Gyan Riley is a virtuoso guitarist and composer from Northern California who has performed both as a soloist and in ensemble with various artists such as Zakir Hussain, Michael Manring, Dawn Upshaw, the San Francisco Symphony, the Falla Guitar Trio, the World Guitar Ensemble and composer/pianist/vocalist Terry Riley. For his first Tzadik release he presents an astounding recital of original works that draw upon and expand the rich legacy of classical music for solo guitar. Modern Etudes and more from this remarkable composer/guitarist now living in Brooklyn!

Paweł Szymański (born 28 March 1954 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish composer. When he was a student attending the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music, Szymański studied composition under Włodzimierz Kotoński. Paweł later studied under Roman Haubenstock-Ramanti as well as Tadeusz Baird. His music is based on strict technical discipline and the initial sound material of Szymański’s pieces has roots in past conventions but is always processed and composed from the beginning. Szymański himself talks of his music using the qualification “surconventionalism”. His style is similar to that of a neoclassical composer, but instead Szymański emphasizes past styles within his works. Many of his works also include influences from the baroque era as well as from Renaissance fantasias. He often modifies these classical styles of music until they become abstract and impressionistic.

Instrumental and vocal techniques are intertwined in the music of Harrison Birtwistle: he often treats the voice instrumentally and his instrumental writing has vocal characteristics. Many of his works for small ensembles, with or without voices, occupy this common ground, his highly individual style juxtaposing the static and the violently dynamic and intersecting with his fondness for ritual and myth – not least a recurrent concern with the figure of Orpheus. This recording presents some of these relatively neglected pieces, recorded live in the presence of the composer, who also talks about his songs in interview.

The acclaimed conductor and composer Salvador Brotons is renowned for his music for symphonic band. It was Rebroll (Rebirth), a symphonic poem in one movement inspired by contemporary events, which first earned him international recognition, and is performed worldwide. Symphony No. 6 ‘Concise’ charts a dramatic course between rhythmic dynamism, ceremonial grandeur and lyrical intimacy. Glosa de l’Emigrant is a nostalgic song cast as a sardana, the national dance of Catalonia, and features the beautiful sound of the tenora, a Catalan folk instrument. Brotons’ Symphony No. 5 and his Oboe Concerto can be heard on 8573163.

The very word concerto naturally calls up automatic associations with the Classic and Romantic musical traditions. If, however, there is one composition that does not fit this classical template, it is de Raaff’s Violin Concerto. This is even less true for Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto (1935); Berg, like de Raaff, employed the fruits of this tradition in a highly unusual and individual way.

The Munich-based American composer Gloria Coates is best known as a symphonist, though she has also composed nine string quartets as well as vocal and chamber music. Her String Quartet No. 9 opens with unworldly sonorities, glissandos, micro-tonalities and other unusual colours which develop by means of a mirror canon. In contrast, the Sonata for Violin Solo sets immense technical demands, particularly in its use of multiple stops beneath the lyrical fragments. Taking its subtitles from phrases within Emily Dickinson poems, her Lyric Suite for Piano Trio is a captivating mix of melodic gestures and spectral harmonies.

The medieval concept of Venus’ Wheel is the symbolic framework for this collection of timeless choral works by the Danish composer Bo Holten (b. 1948). Himself a renowned conductor, Holten leads the Flemish Radio Choir on a passionate journey through the many facets of love, using the whole of musical history as a framework and sounding board for his own contemporary idiom.

Casey Crescenzo is the mastermind behind experimental indie rock group The Dear Hunter. An incredibly talented musician and prolific songwriter, Crescenzo wanted to push himself further as a composer by crafting an original symphony. The completed work - Amour And Attrition: A Symphony In Four Movements - was performed by the Brno Orchestra in the Czech Republic for this recording issued by Equal Vision.

The internationally acclaimed Australian saxophonist, Amy Dickson, releases her new album ‘Catch Me If You Can’ featuring contemporary classical music for saxophone & orchestra by film composer legend John Williams, American composer Michael Kamen, and Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits). On this album, Amy performs alongside the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

John Adams’ 2005 opera explores the personal and moral issues surrounding the invention of the atomic bomb. Captured live in concert, it has colossal power and conviction. At its center is Gerald Finley’s commanding performance as Robert Oppenheimer, a scientist wracked by doubts. Having sung it at the premiere and many times since, he produces a magnificently characterized creation. Julia Bullock, Brindley Sherratt, Samuel Sakker, and Andrew Staples are all superb in supporting roles and Adams himself draws virtuoso playing from a truly galvanized BBC Symphony Orchestra. A major recording of a modern operatic classic.

The opening track on the rebel chamber music ensemble Anti-Social Music's debut album Sings the Great American Songbook (2005) was "Fracture II," a composition by cellist Pat Muchmore. The group's second release turns out to be entirely devoted to that composer's music. It's a good thing too, for Muchmore's soundworld requires some time to get into and fully explore.

Award-winning conductor and composer Johan de Meij's First Symphony 'The Lord of the Rings' is a spectacular evocation in five portraits and scenes based on Tolkien's tale of a grand quest and the struggle of good against evil. The Second Symphony is an ode to the symmetry of New York's streets and its massive architecture, as well as a tribute to the American styles of Copland and Bernstein, while the cinematic effects of the Third Symphony form an epic paean to the entire earth in all its miraculous beauty.

The album "THE ODYSSEY" is a collaboration between Regard Extrême and Dark Awake. Regard Extrême and Dark Awake has managed to create the ultimate mythological concept split album about Ulysses and his adventures, inspired by the Greek Epic poem Homer's Odyssey!!!

An exclusive mix of live recordings from past Terraforma events and unreleased tracks by some of the festival's closely associated acts.

A round or a canon is a musical form in which several voices or instruments perform the same material, but with staggered entries. For example, in a three-voice version of "Row, row, row your boat," some people don't get to sing the first line until others are singing "Gently down the stream," and others don't get to sing it until "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily." The last group to sing the opening line is the last to sing "Life is but a dream," and they sing it all by themselves. In a so-called mensuration canon, all of the voices end at the same time, which means that the later you enter the canon, the faster you have to sing – or the more you have to compress - to reach the end at the same time as everybody else. One might predict that as the canon approaches its end, its density increases arithmetically. And it does – with vertigo-producing results.