On his new album Klangland, Henrik Lindstrand delivers an achingly beautiful set of miniature mood pieces that capture vast landscapes of emotion. Out now on One Little Independent Records.

My guest today on the Classical Post podcast is singer, cellist, and composer Ayanna Witter-Johnson who makes her debut at Madison Square Garden as part of Andrea Bocelli's US tour this December. I'm sure you realize the significance of someone debuting in front of a crowd that could be upwards of 20,000 people. It's an incredible feat.

We all remember the royal wedding of Prince Harry to the American actress, Meghan Markle, in 2018. I remember getting up early to watch it streamed live as I know many Americans did. Serendipitously, a classical cellist performed in the ceremony that day to a global audience of 2 billion people, in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. He now makes his New York Philharmonic debut and releases a new album called Muse on Decca Classics.

Cellist and composer Peter Gregson joins us on the Classical Post Podcast, whose music you've most likely heard on Netflix's crazy-popular Bridgerton, and HBO's The New Pope starring Jude Law and John Malkovich. His output even reaches the heights of haute couture in campaigns for Balenciaga, Burberry, and Dior. He’s just released a new album on the Deutsche Grammophon label called Patina.

The revered vocal group VOCES8 release a new album, Infinity.

New York-based violinist Curtis Stewart released his post-classical coming of age album “Of Power” on June 18. Inspired by Black Lives Matter and featuring songs of resistance and resilience for violin, voice, and electronics. “Of Power” features original compositions as well as reimagined works by Charlie Parker, J.S. Bach, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Childish Gambino, John Coltrane, Paganini, Elektra Kurtis, Ysaÿe, and Stevie Wonder. Created entirely during the COVID-19 lockdown releasing on the Bright Shiny Things label with five tracks mastered by Prince’s sound engineer Derek Linzy from Paisley Park.

The 19th century Russian composer and piano virtuoso Nikolai Medtner was horrible at marketing himself. While his good friend and admirer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, was being acclaimed around the world, Medtner could never quite achieve commercial success. Although he was greatly respected by his musical peers, Medtner spent the end of his life in relative obscurity, teaching and only occasionally concertizing.

A musician can make the world a better place just by playing the standard repertoire beautifully. But pianist Lara Downes goes farther. By introducing audiences to diverse composers who have been overlooked and disenfranchised, she not only gives ravishing performances of beautiful music, but widens artistic horizons and enriches our cultural life.

Lise de la Salle’s tenth album for Naïve Classiques was released worldwide on June 4, 2021. When Do We Dance? is the pianist’s personal tribute to the art of dance in a dynamic program of repertoire from around the world written between 1850-1950 by George Gershwin, Art Tatum, William Bolcom, Fats Waller, Astor Piazzolla, Manuel de Falla, Alberto Ginastera, Maurice Ravel, Camille Saint-Saëns, Bela Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Alexander Scriabin, and Sergei Rachmaninov.

Decir—“to say”—is the debut seven-piece song cycle from Francisco del Pino, an award-winning Argentine composer who journeys the folds between classical and vernacular traditions. Imagined as the staging of a long poem, Decir was scored for voice, electric guitar, viola, and percussion, with lyrics by Argentine poet Victoria Cóccaro; Spanish to English translations were aided by Rebekah Smith. Cecilia Pastorino, a classically trained soprano—an acclaimed figure in South America’s folk scene—sings Cóccaro’s haunting lyrics of migration, displacement, and the rise of historically silenced voices.

Since winning the BBC Young Musician Brass Final in 2016, Ben Goldscheider has become a leading proponent of the instrument. His new project continues this legacy and marks the centennial of the legendary horn player Dennis Brain.

Scott Wheeler composed the music for the opera Naga, setting a libretto by Cerise Lim Jacobs, and David Salsbery Fry sang one of the roles. On the occasion of the release of the recording of Naga by New World Records, Classical Post invited Wheeler and Fry to muse on the opera industry to which they hope to return. Their conversation includes spoilers for WandaVision.

Swedish composer Jacob Mühlrad joins us on the Classical Post Podcast as our first guest. He’s just released a major album on the Deutsche Grammophon label called Time, exploring themes of mortality, the supernatural, and creating a “sound for god” — if god could be contained to music. Jacob is a serious artist who’s making a big splash in the music world that’s underscored by the complexity of this new album, encompassing about 10 years worth of his compositional work.

When the world shut down in early 2020, Frank Horvat wanted to raise spirits and create music for those forced into self-isolation. In just 6 weeks he composed 31 short solo and duo works for a variety of instruments and voice. The musical community responded, with over 150 musicians worldwide sharing their experience of self-isolation and posting their performances online.

During the pandemic, the contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound has commissioned a series of online works called Video Chat Variations that take advantage of the medium’s quirks and idiosyncrasies. John Fitz Rogers’s Respiration is a recent commission that will be available on Alarm Will Sound’s YouTube channel on March 30th at 11am EDT. The work was premiered on February 19, 2021 as part of a livestream broadcast on the University of South Carolina’s Southern Exposure New Music Series, directed by Michael Harley, who teaches at UofSC and is also Alarm Will Sound’s bassoonist. The work was performed and recorded in real time by the ensemble, conducted by the group’s artistic director Alan Pierson, using Jamulus (a software program that reduces latency) for audio and Zoom for video.

The Slovenian-born, Los Angeles–based guitarist Mak Grgic is an avid explorer of the guitar and all its possibilities. In addition to core repertoire, he performs Balkan music and flamenco. He plays new music, with Daniel Lippel, of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), JACK Quartet, and others. He’s working on an homage to Ligeti using gamelan-inspired arrangements. He composes his own works.

Sophie Hutchings is an Australian composer who creates stunning piano-led work that is equally inspired by outside living and a mindful lifestyle. In the past, she has talked of an idyllic childhood, surrounded by nature and her family’s similar love for music. Sophie’s Father was obsessed with all things jazz, and her brothers heavily into the rock scene, it took Sophie a little while to understand her potential, and what her true sound could be.

Floating Into Infinity is a new album from composer Benjamin Louis Brody, described as “one of the most progressive and multi-faceted musicians in New York City.” There’s definitely a lot of low guitar and even symphonic gestures in sound here, which makes sense, considering Brody’s history as a guitarist and symphonic composer.

On January 15, 2021, the New York City band Founders released Songs for the End of Time Vol. 1—their newest and second album. Recorded over the span of three days in November 2019, it features an arrangement of Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, created by Founders’ members Ben Russell and Brandon Ridenour. The release of Songs for the End of Time Vol. 1 carries special meaning—not only as it honors Messiaen’s artistry and gripping story, but also because it coincided with the 80th anniversary of the original work’s premiere.

The COVID-19 pandemic perhaps all but demands an artistic response. A commission from the Oregon Bach Festival, Richard Danielpour’s An American Mosaic provides just that in an expansive piano work written for Simone Dinnerstein that at its core reflects upon the various segments of American society united by the shared experience of the pandemic.