July 10, 2026 New Releases from Navona, Albany, and MSR Classics

The third installment in All Classical Radio’s award-winning Recording Inclusivity Initiative, AWAKEN, continues the network’s monumental effort to rectify inequities in classical music recording, casting women composers in the spotlight and inviting listeners from across the globe to hear imaginative new music. Award-winning and GRAMMY®-nominated performers tackle these works to send a powerful message regarding the importance of artistic collaboration.

SCATTERED LIGHT by pianist Russell Hirshfield presents a curated program of American music for solo piano, featuring world premieres of commissioned works by Timo Andres and Mary Ellen Childs. The album takes its title from Childs’s Scattered Light, a piece inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s meditation on light that scatters and is lost in water and air, giving the world its depth of blue.

On FEMALE RAIN, Indigenous American music and Western European classical training combine in a melting pot of contemporary culture. Pianist Roberta Rust performs evocative works by Indigenous American composers Louis W. Ballard (Quapaw/Cherokee) and Connor Chee (Diné/Navajo), whose compositions draw from a liminal space between the past and present.

UNE IDÉE explores the concepts and processes of creativity. Composer Anthony Wilson takes us on journeys through musical textures and moods, exploring periods and styles while pondering the ephemeral elusivity of original ideas. In doing so, he finds his own originality and develops a sound that’s entirely his own creation.

Rémy Taghavi expands the bassoon repertoire with several deft arrangements, a familiar favorite, and a new commission for the instrument on MIZANSEN. Taghavi plays with extraordinary zest, vigor, and savoir-faire; so much so that, without knowing the pieces, it would be impossible to tell that they weren’t originally conceived for the bassoon and the bassoon alone.

American pianist Roger McVey delivers a soulful Scriabin tribute on VERS LA FLAMME. The album shares its title with Scriabin’s op. 72, which, despite the meaning – “To the flame,” conjures a warm, eternal glow rather than burning embers. However, McVey is quick in furnishing those in the form of Scriabin’s infamously difficult etudes. Lyricism and vigor mingle effortlessly here – just as the composer intended.

Lisa Terry’s PIÈCES DE VIOLE cleverly juxtaposes the legacies of two greats of the French Baroque era: the well-studied, often-performed François Couperin, and the enigmatic Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, who lay forgotten until the 1960s and whose true identity remains a mystery to this day. Terry’s interpretation of both is nuanced, expressive, in short: sublime; and the viol’s warm, rich timbre is deeply satisfying.

Oregon Symphony Principal Trumpeter Jeffrey Work and pianist María García, along with several Oregon Symphony colleagues and friends, present LIFE’S JOURNEY, a new recording of trumpet music by composer James Stephenson. At once virtuosic and nuanced, Work’s playing brings to life the music of his longtime friend, traversing a wide variety of emotional landscapes.