There’s only one new release that’s New In Music This Week: December 19th. A very good one at that.
I’m also taking this opportunity to highlight the best of this year’s recordings.
My top pick is:
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: PREMIERES – Gil Shaham/TŌN/Leon Botstein – Canary Classics
Violinist Gil Shaham is one artist who radiates joy whenever he plays. That is apparent in this recording of three concertos that were written for and premiered by him.
The album opens with Scott Wheeler’s 3-movement Birds of America. You can clearly hear the inspiration nature serves in Wheeler’s second violin concerto. Listening to Birds of America felt like a walk in a park where nature reigns supreme.
Avner Dorman’s Nigunim (Violin Concerto No. 2) is tonally a completely different piece. The four-movement work opens with music that sounds very much of the Jewish music tradition. Since the title comes from “a fundamental musical concept of traditional Jewish music,” that makes sense. The second movement keeps Shaham on his toes with challenging passages that he executes flawlessly.
The third movement (Adagio) contains an absolutely beautiful melody that is introduced about 2-1/2 minutes in. The last movement (Presto) is lively until it comes to a quick close.
Bright Sheng’s 28-minute Let Fly is comprised of three continuous movements and a soloist created cadenza. It is beautiful. Sheng says in the press notes that the work is inspired by a sense of flying – both for Shaham and his violin and also for his daughter, Fayfay whose name is a homonym for “to fly” in Chinese.
Shaham flies effortlessly throughout this wonderful recording. I expect Premieres to find its way into a regular rotation in my library in the months ahead.
That’s all I have for New In Music This Week: December 19th. But wait, there’s more!
Here are my favorite recordings of 2025. It is impossible to have heard every possible release. So this list comes only from the records I was able to include in New In Music this year. In most cases I’ve opted for something that is new or reveals something new about a given work. All listings are in alphabetical order.
CLASSICAL MUSIC (both standard repertoire and contemporary classical):
DREAMCATCHER – James McVinnie – Pentatone
McVinnie has assembled the work of contemporary composers to explore the theme of imagination on both the organ and the piano. The composers whose work are performed include John Adams, Marcos Balter, Bryce Dessner, inti Figgis-vizueta (first recording of build-it-yourself), Meredith Monk, Nico Muhly (the first recording of his Patterns) and Gabriella Smith.
FOUND OBJECTS / SOUND OBJECTS – Marc-André Hamelin – Hyperion Records
I’ll listen to anything pianist/composer Hamelin records and this album is no exception. Found Objects / Sound Objects opens with Ruth Is Sleeping by Frank Zappa. That gives you an idea what this album has in store for us.
Four of the 7 works on this phenomenally performed album are from the 20th century. They include the Zappa composition, John Cage’s The Perlious Night from 1944, Stuck on Stella by Salvatore Martirano and Passacaglia by Stefan Wolpe (which I absolutely love.) The 21st century works are Tip by John Oswald; Refrain by Yehudi Wyner and Hexensabbat by Hamelin.
Once again, Hamelin proves just as compelling a composer as he is a performer.
GABRIELA LENA FRANK: CONQUEST REQUIEM/ANTONIO ESTÉVEZ: CANTATA CRIOLLA – Nashville Symphony Chorus and Orchestra/Giancarlo Guerrero – Naxos
Conquest Requiem looks a colonization through Spain’s quest of the Aztecs. At the center is a young Nahua woman named Malintzin. She was enslaved in 1519 when Hernán Cortés invaded what is now known as Mexico. She was both Cortés’ interpreter and the mother of his son, Martín.
History has treated her well over the centuries as a strong woman who is now seen as both a symbol to Mexicans and as a woman caught up in the horrors of the time.
Frank’s requiem brilliant using many of the common components of the form (including a Dies Irae and Confutatis) while combining it with both Latin and indigenous text and traditions.
GINASTERA STRING QUARTETS – MIRÓ QUARTET – Pentatone
Alberto Ginastera’s String Quartets are nothing short of amazing. Yet they haven’t quite found their way into the repertoire the way other composers works have. Hopefully that will change with this recording that puts the spotlight on all three of Ginastera’s quartets.
Miró Quartet has carefully and thoughtfully considered these quartets and it shows on this excellent album. The Argentinian composer has infused all three works with the sounds of his homeland, but in a way that modernizes those traditions while simultaneously expanding the quartet form.
