There's perhaps a touch of irony in the title of Dutch pianist and composer Jeroen van Veen's box set Minimal Piano Collection because at nine discs, it's a pretty massive collection. The program booklet notes that he recorded the entire set, which includes more than ten hours of music, in only six days, an astounding feat. In the program notes, van Veen offers a remarkably clear and concise history of minimalism in music. He defines it broadly enough (following the lead of composer and critic Tom Johnson) to include works by Friedrich Nietzsche and Satie. Philip Glass is the composer most widely represented, with three of the set's nine CDs devoted to his music originally for piano, as well as transcriptions from his film scores and operas. Two discs are given to van Veen's mammoth 24 Préludes, organized according to the framework of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Other composers range from the very well known, such as Michael Nyman, John Adams, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, and John Cage, to the familiar-to-specialists, like Tom Johnson, Wim Mertens, and Jacob ter Veldhuis, to those little-known to American audiences, like Klaas de Vries, Simeon ten Holt, John Borstlap, Yann Tiersen, and Carlos Micháns.

The distinctive soundscape of this CD stems from the unique church interior at Løgumkloster in the south of Jutland, Denmark. Beneath the high vaulting, in the cloisters and in the small hidden spaces of the abbey, the flautist Eva Østergaard (b. 1966) has recorded a series of layers of sounds on fl utes of all sizes from piccolo to bass. The music was written specifi cally for Eva, the church and this CD by five Danish composers, all of whom explore the remotest reaches of the instruments and the building.

Naxos' album devoted to Carson Cooman's instrumental works, including symphonies, chamber music, and solos, represents an infinitesimal portion of his output; his opus numbers were in the 700s before he was out of his mid-twenties, and include pieces written in virtually every genre of Western music. Inevitably, there are some areas in which he will be stronger than others. His choral music is especially compelling: well written for the voice, with excellent text setting in a style that is not simple, but is also immediately engaging.

All of the works on this recording evidence the hallmarks of Martin Amlin's style: a facile flow of elaborate rhythms; a harmonic language rich with the notes that comprise seventh chords; a non-strict usage of tone rows; an honoring of the past through recognizable formal structure and thematic evolution; and a French sensibility that might be described as neo-impressionistic. A student of Nadia Boulanger, Martin Amlin received masters and doctoral degrees from the Eastman School of Music. He is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards and has been a resident at Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the MacDowell Colony. A member of the faculty at Boston University, he is also director of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Composition Program. A noted pianist as well, he performs the works on this CD with noted artists Leone Buyse and Michael Webster, who have long been advocates of his music.

Howard Shore's is one of today’s most prolific and accomplished composers - his compositions are performed in concert halls around the world by the most prestigious orchestras & his numerous film scores are heard in cinemas across the globe. Most renowned for his score for the ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy & 'The Hobbit’ series, these scores have garnered him three Academy Awards, four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, as well as numerous critics’ and festival Awards. Ruin & Memory: This piano concerto was written for Lang Lang in 2010 for Chopin’s 200th anniversary year & was commissioned by the Beijing Music Festival Arts Foundation & artistically supported by Long Yu, Chairman of the Artistic Committee of the Beijing Music Festival. The concerto has romantic touches, including a cadenza in the third movement, but its musical forces owe much to the classical era. Mythic Gardens: This Concerto for Violoncello & Orchestra (2012) was written for Sophie Shao & sits as a companion piece to ‘Ruin & Memory’. Sophie Shao is the winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant & top prizes at the Rostropovich and Tchaikovsky competitions in recent years.

The brief opening piece for chorus on this new release, "Da Pacem Domine," is based on a 9th century Gregorian work and has the usual, familiar–and very beautiful–Pärt-ian characteristics: a soft, endless stream of easy tritones and harmonies that make this plea for peace immensely moving. The major work, Lamentate, is scored for large orchestra and solo piano–a very unusual combination for Pärt. Even his fans will be surprised. In ten brief sections, it begins with a quiet drum roll, immediately followed by horn calls. There are forte explosions for full orchestra and piano, with heavy percussion. At times the only thing we hear is a hushed piano part with strings supporting very quietly. The effect is dark yet alluring. It ends peacefully. This is another stunning CD of Pärt's music for his fans–old and new.

