Oppens

Dutch pianist and musicologist Ralph van Raat, like his near-contemporary Steffen Schleiermacher, is in the unusual position of having established a thriving, major international performing career focusing entirely on music of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has been a passionate advocate of new works and has performed the premieres of numerous pieces by living composers, some of which were written especially for him. With a few exceptions, he has gravitated to the music of postmodernist and eclectic composers rather than the more cerebral modernists of the mid 20th century.

Artur Schnabel is remembered today by most as having been a great concert pianist who specialized in the music of Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann, the latter being the most "modern" composer to be performed by Schnabel; it might be assumed, therefore, that Schnabel's own music would be imspired by that of the classical period and that he avoided or disliked modernism. This was definitely not the case. Artur Schnabel was very reserved about his own music, hardly any of it being heard during his lifetime; he referred to himself as an "amateur composer" and to composing as a "sport" and due to the difficulty of most of his works, performances were relatively rare.

Pianist Dahveed Behroozi has long hoped to record a solo album of standards that have been ingrained well in his musical memory over the past two decades. His new recording, Standard Fare, allows Behroozi to showcase his own style through the prism these classics provide.

Their Warner Classics debut makes clear that Christina & Michelle Naughton show great imagination in their programming: Messiaen's mystical and epic Visions de l'Amen, composed during World War II, appears alongside John Adams' boisterous and percussive Hallelujah Junction, inspired by a truck stop on the border of Nevada and California. The CD is completed with J.S. Bach's serenely moving Gotttes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106, in an arrangement by the contemporary Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag.

This unique recording couples the music of two major 20th-century composers, and includes the world premiere on disc of Riley's "The Heaven Ladder, Book 7," commissioned by Cheng-Cochran and written in 1994. California-based pianist Gloria Cheng has become a favoured collaborator with some of the most demanding of today's composer/conductors, including Pierre Boulez, Essa-Pekka Salonen and Oliver Knussen, for her renditions of thorny 20th century scores. "The multifarious pulsings of Adams's Phrygian Gates (all 26 minutes of it) are more palatable here than on some rival versions, and the relatively brief China Gates (just five minutes) are well worth visiting. Terry Riley's pieces are more varied in colour and rhythm, less obviously 'minimalist', than you might have expected, with the worlds of jazz remaining well within earshot. Gloria Cheng-Cochran seems fully absorbed in the tasks to hand, and the sound is superb." (Gramophone Magazine).

A superlative program of piano music by American composers is offered by pianist Heidi Williams. The oldest work on the program dates from 1988 (William Bolcom) and the most recent was written in 2009 (Daniel Crozier), giving us a snapshot of what American composers have been writing for piano in the past 25 years. Praised by New York critic Harris Goldsmith for her ¨dazzling performances¨ and ¨impeccable solistic authority,¨ American pianist Heidi Louise Williams has appeared in performances across the United States and internationally. Her concert schedule has included solo and chamber music recitals at the Kennedy Center, the Chicago Cultural Center, Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Brevard Summer Music Festival, the Peabody Conservatory of Music and a debut recital in St. Louis as winner of its 2000 Artist Presentation Society Auditions, as well as concerto appearances with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony, and others. Williams is on the piano faculty at the Florida State University College of Music. She completed her BM, MM, and DMA degrees at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland.