Proving that Joan Baez never really goes away, Play Me Backwards is a fine 1992 release from the legendary singer/songwriter. The smooth production of Wally Wilson and Kenny Greenberg frames her voice beautifully, with a contemporary, yet undated sound. And, with songs courtesy of Mary-Chapin Carpenter, John Hiatt, and Janis Ian, how can you go wrong? Although it's not a ground-breaking artistic achievement, it's Joan Baez, and it's definitely an enjoyable way to pass 40 minutes. Getting things started, the bouncy groove of the percussive title track belies its tale of a stolen childhood.

Marilyn Monroe Although film actress and Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe has been the subject of a large number of albums, she rarely stepped into a recording studio to make a commercial recording and only appeared in five real movie musicals (with a few other musical performances in her straight films), making for a total record and soundtrack output of less than three dozen titles that are recycled endlessly along with bits of movie dialogue and radio and TV appearances on the frequent reissues.

Cookin’ at the Queens: Live in Las Vegas (1984 & 1988) is the first release in 33 years from the unsung jazz guitar great Emily Remler, and it’s a previously unreleased collection of performances that were broadcast on KNPR Las Vegas as part of Alan Grant's "4 Queens Jazz Night from Las Vegas” weekly radio program in 1984 and 1988. Released in cooperation with the Emily Remler Estate and features quartet performances with pianist Cocho Arbe, bassist Carson Smith and drummer Tom Montgomery (1984), and trio performances with bassist Carson Smith and drummer John Pisci (1988). The deluxe package will include liner notes by acclaimed author Bill Milkowski, plus interviews and statements from many other artists who knew or were inspired by Emily Remler, such as Sheryl Bailey, Russell Malone, David Benoit, Mike Stern, Rodney Jones, Mimi Fox, Jocelyn Gould, Amanda Monaco and many, many others. Available as a 2-CD set, digital on December 6. Also available as a 3-LP set exclusively at indie record stores for RSD Black Friday, November 29.

Looking For The Words: Live at the U of H Coffee House features Guy Clark performing solo acoustic versions of early originals and illuminating covers Let’s travel back to October 30, 1970: A week before his 29th birthday, Guy Clark is performing on the University of Houston campus. Back in his home state after a short stint in California, Clark is still a couple years away from moving to Nashville, where his career as a songwriter would flourish. On this night, he delights a small coffeehouse audience with 12 original songs plus a half-dozen covers. And, as it happens, a reel-to-reel tape recorder is running. The tape was lost until 2021 when the opening act for that night, John Kunz, found the tape stuck in a cavity behind a storage tray.

German conductor Otto Klemperer attended the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt-am-Main, studied violin and piano at the Klindworth-Scharwenka and Stern Conservatories in Berlin, and composition with the German composer Pfitzner. He made his début in Berlin in 1905, where he conducted fifty performances of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, not a work that would now be identified with Klemperer's serious and profoundly personal approach to music. Shortly afterwards, he visited Gustav Mahler in Vienna and impressed the composer by playing a scherzo from a Mahler symphony by memory at the piano. With Mahler's personal recommendation, Klemperer was appointed choirmaster and conductor at the German Opera in Prague.

Daniel Barenboim is a conductor and pianist of top international stature, known for an extraordinarily large orchestral and operatic repertoire. He is the general music director and chief conductor for life of the Staatsoper Berlin in Germany. Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires on November 15, 1942, into a family of Ukrainian Jewish descent. His mother was his first piano teacher. He later studied with his father, Enrique Barenboim, who was an eminent music professor. After playing for the noted violinist Adolf Busch, who was impressed by his talent, Daniel made his debut recital at the age of seven. In 1951, he played at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and observed Igor Markevitch's conducting class.

