Will all the new jazz vinyl titles being released for Record Store Day tomorrow, it is not a big surprise that New In Music This Week: April 17th favors contemporary classical titles. Not exclusively, but primarily. You can find our selection of Record Store Day releases HERE.
The environment seems to be front and center in much of this music. Given that Earth Day is on April 22nd, that doesn’t surprise me. These are not records that are just filled with messages. They truly encompass a range of styles and approaches that are truly worth discovering.
My top pick this week is:
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: TERRA INFIRMA – Yolanda Kondonassis / Reena Esmail / Interlochen Center for the Arts Orchestra & Chorus / Andrew Grams – Azica Records
You may have seen my recent interview with composer Juhi Bandsal who composed Fire Cycle based, in part, on her own experiences during the devastating fires in Los Angeles in 2025.
The center of this album of music composed by Reena Esmail is her concerto for harp and percussion that gives this album its name. It’s a beautiful work that beautifully captures the beauty and horror of fire and what it is to confront its deadly power. I was mesmerized by Terra Infirma.
Esmail’s Sandhiprakash, for violin and harp, follows and it showcases not just Kondonassis, but also Esmail’s husband, violinist Vijay Gupta. Having seen and heard Gupta play many times over the years, I knew this was going to be a special performance. Indeed, it is. Esmail’s reworking of this piece, originally for solo cello, to one for violin and harp, perfectly captures the sunrise raags that inspired her.
This fine album closes with the three-movement Earth Speaks: Curiosity which was originally composed for chorus and piano. Again, the harp adds an ethereal quality to this work centered around a 2011 Mars rover mission.
Kondonassis plays magnificently on this album. There are also a multi-media concert video and documentary that are part of the larger Terra Infirma Project. We’ll be able to see the documentary this summer. Hopefully there will be more performances of this work. It’s truly outstanding.
Here are the other fine recordings I’ve selected for New In Music This Week: April 17th
CHORAL: I AM A RIVER – Kaija Saariaho / Helena Tulve / Helsinki Chamber Choir / Nils Schweckendiek – BIS
This captivating album had me with the promise of world premiere recordings of music by the late composer Saariaho. I’ve loved her music for years and this album is no exception.
Her works Lumen valosta from 2003, Kesäpäivä from 2006 have their first-ever recordings. Her Nej och inte from 1980 is newly arranged for choir Also performed is 1979’s Suomenkielinen sekakurokappale. All of it providing a more detailed look into the body of work this remarkable composer left us.
Those works are sandwiched by two of Tulve’s works: 2009’s I Am a River and 2019’s Nächtliche Gesänge. The latter is a world premiere recording.
The 25-piece Helsinki Chamber Choir sings all this music as if it came straight from them. They handle the challenges of timing, pitch and precision flawlessly. I can’t imagine a better recording of any of this music.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: …arching, reaching, breathless – Eric Chasalow – New Focus Recordings
From the opening minutes of The Wings That Bear the Night Away, a work for solo violin performed by Mari Kimura, I knew I was going to be captivated by Chasalow’s music for strings.
His music takes the form of various configurations from solo instruments to duets of varying pairings and string quartets and sextets.
Each of the seven pieces here revealed new layers to Chasalow’s writing and an exploration of modern music that coalesces contemporary thinking with traditional writing.
My favorite pieces are Third Piano Trio: Rock Hill Variations, the String Sextet and Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock.
CLASSICAL: LAMENTING EARTH – Nicholas Phan / Myra Huang / Jasper String Quartet – AVIE Records
Music by Patrick Castillo, Vivian Fung, Charles Ives, Franz Schubert and Ralph Vaughan Williams is performed as the means to explore mankind’s relationship with nature.
Tenor Phan, pianist Huang and Jasper String Quartet have assembled a compelling program from these five composer’s works.
Anytime Vaughan Williams’ music is performed, I take notice. I believe he is an underrated composer and Phan’s singing of On Wenlock Edge makes another serious argument for reconsideration of his work.
Ives’ The Housatonic at Stockbridge was not a work with which I was familiar. It, too, is a powerful work.
Castillo’s Skyline Palimpsest is written just for string quartet and Jasper plays it sublimely.
Fung’s Lamenting Earth had its world premiere with Phan in 2024. She set high school students’ climate-change poetry to music and the result is mesmerizing. The third of the four movements sets Claire Wahmanholm’s poem O. to music.
This 62-minute album would make a great concert. I hope Phan, Huang and Jasper String Quartet take it on the road. In the meantime, be moved by their lamentation for mother earth.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: HORIZON – John Luther Adams / Australian Chamber Orchestra – Cold Blue Music
This album doesn’t so much tackle environmental issue as much as it celebrates the unique terrain that is Australia. Composer Adams has written a deceptively powerful two-movement piece.
The first is Visible Horizon which explains as “what we see from where we look.” The second is the True Horizon which he explains is “the full extent of all that we might possibly see.”
Both movements, at least on this recording, are exactly the same in length. That’s certainly no coincidence.
