Contemporary

If alternate tuning systems are new to you, this album will be an introduction more musical than pedagogic, and nonetheless revealing. If not, it will be easy to admire Thornock's ingenuity and talent.

The title piece is a set of variations on a theme from the Irish folk song "Shule Agra." The lyrics to a version known in English as "Johnny Has Gone for a Solider" are hopeful but uncertain. But that doesn't take away from this colorful album's predominantly upbeat feel.

A glowing new concerto for soprano saxophone by Anna Clyne made in its New York premiere together with music by Brahms and Emilie Mayer.

Yugoslav-Israeli intellectual and Holocaust survivor Yehuda Elkana may be best known for his insistence that a people must leave the traumas of the past behind in order to thrive. With 'Que sais-je?' Amos Elkana, Yehuda's son, has created a profound portrait in music of his father.

Aucoin's vision asserts itself from the first touch of the first movement's mysterious music, with fluttering melodies from angsty high-pitched woodwinds and metallic percussion strokes.

The Crossing, the elite new-music chamber choir led by Donald Nally, routinely pushes the boundaries of what kinds of music a group of human voices can create.

'River Spirits' by Susan Botti lives up to its dual billings as a 'theatrical motet' and a 'futuristic abstract fable.'

A lot of contemporary music comes my way, and rarely do I hear a collection as appealing as this one, full of interesting ideas and curiously beautiful sounds.

A "virtuosic display of youthful joy" is how the pianist described the finale, but he also displayed a mature mastery of dynamics and flow, abetted by an orchestra that bloomed to match him.

As the solo violin laments the destruction of homes and neighborhoods, the orchestra contextualizes that lone voice into a chorus of community. Terrible circumstances can indeed inspire work of aesthetic beauty.