This week, Navona Records is proud to bring you the long-awaited album of chamber music from Jamaican-British composer Eleanor Alberga, a collection of piano-centered works from contemporary composers, and Bach’s cello suites arranged for bass clarinet, appearing in their entirety for the first time.
Dive in and discover this new music from: Karen A. Tarlow, Chen-Hsin Su, John Craven, Gordon Monahan, Ron Nagorcka, Kenneth Kuhn, Jim Puckett, Sarah Wallin-Huff, Bill Sherrill, John A. Carollo, Santiago Kodela, Joshua Ranz and Eleanor Alberga.
SUSTAIN VOL. 2
Karen A. Tarlow, Chen-Hsin Su, John Craven, Gordon Monahan, Ron Nagorcka, Kenneth Kuhn, Jim Puckett, Sarah Wallin-Huff, Bill Sherrill, John A. Carollo, Santiago Kodela
Two years after the release of SUSTAIN comes the long-anticipated follow-up, SUSTAIN VOL. 2. This fresh collection of works centered around the piano includes a range of contemporary compositional styles: tonal, atonal, and everything in between. This volume features a new cast of composers and performers, with contributions by Sarah Wallin-Huff, Karen Tarlow, Chen-Hsin Su, Bill Sherrill, Jim Puckett, Ron Nagorcka, Gordon Monahan, Kenneth A. Kuhn, Santiago Kodela, John Craven, and John A. Carollo. The album’s varied soundscapes and arrangements—including solo piano, piano and saxophone, and piano and strings—constantly surprise and delight the ear. A fitting sequel to the first installment, SUSTAIN VOL. 2 is steeped in the dynamic complexity piano music offers.
THREE CELLO SUITES
Joshua Ranz
THREE CELLO SUITES from clarinetist Joshua Ranz and Navona Records is a truly groundbreaking take on Bach’s legendary works; In this album, for the first time ever, listeners may enjoy three unabridged cello suites by Bach arranged for the bass clarinet. Ranz selected Suites 1, 4, and 2 for this recording because, together, they form a cohesive and dynamic whole. Ranz holds the chair of principal clarinet for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and has played on such blockbuster soundtracks as Toy Story 3 and 4, and Star Wars episodes VII and IX. He can be heard prominently featured in La La Land, Catch Me If You Can, and An American Pickle. Ranz lends a fresh voice to Bach’s profoundly-beautiful music in THREE CELLO SUITES.
WILD BLUE YONDER
Eleanor Alberga
Eleanor Alberga explores the whole gamut of the human experience in WILD BLUE YONDER, an equally diverse and coherent set of four contemporary chamber music pieces. While written over the course of twenty-two years, these pieces burst the limits of both space and time. No-Man’s-Land Lullaby reaches back over a century to World War I; Shining Gate of Morpheus enters the realm of the mystical; Succubus Moon explores the dark sides of the human psyche; and The Wild Blue Yonder offers a glimpse into a world that is at once alien and wonderful. An undauntedly, positively unsettling album; perfect listening for these unsettling times and a worthy addition to the much hailed album of Alberga’s three string quartets from 2019.