This is a slowly building, gentle work that rewards patient listeners with the sense of awe and wonder that I’ve experienced in Australia myself. It puts into music those feelings you have when you are awestruck by the landscape in front of you.
ACO is a truly fine chamber orchestra. Leader and violinist Richard Tognetti plays, as he always has, with a elegance and grace that never waivers.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: BROUHAHA: SHAPED BY FIRE – Maiani Da Silva – Sono Luminus
Composers Viet Cuong, Fjóla Evans, Zachary Good, Ian Gottlieb, Jascha Narveson and Kelley Polar were commissioned by violinist da Silva to write compositions for her centered on the concept of human nature.
Da Silva says in the press notes that she wants to ask one fundamental question with this album: “What separates and also connects us to the delicate web of nature, our environment, other species and one another?”
All six pieces are thoughtful and engaging. The titles pretty much tell you what you need to know in terms of their response to da Silva’s question. My favorite pieces are In Memory of a Spoon by Good (which contemplates how a spoon might be received by someone from another world); Traveler by Cuong about migration and Polar’s Sonata for Violin and Electronic Sounds, “X/O” which has intergalactic connections amongst species as its thesis.
Throughout da Silva shows off not just technical skills on the violin, but a deeply held commitment to the world in which she lives.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: THE PROMISE OF ESCAPE – Michael Jones – New Focus Recordings
If you had told me I’d thoroughly enjoy a solo percussion album, I wouldn’t have believed you. The depth of instruments and the writing by the three composers with whom Jones has collaborated on this album, more than convinced me this was worth over an hour of my time.
The album opens with A Moment or Two by Pluto Bell. That’s followed by Lullaby by Nicholas Deyoe and the album closes with trace-escape-horizon by Scott Wollschleger. All three works are hypnotic and they don’t just offer the promise of escape, they provide it wholeheartedly.
There wasn’t a minute in listening to this album where I thought about anything else.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: UNDREAMED SHORES – Jupiter String Quartet – Orchid Classics
Here’s another album with the environment, at least in part, on its mind. The album features three string quartets that were composed specifically for Jupiter String Quartet.
Michi Wiancko’s To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores, my favorite of the three, explores how the environment responds to the crisis of climate change.
The pandemic was on the mind of composer Stephen Andrew Taylor when he composed Chaconne/Labyrinth and Kati Agócs’ Imprimatur, String Quartet No. 2is an exploration of memory.
All three works are compelling. Jupiter String Quartet’s playing throughout is precise and passionate. Undreamed Shores is an important album for the way it explores multiple ideas in different ways within the string quartet world.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: LOGGINS-HULL: THE CLEVELAND RESIDENCY – The Cleveland Orchestra / Franz Welser-Möst – TCO Media
Three works by composer and flutist Allison Loggins-Hull were captured in separate live performances from 2023-2025.
The album opens with Legacy, a chamber work for two cellos, two violas and two violins. The performance took place on August 13, 2025.
Can You See? is performed by The Cleveland Orchestra with Welser-Möst conducting and was captured in May of 2023. This is an expanded version of a work for small chamber ensemble.
The album closes with Grit. Grace. Glory. Again, performed the TCO in performances from May of 2025. This is a four-movement work celebrating Cleveland.
I very much liked this album, but Can You See? lingers with me in a way that won’t let me forget it. It’s a challenging piece that rethinks our national anthem in ways that more accurately reflect the world in which we live.
TCO clearly has a passion for Loggins-Hull’s work. That will be even more apparent come May 1st with a second album of her music, Patchwork, gets released.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: SEMMELWEIS – Raymond J. Lustig / Matthew Doherty – Sono Luminus
Composer Lustig’s song cycle tells the remarkable story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis who practiced medicine in the 19th century. He was a fierce advocate that the simple task of thoroughly cleaning one’s hands was a vital task to help mitigate the spread of germs and disease. He was ridiculed for that suggestion and ended up dying alone in an asylum.
History proved him right long ago, but not during his lifetime.
Lustig’s song cycle, based on an earlier stage work, is completely fascinating. The music ranges from haunting to glorious. This is clearly a mature work that Lustig, along with librettist Doherty, have put their heart and soul into.
Performing the song cycle are Lustig, Charlotte Mundy and The Rhythm Method. They are backed by four musicians: Leah Asher on violin, Meghan Burke on cello, Chrystof Knoche on bass clarinet and Ranjit Prasad on double bass.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: VESPER – Sean Shibe – Pentatone
Any album that offers world premiere recordings of music by Thomas Adés is going to get my attention. Guitarist Shibe has recorded the composer’s Forgotten Dances, a collection of six pieces and Habanera from his outstanding opera The Exterminating Angel.
Also on this quietly powerful album are the world premiere of works by Harrison Birtwistle and James Dillon (12 Caprices). Birtwistle’s Beyond the White Hand: Construction with Guitar Player anchors this album and it is a mighty impressive work.