The Gramophone Award-winning Silesian Quartet present a double-album of the complete works for string quartet by compatriot Henryk Gorecki. All three of his numbered string quartets were written late in life – the first in 1988 – and all three were commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. The First Quartet is a single-movement work, based on a sixteenth-century song by Wacław of Szamotuły. The Second, double the length of the First, is subtitled ‘quasi una fantasia’ and follows a classical four-movement form, subtly referencing Beethoven. Gorecki completed the Third Quartet (double the length of the Second!) after the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs had catapulted his music to much wider acclaim. It extends to five movements and is considered by many to be one of his greatest compositions. In the 1980s and 1990s, Gorecki composed several collections of choral songs. Five Kurpian Songs is based on folksongs from Kurpie, a region north-west of Warsaw. The composer himself suggested that these works would be effective when performed by a string quartet, and here the Silesian Quartet gives us the world premiere recording of that version.

Sviatoslav Richter Having learned the fundamentals of music from his father, Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter taught himself the piano and had already given public concerts before entering the Moscow Conservatory in 1937. While still a student, Richter won first prize at the All-Union Contest of Performers of 1945. His playing earned him considerable renown, and by the time of his graduation in 1947 he had devoted fans. In 1949 he garnered the coveted Stalin Prize. Richter gave the 1942 premiere of Sergey Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 6 – the composer's first work in that form for years, and the first one he did not premiere himself.

Leonard Bernstein No figure in 20th century American classical music had as prominent or controversial a career – or did more to sell classical music to the general public as something genuinely exciting and worth getting into a sweat over – than Leonard Bernstein. For more than 30 years, from his assumption of the post of Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958 until the final concerts that he conducted in obviously failing health near the end of his life in 1990, he was the most widely recognized American-born conductor in the world, and the dominant personality in American classical music as both a conductor and, to a lesser degree, a composer.

Released eight years after the original and set three years later, the Disney animated musical Moana 2 returns composer Mark Mancina and composer/songwriter Opetaia Foa'i to the fold but replaces Pulitzer Prize-winning songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda with Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear. At the time of its release in November 2024, this made Barlow and Bear the youngest songwriting team and the first female songwriting team to write for a Disney film.

Le claveciniste et organiste Luc Beauséjour fait son entrée chez ATMA Classique avec l’album BACH : un itinéraire. Cette biographie musicale de Bach suit un itinéraire des différents lieux où le compositeur a travaillé ou occupé des postes. « Que ce soit au service d’un prince ou d’un conseil municipal, les différents postes que Johann Sebastian Bach a occupés durant sa vie ont influencé sa production musicale. Exploitant l’idée de faire escale dans chacun de ces lieux de création, j’ai voulu proposer un panorama de son œuvre pour clavecin, qui, contrairement aux autres genres qu’il a abordés, couvre l’entièreté de son existence », écrit Luc Beauséjour.

An album of new works written during the pandemic by celebrated composer Jonathan Dove, the Sacconi Quartet are joined by pianists Charles Owen, Katya Apekisheva and baritone Phillipe Sly. “Many works have been composed during lockdown. This will surely survive as a sonorous record of the time: for the anxiety and dislocation of its first movement, the soaring, twittering birdsong of the second, and the serene, meditative melancholy of the last.” - Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

Pianist Olga Pashchenko creates musical narratives with selections from Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words. As children, the two immensely prodigious siblings enjoyed using text to inspire their piano pieces, although which of them was the actual inventor of the genre remains a mystery. It is possible that they either co-created this genre, or even that Fanny could have been the creator of the genre traditionally ascribed exclusively to Felix.

American singer Thomas Hampson has been one of the world's top opera stars since the early 1990s, with more than 200 recordings to his credit. Hampson combines a mellifluous tone that has proven remarkably durable, a powerful top, and charisma that saw him named one of the world's 50 most beautiful people by the U.S. magazine People in 1993. Hampson was born on June 28, 1955, in Elkhart, Indiana, but grew up in Spokane, Washington.

Featuring the band’s latter day line-up, Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert is composed mostly of their wealth of hits, with three studio recordings ending the album, one of which, Jackie Wilson’s (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher, featuring non-band member Michael McDonald on lead vocals.