OPUS 109 – Víkingur Ólafsson – Deutsche Grammophon A New In Music Top Pick
Pianist Ólafsson makes a mightily persuasive argument that there is thru line from Bach’s music through Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109 to Schubert’s Sonata in E minor, D. 566.
As one of our most passionate and intellectual of musicians, Ólafsson has done the heavy lifting for us. All we have to do is sit back, put on this excellent album, and let the music do the rest.
PIANO CONCERTO, SONATINA & PARTITA – Stephen Hough/Hallé Orchestra/Sir Mark Elder – Hyperion Records
Pianist Hough composed all the music on this album. It opens with his piano concerto which is named The World of Yesterday. The three-movement work is utterly compelling. It’s a work I would love to see Hough perform in concert.
That is followed by Sonatina nostalgica (a three-movement work) and Partita (a five-movement work).
This album proves that Hough remains one of our most talented and most thoughtful musicians and composers.
TCHAIKOVSKY – Daniil Trifonov – Deutsche Grammophon
Pianist Trifonov makes some unique choices for this 2-CD/2 LP recording of the music of Russian Composer Tchaikovsky.
Disc one contains Thème original et variations from Six Piano Pieces and the Piano sonata in C-sharp minor. Disc two contains Children’s Album and Mikhail Pletnev’s arrangement of music from The Sleeping Beauty into a concert suite.
I jumped first to Children’s Album because it was music I learned to play as a young piano student.
Trifonov is easily one of our finest pianists today. His passion, precision and interpretive skills are second to none on Tchaikovsky. Even those who think of the composer as overly sentimental will find plenty to enjoy on this terrific album.
WHISPERS & THUNDER – Illia Ovcharenko – Steinway & Sons A New In Music Top Pick
Ovcharenko is a 24-year-old Ukrainian pianist and he recorded this album last year to express his feeling about the circumstances in his country.
As he says in the liner notes, “At this moment, it is important to me that I represent my culture and tell my story through the music and places that shapes who I am.”
This is an impressive album that absolutely accomplishes his mission of representing his story and his country. At only 24, he is setting a high barre for his career moving forward.
WITNESS – Kronos Quartet/Mary Kouyoumdjian – Phenotypic Recordings
I challenge anyone not to be immediately moved by Groung (Crane) on this powerful record featuring the music of composer Mary Kouyoumdjian. WITNESS lives up to its name in the second track, Bombs of Beirut.
Kouyoumdjian combines unsettling music with the sounds of war along with interviews with her loved ones discussing what it’s like to be living in a country during a time of war.
Other tracks reflect her response to the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder and the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
It isn’t all beautiful, but it is, in my opinion, thought-provoking, moving and necessary.
YANGA – Gabriela Ortiz/Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel – Platoon A New In Music Top Pick
On Sunday, October 27, 2019, I attended a concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall that featured the world premiere of Yanga by composer Gabriela Ortiz. I had interviewed her earlier that month about the work. You can read the interview by clicking on her name above.
You can now experience the magic and exhilaration I felt that Sunday afternoon in this new digital-only release from the LA Phil with Gustavo Dudamel. Yanga is a 17-1/2-minute piece inspired by an African Prince from Gabon who came to Mexico in the 16th century as a slave.
The music is exciting, percussive and emotional. The Tambuco Percussion Ensemble and the Los Angeles Master Chorale join the LA Phil for this recording.
These LA Phil/Dudamel recordings of Ortiz’s music have regularly won awards. Don’t be surprised if Yanga does, too.
JAZZ:
ABOUT GHOSTS – Mary Halvorson– Nonesuch Records A New In Music Top Pick
Guitarist/composer Halvorson has made one of the best and most interesting albums of 2025. About Ghosts is in a category of its own.
In a world where listening to music is something done while doing something else, I challenge anyone to even start to listen to About Ghosts and try to concentrate on anything else. This is music that demands and deserves full attention. And if you won’t start listening to it that way, you’ll succumb to the richness of the writing and performing and find you have no other choice.