Shibe is a remarkable musician and Vesper is an ambitious and wholly rewarding album that showcases how the guitar can present a wide array of compositional styles.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: 212: SYMPHONY NO. 1 – Robert Sirota / Manhattan School of Music Symphony Orchestra / George Manahan – Azica Records
How do you encapsulate a city like New York within the body of a nearly 26-minute work? That was the challenge composer Sirota gave himself for his first symphony which had its world premiere by the Manhattan School of Music Symphony in 2008.
There are four movement: Approaches, Do Not Hold Doors, Lamentation and O Manhattan. Each movement capturing a different part of the experience of being in New York City: what it’s like to arrive there, the subways, September 11th and a celebration of the city.
212: Symphony No. 1 reminded me, in part, of how George Gershwin might have written a symphony about NYC had he been alive today. The music is so alive and so expressive that I thought of this being a celebration of New York in much the way An American in Paris was a celebration of the city of lights.
This recording took place more than 16 years after the work’s premiere and by the same orchestra. If you can’t make it to New York, you can spend time with this recording and for a brief 25 minutes and 44 seconds, you can pretend you’re there.
GENRE DEFYING: GREETINGS FROM FLORIDA – Scott Lee Ensemble / Camila Meza – Sunnyside Records
This record from composer Lee is both intellectual and accessible. It is both classical and jazz. It is inspiring and disturbing. Which is a perfect reflection of the dichotomy he explores about the 27th state: Florida.
As Lee says in the album notes, “Florida has long been seen as a kind of utopia for many…Yet upon arrival, many are forced to reconcile their imagined idea of Florida with the reality of the place as it actually exists.”
To accomplish his work, Lee commissioned Cuban American poet Carolina Hospital to write eight poems. He then composed music around those lyrics to write what is truly a song cycle that features Camila Meza on vocals.
This is a truly thoughtful and cautionary tale about the price paid for the illusion of thinking one can create utopia from the outside rather than the inside. There are consequences that come with that mirage. Lee, Hospital and Meza perfectly express that concept in ways that are impossible to forget and even tougher to dismiss.
In addition to Meza who sings and plays guitar, there are Seok Hee Jang on clarinets; Evan Mitchell on piano; Tania Moldovan on violin; Danielle Moreau on percussion, Emily Austin Smith on cello and Kristen Stoner on flute.
JAZZ: MONK CON CLAVE – Carlos Henriquez Big Band – self-released
Monk is obviously Thelonious in this album by Henriquez that combines rearranged versions of Monk’s music with his own originals.
The Monk tunes include Green Chimneys, I Mean You, Raise Four, Round Midnight, Teo (reimagined as El Son De Teo), Ugly Beauty and more. Henriquez’s Evidence of Four and One is inspired by Monk’s Evidence and Four in One.
Throughout this is a thoroughly joyful album played by outstanding musicians. Henriquez calls this a big band and it is a big band filled with powerhouse musicians: vocalists Anthony Almonte and Jeremy Bosch; percussionist Pedrito Martínez, pianist Osmany Paredes, trumpeter Mike Rodriguez and pianists Robert Rodriguez and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Henriquez plays bass.
I challenge you to sit still while listening to Monk Con Clave and NOT have a huge smile on your face.
JAZZ: LITTLE BLACK BOOK – Leslie Vincent – Jazz Is Cool Records
This is the first album comprised completely of songs written by jazz vocalist Leslie Vincent. She’s written a collection of 12 songs that reveal not just the depth of her songwriter talents, but also so much about her. This is a deeply personal record and a thoroughly enjoyable one as well.
She is openly gay as her Little Black Book will reveal. This isn’t a gay album. It just happens to be about someone who is gay. Someone who sings with such freedom and joy in telling her story that I can’t imagine people who hear Little Black Book won’t embrace it fully.
Blake Foster co-wrote nine of the songs. What Humans Do was co-written by Jeremy Messersmith and the other two songs were written by Vincent alone. Some of it is truly pop, bu by the time I finished this album I imagined a world in which Vincent and Foster wrote a musical.
If write want you know is truly an axiom for all artists, Vincent has written a whopping good one.
JAZZ: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD, VOL. 2 – Immanuel Wilkins Quartet – Blue Note
I already told you this trio of albums is likely to be topping a lot of critics lists at the end of the year when volume 1 came out. Here’s more proof of that.
This second volume finds saxophonist Wilkins and his other musicians (Kweku Sumbry on drums, Ryoma Takenaga on bass and Micah Thomas on piano) performing The Big Country, Waiting Pt. 1 (written for Sidra Bell Dance New York), Citrine, Grace and Mercy (from his debut album Omega) and Go ‘Head Get Down.”
The playing on this album is fierce on the opening track. Waiting Pt. 1, Citrine and Grace and Mercy offer mellower music sublimely played. The final track brings up the energy and showcases the improvisational nature of these four guys.
This and Vol. 3, which gets released on May 15th, are digital only releases (for now). Don’t miss any of these releases.
Here ends this supersized edition of New in Music This Week: April 17th. What will you listen to first?
Main Photo: Part of the album art for Terra Infirma (Courtesy Azica Records)