"Devotees of jazz piano have a treat in store … performance-wise, Peterson is brilliant, giving the songs new structure and playing with a technique that is sensitive and flawless … this is hard to beat."

Melody is something I have been passionate about throughout my career as a composer. Crafting a melody that is captivating yet simultaneously original and unpredictable.

Melbourne cinematic funk outfit Karate Boogaloo announce the third instalment of their KB’s Mixtapes series - KB’s Mixtape No. 3 - Songs from Film & Television.

“A master jeweller. In her subtle, if not to say refined, refined interpretation the composer appeared as a philosophical intellectual, and it is thanks to these pensive and critical interpretations that Polina Osetinskaya proffers that Shostakovich’s music remains topical and even highly relevant art.”

Blues In Orbit captures the essence of a late-night recording date that was as much a loose jam as a formal studio date, balancing the spontaneity of the former and the technical polish of the latter. If you're just getting into jazz, this album is highly recommended as a great way to initiate your collection.

Victor Julien-Laferrière, the very first winner of the 2017 Queen Elisabeth Competition for Cellists in Brussels, joined Alpha Classics in 2019 for several recordings.

The nineteenth-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has rather fallen out of fashion these days, deemed inferior to his fellow American writers, Hawthorne, Whitman, Emerson and Melville.

"Mayr's Masses were in demand across Europe, and their composition is rooted in the Italian tradition of the messa concertata which demands division into separate vocal numbers. The Mass in E minor has long been recognised as an outstanding example of Mayr's late style, with its polyphonic mastery and dialogues between singers and concertante solo instruments being exceptionally convincing. The Mass in F minor evokes both joy and deep melancholy, though accompanied, as always, by Mayr's notable gift for melodic beauty."

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.

Spanish colonies in Central and South America emerged as wellsprings of cultural activity throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The meeting of indigenous populations with Latin American cathedrals and courtly life resulted in styles bearing the imprint of folk music, even in sacred compositions. The sophisticated musical culture of Guatemala City Cathedral is represented in an archive of hundreds of works, several of which are recorded here.

"The Caminos del Inca, or Inca Trails, is a road network that traverses South America connecting lands and peoples. The area's musical traditions are ancient and varied, taking in indigenous sounds as well as European influences, and the composers represented on this album have all been inspired by this musical legacy, the people of their homeland, and the land itself. The interconnections include late-Romanticism, folkloric dances, reinterpretation of popular music, mestizo ('hybrid') elements, Stravinsky-like primitivism, and music of simplicity and beauty that both captures and celebrates village life."

It is the spring of 1937. Musical circles in Warsaw are still abuzz with talk of the recently concluded 3 rd Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition, especially as one of the main prizes that year has gone to Witold Małcużyński, an alumnus of Józef Turczyński’s class at the Warsaw Conservatoire.

Composer Scott Wollschleger releases his second album with New Focus, Dark Days, chronicling solo piano repertoire written between 2007 and 2020 and featuring his longtime close collaborator, pianist Karl Larson. Aspects of style that are heard on his first album Soft Aberration are present again, but now filtered through the introspective immediacy of the solo piano medium, as we hear coloristic harmonies, a penchant for using displaced rhythms and repetition to subvert phrasing expectations, and an intuitively driven approach to form and structure.

"Salvatore Di Vittorio is seen as heir to the Italian neo-Classical orchestral tradition with a narrative style notable for its colourful orchestration and 'swelling lyricism' (American Record Guide). This second volume of his orchestral works includes a vivid portrayal of the cultural and historical diversity of his home city in Overtura Palermo. Sinfonia No. 3 evokes the beauty and magnificence of Sicilian temples, while Sinfonia No. 4 'Metamorfosi', based on Ovid, is Di Vittorio's most important work to date. His Overtura Respighiana and Sinfonias Nos. 1 and 2 can be heard on Naxos 8.572333."

Maestro Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig continue their integral Brahms symphonies project with a recording of the composer’s Second Symphony in D Major, alongside his Academic Festival Overture.