a self-titled debut album with music by Nicholas Omicioli, Andy Akiho, and other living composers, plus arrangements of songs by artists including Outkast and Daft Punk. Jacomo Bairos and Sam Hyken are co-founders of Nu Deco Ensemble. The Seattle Symphony and Music Director Thomas Dausgaard have released Rued Langgaard’s Prelude to Antichrist and Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony on the Seattle Symphony Media label. The String Orchestra of Brooklyn will release its debut album, afterimage, on January 27, 2020 on the Furious Artisans label, conducted by Eli Spindel. The recording will feature Christopher Cerrone’s High Windows, Jacob Cooper’s Stabat Mater Dolorosa, Paganini’s Caprice No. 6 in G minor, and the first movement of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater; performers include the Argus Quartet, violinist Rachel Lee Priday, soprano Mellissa Hughes, and mezzo-soprano Kate Maroney. The Utah Symphony and Music Director Thierry Fischer have released Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 1, Symphony in A Major, and Carnival of the Animals on Hyperion Records, the final recording in the orchestra’s Saint-Saëns recording series.
The classical/hip-hop violin-viola duo Black Violin has a new album, Take the Stairs, on Di-Versatile Music Group label; the duo’s musicians are violinist Kev Marcus (Kevin Sylvester) and violist Wil Baptiste (Wil B). Violinist Rachel Barton Pine and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra are featured on a new Avie recording of Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor and Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto in D minor, conducted by Teddy Abrams. Fourteen-year-old composer Alma Deutscher has released an album of her own piano compositions, From My Book of Melodies, on Sony Classical. Sony Classical has released Zubin Mehta: The Complete Columbia Album Collection (recordings from 1965-2015) on 94 CDs and 3 DVDs, featuring orchestras of Vienna, New York, Los Angeles, Israel, and Berlin. Daníel Bjarnason conducts Concurrrence, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s new recording of music by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Haukur Tómasson, Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, and Páll Raagnar Pálsson on the Sono Luminus label; performers include pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and cellist Saeunn Thorsteinsdóttir. Ted Hearne’s Hazy Heart Pump, an album of solo and chamber works, has been released on New Focus recordings; performers include cellist Ashley Bathgate, Argus Quartet, Mivos Quartet, violist Diana Wade, violinist Miki-Sophia Cloud, and percussionist Ron Wiltrout. The label Bright Shiny Things has released Ring Out, an album of works by composer violist-composer Jessica Meyer; performers include vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, violinist Miranda Cuckson, pianist Adam Marks, countertenor Nicholas Tamagna, and cellists Caleb van der Swaagh and Andrew Yee.