DEFIANT LIFE – Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith – ECM A New In Music Top Pick
Sometimes you first listen to an album and it just resonates with you down to the depths of your soul. That’s exactly how I felt listening to Defiant Life. Keyboard player Iyer and trumpeter Smith have collaborated on a beautiful album that moves, inspires, stimulates and calms you during troubled times. The music they have written/created is simply stunning.
If you’re like me, you might wonder if there’s any reason to have faith right now. If music this powerful can be created during this time of worldwide upheaval, then there is a reason to believe.
FIGURE IN BLUE – Charles Lloyd/Jason Moran/Marvin Sewell – Blue Note Records A New In Music Top Pick
Heaven isn’t just the name of one of the Duke Ellington songs found on this exquisite new album from saxophonist Charles Lloyd. It aptly describes the experience of listening to the 98 minutes of music on Figure in Blue.
There’s an adage that one should “keep it simple, stupid.” It is the simplicity of their playing that makes this album sublime. From quiet, introspection to blues, these three musicians explore a variety of styles of music but always maintain a grace that is remarkable.
FOR THE LOVE OF IT ALL – Brandon Woody – Blue Note Records
The title tells you what the album is going to be about: love. It’s not beautifully wrapped up in a bow or dripping with insane amounts of sentiment. This is love in the best possible way: messy, complex and rewarding.
It’s said that being single is hard and being married is hard. Choose your hard. Woody suggests with this striking debut album that sharing your life with someone is hard, but it’s far more satisfying, with all its complications, than being alone. He says all that and more wonderfully.
HONEY FROM A WINTER STONE – Ambrose Akinmusire– Nonesuch Records A New In Music Top Pick
The five tracks, lasting nearly 75 minutes, find Ambrose exploring the issues many Black men confront. He calls the album a self-portrait.
The opening track, muffled screams, starts as pure jazz and then expands into something that feels so thoroughly of our time. The contributions of improvisational vocalist Kokayi sets the tone for the themes Akinmusire is illuminating. The song then adds Mivos Quartet, drummer Justin Brown and Chiquitamagic on synthesizer. By the end of the song, we have come full circle but are left to think about the near-death experience Akinmusire experienced and how beautifully he’s expressed that in muffled screams.
The apex of the album is the nearly 30-minute final track, s-/Kinfolks. It begins sounding like a contemporary classical track before Akinmusire joins on trumpet. To reveal more here would be to do a disservice to first-time listeners. It’s a powerful journey from start-to-finish.
LUCÍA – Lucía – La Reserve Records A New In Music Top Pick
Two-and-a-half years ago Lucía Gutiérrez Rebolloso was named the winner of the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. She is the first vocalist from Mexico to win.
With her stunning debut album, Lucía, it is very clear why she was victorious. Her vocals, the songs she chooses and the arrangements are outstanding. She sings in both English and Spanish (sometimes within the same song.)
Having seen her perform live since the album’s release, I can assure you there is so much more to discover with Lucía than this album reveals. Stay tuned!
OH SNAP – Cécile McLorin Salvant – Nonesuch Records A New In Music Top Pick
This all-too-brief album of 13 songs runs just under 35 minutes. But what it lacks in length it more than makes up for in quality and charm.
This album proves is that nobody puts Cécile in a box. Just when you think you know which way she’s going to go, she goes in a completely different direction. By taking what might seem like a wildly unusual turn, Salvant proves how adept she is at making the unexpected feel like just what we needed at that moment. This is an album that appears slight at first glance, but reveals itself to be a complicated and rewarding feast of music.
ONES & TWOS (Deluxe Edition) – Gerald Clayton – Blue Note Records A New In Music Top Pick
Pianist/composer Clayton has proven that what seemed at least unlikely, works brilliantly. If you heard his album Ones & Twos from earlier this year, you heard an album that posed the question can two sides of an album by an artist be played simultaneously and work cohesively.
Now those of us who didn’t buy two vinyl copies and had two turntables to see if he was right, can listen this Deluxe Edition of Ones & Twos. You get the original 12 tracks as previously released. Then you get those twelve tracks mixed as he intended for them to be heard when played together.
This is a fully successful exploration of how to move the needle by utilizing new ideas and perspectives to offer up music that is wholly original.
SOUTHERN NIGHTS – Sullivan Fortner – Artwork Records A New In Music Top Pick
I wholeheartedly agree with Nate Chinen (The Gig on Substack) who calls Fortner “one of the finest pianists we’ve got.”
Fortner always surprises and always impresses. As he does with this album that opens with Alain Touissant’s Southern Nights and closes with Woody Shaw’s Organ Grinder. Fortner is from New Orleans. The music he plays on this album is like taking a trip to New Orleans and being able to avoid Bourbon Street and find the more interesting parts of the city. New Orleans is so much more than that and Fortner knows this.
YOU’RE EXAGGERATING! – Paul Cornish – Blue Note Records A New In Music Top Pick
I felt the same excitement when I first heard this album that I had when I first heard Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer (one of Cornish’s instructors at one point.)
Cornish has worked with Haim, Joshua Redman, Kanye West and more. On Redman’s most recent album, Words Fall Short, his playing gave us a taste of what his first album might be like. You’re Exaggerating! is not just a taste. It is the first course of what I hope will be many more.
Cornish’s playing is thoughtful, intelligent, full of dexterity, reverential and forward-thinking. The challenge for him now is to come up with a second album that makes good on the promise of You’re Exaggerating! I have no doubt he will. This is the start of a very exciting recording career.
MUSCIALS:
FLOYD COLLINS – Original Broadway Cast Recording – Center Stage Records
I didn’t get to Lincoln Center to see last season’s first-ever Broadway production of Floyd Collins. Though it received six Tony Award nominations, it didn’t win any and was a victim of economics.
None of this should dissuade you from listening to this wonderfully performed and exceedingly well-produced recording. Guettel’s amazing music is thoroughly brought to life by a cast that includes Jeremy Jordan, Jason Gotay, Marc Kudisch, Lizzy McAlpine, Taylor Trensch, Jessica Molaskey and more.
Plus, it is Adam Guettel. That alone is reason enough to hear Floyd Collins. If you’ve never heard Floyd Collins, there’s no time like the present to hear it now.
GYPSY – Original Broadway Cast Recording – Warner Music Group
If you had the privilege of seeing Audra McDonald in Gypsy, you know how monumental her performance was and will always be. McDonald’s is a performance I will never forget.
This album brilliantly captures the raw emotion that this production so beautifully presented. This OBCR is not just a souvenir of a great production, but an important record of a once-in-a-generation production and performance.
LIAISONS II: ALL THINGS BRIGHT & BEAUTIFUL – Anthony de Mare – AVIE Records A New In Music Top Pick
When I first heard that pianist Anthony de Mare had commissioned additional composers for his project of Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano, I was excited to hear the line-up included many of my favorite contemporary composers.
None of this work is easy, but it is all utterly compelling. The composers contributing arrangements for Liaisons II are Timo Andres, Jon Batiste, Jeff Beal, Mark Bennett, Christopher Cerrone, Ted Hearne, Stephen Hough, Meredith Monk, Paola Prestini, Kevin Puts, Max Richter, March Schubring, Conrad Tao and de Mare himself.
LOVE LIFE: A VAUDEVILLE IN TWO PARTS – Multiple Artists – Capriccio
This musical by Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner opened on Broadway in October of 1948. It closed in May of 1949. It was directed by Elia Kazan with choreography by Michael Kidd.
Nanette Fabray and Ray Middleton starred as Susan and Sam Cooper. They are a couple who somehow don’t age over the course of the 157 years that this story takes place. The story ranges from 1791-1948.
This album is much more than a curiosity. It’s a long-lost musical that will finally get the recognition it is due. Liner notes for Love Life quote Stephen Sondheim as having said this musical was “A useful influence on my own work.”
I strongly recommend listening to this album. Odd subject matter, but such great music.
OUT OF MYSELF- SONGS OF PETER FOLEY – Multiple Artists – Center Stage Records A New In Music Top Pick
Composer/lyricist Peter Foley is not someone whose work I knew before this album. Perhaps had I been living in New York in 2023 I would have heard about a tribute concert at Peter Norton Symphony Space and been intrigued enough to go.
What an amazing sense of discovery to hear these wonderful diverse, totally unique, thoughtfully composed songs.
I only heard the album one day before posting my comments, but with each song I kept wanting more. Each song revealed something new to discover in Foley’s work. By the end of the album I still wanted more.