Aufzeichnung der Uraufführung eines neuen Werks von Wolfgang Rihm, das im Auftrag der musica viva des Bayerischen Rundfunks entstand.

Ce lumineux album produit par les disques du Solstice est une troisième monographie pour Edith Canat de Chizy ; la compositrice y poursuit son investigation dans l’univers des cordes, son domaine de prédilection – elle est elle-même violoniste – qu’elle aborde ici par le biais de cinq formations différentes allant du solo à l’effectif orchestral.

Ēriks Ešenvalds (b. 1977) is one the leading Latvian composers of vocal music and one of the leading Latvian composers of his generation. This recording features new works by the composer with the prestigious Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Kļava.

Although Kairos’s rate of production has decreased in the past few years, the Viennese label still regularly releases discs of music by contemporary Austrian composers. This CD of two recent orchestral works by Friedrich Cerha, celebrating the composer’s 90th birthday, is a welcome addition to Kairos’s four previous albums of his music. While Cerha’s recent chamber music adheres to classical forms, his orchestral music from the same period eschews them, revisiting instead the principles laid out in his sound-mass works from the late 1950s such as Spiegel.

This 8CD set bring the listener back to the roots of Minimalism, all works were written in the seventies of the 20th century, a time when the new aesthetics and perception of music, sound, repetition and time experience were creating a new chapter in music history. The longest piece is the 5 hour “November” by Dennis Johnson, a work in which the player is free to build the intervals and chords according to his own timing and spacing. The other composers in this set are Philip Glass, Tom Johnson, Peter Garland, Terry Riley, Harold Budd and La Monte Young. Recorded in his own studio by the most important protagonist of Minimalism today, Dutch pianist Jeroen van Veen. Van Veen has a myriad of recordings to his name, notably the multi CD boxes Minimal Piano Collection 1 and 2, complete Satie, Einaudi, Tiersen, Jacob ter Veldhuis, Simeon ten Holt and many more.

Famous for his role as keyboard player in the progressive rock band Genesis, Tony Banks has always been fascinated by the idea of writing orchestral music. Five of the seven pieces in this orchestral suite were written specifically for the Seven project; the remaining two were older pieces. Throughout the seven movements Banks creates intense orchestral sound pictures. The calm serenity which characterises the main themes of the separate movements is often contrasted with uncomfortable stormy turbulence, the overall result being a scenic overview of orchestral colours and timbres.

ECM’s ongoing series of recordings with the Munich Chamber Orchestra continues with an intriguing album of new and recent pieces by Japan’s leading composer Toshio Hosokawa. Amongst the compositions are Sakura für Otto Tomek and Cloud and Light, both written in 2008, and Ceremonial Dance (2000). These 21st century pieces are brought together with Landscape V (originally from 1993 and for string quartet, meanwhile expanded into an orchestral version). Three of these feature the shô, a traditional Japanese instrument played by its leading exponent, Mayumi Miyata. Born in Hiroshima in 1955, Hosokawa was initially inspired by Western art music from Schubert to Schoenberg. He went to Germany in the 1970s to study with Isang Yun and Klaus Huber. As he strengthened his standing in European avant-garde he also put down deeper roots in Japanese traditional music. His work increasingly suggests a dialogue between East and West, between the archaic and modern, between ceremonial music and concert music.

Ryuichi Sakamoto has announced a new studio album, async, out April 28 via Milan. It’s the Japanese composer’s first studio album since 2012’s Three, with Jaques Morelenbaum and Judy Kang, and his first solo album in 8 years. Sakamoto recorded and conceived of the album in New York, taking inspiration from “everyday objects, sculpture, and nature,” according to a press release. Find the tracklist and artwork below. A world premiere listening event for the album (in 5.1 surround sound) will take place at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, which runs from March 23-26. Sakamoto’s also set to perform on April 25 and 26 at Park Avenue Armory Veterans Room in New York. The new album follows his 2015 score for Alejandro González Iñárritu's film The Revenant (where he was assisted by the National's Bryce Dessner and German musician Alva Noto). It’s also his first studio album since his recovery from cancer in 2015.

The internationally based electro-classical project SYMPHONIACS refuses to be categorized; with its futuristic classical-meets-club mix, SYMPHONIACS brings together two genres which at first glance might seem an unlikely pair, but with the help of the project’s visionary sound, century-old tradition is awakened and given new life – welcome to the future!