May 22, 2020 New Releases from Navona and Ravello Records

As we all navigate our new daily lives, music always comes along to help. Today Navona and Ravello Records bring us a brand new choral release from a GRAMMY-winning choir, experimental piano works, and much more.

Dive in and discover new music from: Christopher Keyes, The Crossing, Joseph Summer’s Shakespeare Concerts Series, Vytautas Smetona, and Chicago Arts Orchestra conducted by Javier Mendoza.

That moment when a performer finds his or her footing enough to respectively step beyond boundaries is a magical moment. In his new album A CONNOTATION OF INFINITY, composer Christopher J. Keyes opens new dimensions and redefines the “piano recital” with technology and ambient sound.

GRAMMY-winning chamber choir The Crossing is back with their latest installment in a multi-album series with Navona Records. In this latest offering, artistic director Donald Nally leads the choir through six striking pieces by composer James Primosch that confront the most elemental questions of Western philosophy.

MUSIC TO HEAR, Joseph Summer’s follow up to WHO IS SYLVIA from Navona Records off his Shakespeare Concerts set, is the result of the composer’s lifelong obsession with poetry. The album pairs the works of contemporary poets as well as Shakespeare with Summer’s music, expressing deeper significance than either words or music are capable of on their own.

Exalted and expressive to just the right degree, Ohio-born pianist Vytautas Smetona fuses his American upbringing with his Lithuanian heritage in his recordings of Brahms, Chopin, and his own work. His second release on Navona exhibits technical command of the highest order, profound musical understanding, and a clarity of interpretation which is seldom heard.

Lovers of Old Music are in for a huge treat with IGNACIO JERUSALEM: MASS IN G, a tribute commemorating the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death. The little-known, Italian-born, galant creator, who spent much of his colorful life in Mexico, receives long-deserved attention from the Chicago Arts Orchestra under the baton of Mexican-American conductor Javier José Mendoza.