WALK ON THROUGH: LIVE AT MCC- Gavin Creel – Hackl House Records A New In Music Top Pick
This recording comes from the MCC Theater production of Creel’s musical. Creel got the opportunity to create whatever he wanted for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He chose to explore his own life through his journeys through the museum’s many galleries – a place he hadn’t been to before.
His musical offers a mirror to our own lives in addition to illuminating his own. The songs are thoughtful, catchy (when appropriate) and moving (as necessary).
When I interviewed Gavin in June of 2023, he told me, “The hope is that we’re going to do an off-Broadway run and transfer to Broadway and do a run there. I personally want to take it all across the world to every major market and just share the story of how art can be so intimidating and so healing.”
Gavin gets his wish through this recording. It’s not how any of us wanted him to realize that dream, but it is, nonetheless, a dream realized. And having this recording is healing for us all a year after Gavin Creel’s death.
OPERA:
DIDO & AENEAS – Joyce DiDonato/Michael Spyres/Fatma Sad/Il Pomo d’Oro/Maxim Emelyanychev – Erato
Anyone who knows mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato’s singing knows that baroque music fits comfortably into her amazing voice. So it might come as a surprise that she never sang the role of Dido in Purcell’s opera until 2024.
This recording was made in Essen, Germany. DiDonato is joined by Michael Spyres as Aeneas. This is a beautiful recording. DiDonato truly shines in this role.
EL CAMINANTE – Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes/ David Guzmán/Michelle Johnson/Juliette Lee Kaoudji/Boston University Opera Institute & Symphony Orchestra/William Lumpkin – Navona Records
Cuban composer Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes composed five operas. El Caminante debuted in Cuba in 1921. Then it appears to have been relegated to the dustbin of history. Or it would have been had the piano-vocal score not been found in Harvard University’s archives in 2020.
Thank God El Caminante was found. From the three-and-a-half minute prelude that opens this one-act opera, this is beautiful music. It’s a brief work, but utterly enchanting.
OPERA: GOLDEN AGE – Erin Morley/Lawrence Brownlee/Munich Radio Orchestra/Ivan Repusic – Pentatone
As on stage in operas, recordings of arias from various operas relies not just on performance, but chemistry. Soprano Morley and tenor Brownlee have plenty of chemistry. Each track is filled with exactly the right emotion and connection.
If bel canto is your favorite style of opera (and even if it isn’t), you won’t find a better pairing in any recent recordings.
OPERA: MISSING- ATOM (Artists of the Opera MISSING)/ Continuum Ensemble/Timothy Long – Bright Shiny ThingsOPERA: DIDO & AENEAS – Joyce DiDonato/Michael Spyres/Fatma Sad/Il Pomo d’Oro/Maxim Emelyanychev – Erato
his opera by composer Brian Current and librettist Marie Clements had its world premiere in Vancouver in 2017.
Missing explores the history of Aboriginal women in Canada who went missing or were murdered. The opera is sung in English and Gitxsan (the language of Indigenous people from British Columbia).
Current has written music that finds its way deep into your soul and continues to make its home there during the 78 minutes of music on this recording.
OPERA: THE PASSENGER – Mieczyslaw Weinberg/Amanda Majeski/Gyulua Orendt/Daveda Karanas/Nicolai Schukoff/Orquesta Del Teatro Real De Madrid/Coro Del Teatro Real De Madrid/Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla – Deutsche Grammophon
Though Weinberg’s opera was composed in 1968, it didn’t get performed for 38 years. With a libretto by Alexandr Medvedev, The Passenger is based on the story of Zofia Posmysz who survived her time at Auschwitz.
This has not been a widely performed nor recorded opera. Which makes the opportunity to hear this wonderful recording even more important.
Teatro Real presented the Spanish premiere of The Passenger in March of 2020 with the same cast that appears on this recording.
Adventurous opera lovers who want something relatively new to listen to should explore The Passenger.
That’s all for New In Music This Week: December 19th and our Best Bets of 2025.
In fact, that’s all for 2025. Over the next two plus weeks, we’ll be running Cultural Attaché’s Icons 2025 – an opportunity to watch 16 of the interviews I conducted over the past 12 months. There are some favorites in there, some lost gems and a cornucopia of fascinating conversations.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Main Photo: Art from “Premieres” (Courtesy Canary Classics)