Roots’ is an exploration of the music written by Black composers and inspired by Black culture. A homage to the pioneering musicians who paved the way for Randall and his generation. Looking to the future with a specially commissioned piece by young Black composer Xavier Dubois Foley. World premiere recordings of music by Florence Price that was rescued from an abandoned house over half a century after her death. The Perlman protégé celebrates his own journey and shows young people that music can inspire regardless of background. Produced by 2021 GRAMMY Producer of the Year, David Frost.

In 2018, the Styriarte Festival in Graz launched, in collaboration with Zefiro, a project to rediscover the operatic output of the Styrian composer Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741), Kapellmeister at the imperial court in Vienna for forty years, with the aim of restaging six of his nineteen operas, one per year. With a cast of Baroque vocal specialists, led by Monica Piccinini and Arianna Venditelli, this set of Dafne in lauro marks the beginning of a new series in which Arcana will release the recordings made in the course of the six-year cycle. First performed on 1 October 1714 to celebrate the birthday of the Emperor Charles VI, Dafne in lauro is distinguished by the numerous references to hunting in the overture and in Diana’s arias, and by the numerous dance movements typical of the French style, such as minuets, gigues and bourrées. The highlight is Daphne’s poignant aria accompanied by the viola da gamba, which, along with the chalumeau and the transverse flute, enriches the range of tone colours in the score.

This Valette is one of the most stupendous geniuses we have and his music is stupendous too. This is how the famed Sebastian de Brossard introduces his contemporary composer Joseph Valette de Montigny. Though acknowledged for its qualities, Montigny’s music has very rarely been played. Nor has it ever been recorded. Simply on account of its rarity and the absence of scores, it has remained unpublished. Thanks to this CD on which two great motets are performed, Antiphona Ensemble and its director Rolandas Muleïka are filling a vacuum. These motets are two outstanding pieces in Joseph de Montigny’s catalogue. Musicologist Benoît Michel, who died at a very young age, was the main instigator of this felicitous rediscovery: he would undoubtedly have felt enthusiastic about the release of this CD. This presentation draws to a large extent upon his work.

The extreme social trauma that followed The Great War of 1914—18 engulfed Europe. In this context, English composer Frank Bridge is an intriguing figure: his musical language transformed to embrace a radically new harmonic style. Consequently, his popularity waned and it was not until the end of the century that his importance as a leading modernist was appreciated. The programme of this album seeks to illuminate the position of Bridge’s monumental Piano Sonata, by setting it alongside works by the composers who influenced it – Berg and Ravel – and his most famous pupil, Britten. Both the sonata and each movement of Ravel’s suite were dedicated to those who fell in the war. Whilst the repertoire on this disc conveys strikingly varied tones, the title, threnodies – a song of lamentation – reflects the essence of these memorials.

For 30 years, the answer to the question "Who's got the best recording of the delightful woodwind chamber of Strauss?" was "Edo de Waart and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble." While there have been other fine recordings, notably the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's DG recording, de Waart and the Netherlanders were so simple, so relaxed, and so virtuosic, so unutterably charming that they were the clear first choice. While this recording by the Ensemble Villa Musica may not be a first choice, it is mighty close. In this the second of two discs dedicated to Strauss' woodwind chamber music, the Ensemble Villa Musica has the same sort of simple grace and easy virtuosity that distinguished de Waart and the Netherlanders. .

Otto Nicolai is known to most listeners, at least outside Germany, for his opera Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor), and among most of those specifically for the opera's sparkling overture. Nicolai, who died at age 39, wrote four other operas and various pieces of orchestral music as well; the latter has been collected in two volumes by the German audiophile label MDG, performed by the little-known and exquisitely confusingly named Southern Westphalian Philharmonic – Orchestra of the Land of North Rhine–Westphalia (entirely capable, for all that). The program doesn't make perfect sense.