Alexander L'Estrange, medieval French name and all, is a contemporary English composer of mostly vocal and choral music, much of it accessible and appealing. A song cycle on the historical development of the bicycle is part of his catalog. On Eagles' Wings is a group of sacred pieces seemingly suited to English collegiate choirs' unquenchable thirst for new repertoire, but L'Estrange benefits here from performances by Tenebrae and director Nigel Short, as crack a choral ensemble as there is anywhere.

London-born composer Tarik O'Regan was only 30 when the second CD devoted to his choral music, Threshold of Night: Music for Voices and Strings, was released. The works collected here show him to have an assured, individual voice; consummate technique as a choral composer; and an ability to create complex music that's not "difficult," that has an immediately sensual appeal. O'Regan's harmonic language is rooted in tonality, but it is richly saturated with chromaticism. He uses dissonance in the old-fashioned way, creating tension that finds satisfying, if unconventional, resolution.

Brett Dean’s brand new opera Hamlet is the operatic event of the year. Dean’s colourful, energetic, witty and richly lyrical music expertly captures the modernity of Shakespeare’s timeless tale, while also exploiting the traditional operatic elements of arias, ensembles and choruses. Brilliant music, rapturously received.

Su Lian Tan's assured approach to chamber music is marked in this recording, nimbly performed by the Jupiter String Quartet and pianist Bruce Brubaker. Life in Wayang transports the listener to the traditional puppet theater found most notably in Indonesia and Malaysia, echoing of gamelan and rich with musical commentary. Orfeo in Asia follows the ancient Greek legend to Southeast Asia as he encounters new modalities of harmony and rhythm. Finally, Revelations utilizes the quartet and piano together, reflecting on contemporary scholarly life and its intricacies.

Delicately dancing with silence, Bent Sørensen’s tender piano concerto Mignon – part of his Papillons trilogy – reveals textural beauty and melodic elegance in a language both modernist and sweetly nostalgic. The piece was written for Katrine Gislinge, one of the most significant pianists in Scandinavia, and on this premiere recording she is accompanied by Lapland Chamber Orchestra, conducted by John Storgårds. An accomplished violinist, Storgårds even performs Sørensen’s two pieces for solo violin, Serenissima and The Lady of Shalott. Also included are the premiere recordings of two ensemble pieces – the classically inspired serenade Ständchen and the teasingly tuneful Sinful Songs.

Norwegian composer Rolf Wallin (born 1957) belongs to that school of Scandinavian composers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries who are grounded in the techniques of modernism, but who employ those techniques in music that's immensely and immediately appealing to broad audiences in the directness of its emotional reach and the attractiveness of its sound. The three pieces recorded here, an orchestral work, a percussion concerto and a concerto for six percussionists, reveal a composer with an extraordinarily colorful orchestrational palette, fine sense of large musical structure, and an elemental rhythmic vitality.

There's perhaps a touch of irony in the title of Dutch pianist and composer Jeroen van Veen's box set Minimal Piano Collection because at nine discs, it's a pretty massive collection. The program booklet notes that he recorded the entire set, which includes more than ten hours of music, in only six days, an astounding feat. In the program notes, van Veen offers a remarkably clear and concise history of minimalism in music. He defines it broadly enough (following the lead of composer and critic Tom Johnson) to include works by Friedrich Nietzsche and Satie. Philip Glass is the composer most widely represented, with three of the set's nine CDs devoted to his music originally for piano, as well as transcriptions from his film scores and operas. Two discs are given to van Veen's mammoth 24 Préludes, organized according to the framework of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Other composers range from the very well known, such as Michael Nyman, John Adams, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, and John Cage, to the familiar-to-specialists, like Tom Johnson, Wim Mertens, and Jacob ter Veldhuis, to those little-known to American audiences, like Klaas de Vries, Simeon ten Holt, John Borstlap, Yann Tiersen, and Carlos Micháns.

The distinctive soundscape of this CD stems from the unique church interior at Løgumkloster in the south of Jutland, Denmark. Beneath the high vaulting, in the cloisters and in the small hidden spaces of the abbey, the flautist Eva Østergaard (b. 1966) has recorded a series of layers of sounds on fl utes of all sizes from piccolo to bass. The music was written specifi cally for Eva, the church and this CD by five Danish composers, all of whom explore the remotest reaches of the instruments and the building.

Naxos' album devoted to Carson Cooman's instrumental works, including symphonies, chamber music, and solos, represents an infinitesimal portion of his output; his opus numbers were in the 700s before he was out of his mid-twenties, and include pieces written in virtually every genre of Western music. Inevitably, there are some areas in which he will be stronger than others. His choral music is especially compelling: well written for the voice, with excellent text setting in a style that is not simple, but is also immediately engaging.

All of the works on this recording evidence the hallmarks of Martin Amlin's style: a facile flow of elaborate rhythms; a harmonic language rich with the notes that comprise seventh chords; a non-strict usage of tone rows; an honoring of the past through recognizable formal structure and thematic evolution; and a French sensibility that might be described as neo-impressionistic. A student of Nadia Boulanger, Martin Amlin received masters and doctoral degrees from the Eastman School of Music. He is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards and has been a resident at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the MacDowell Colony. A member of the faculty at Boston University, he is also director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Composition Program. A noted pianist as well, he performs the works on this CD with noted artists Leone Buyse and Michael Webster, who have long been advocates of his music.

Howard Shore's is one of today’s most prolific and accomplished composers - his compositions are performed in concert halls around the world by the most prestigious orchestras & his numerous film scores are heard in cinemas across the globe. Most renowned for his score for the ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy & 'The Hobbit’ series, these scores have garnered him three Academy Awards, four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, as well as numerous critics’ and festival Awards. Ruin & Memory: This piano concerto was written for Lang Lang in 2010 for Chopin’s 200th anniversary year & was commissioned by the Beijing Music Festival Arts Foundation & artistically supported by Long Yu, Chairman of the Artistic Committee of the Beijing Music Festival. The concerto has romantic touches, including a cadenza in the third movement, but its musical forces owe much to the classical era. Mythic Gardens: This Concerto for Violoncello & Orchestra (2012) was written for Sophie Shao & sits as a companion piece to ‘Ruin & Memory’. Sophie Shao is the winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant & top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions in recent years.

The brief opening piece for chorus on this new release, "Da Pacem Domine," is based on a 9th century Gregorian work and has the usual, familiar–and very beautiful–Pärt-ian characteristics: a soft, endless stream of easy tritones and harmonies that make this plea for peace immensely moving. The major work, Lamentate, is scored for large orchestra and solo piano–a very unusual combination for Pärt. Even his fans will be surprised. In ten brief sections, it begins with a quiet drum roll, immediately followed by horn calls. There are forte explosions for full orchestra and piano, with heavy percussion. At times the only thing we hear is a hushed piano part with strings supporting very quietly. The effect is dark yet alluring. It ends peacefully. This is another stunning CD of Pärt's music for his fans–old and new.

Aufzeichnung der Uraufführung eines neuen Werks von Wolfgang Rihm, das im Auftrag der musica viva des Bayerischen Rundfunks entstand.

Ce lumineux album produit par les disques du Solstice est une troisième monographie pour Edith Canat de Chizy ; la compositrice y poursuit son investigation dans l’univers des cordes, son domaine de prédilection – elle est elle-même violoniste – qu’elle aborde ici par le biais de cinq formations différentes allant du solo à l’effectif orchestral.

Ēriks Ešenvalds (b. 1977) is one the leading Latvian composers of vocal music and one of the leading Latvian composers of his generation. This recording features new works by the composer with the prestigious Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Kļava.