American music

However we define it, home is something that lives in us as much as we live in it. In its most recent recording, the Austin-based Miró Quartet showcases beguiling American works that explore the meaning of home.

On July 4, 2022, a shooter opened fire at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., killing seven and injuring 48 others. The incident inspired community leader Joanne Bernstein to commission Chicago-based composer Stacy Garrop to write a piece of music that could bring solace to the community.

Every building has a unique personality. The Overlook Hotel, the demonically possessed setting of Stephen King's novel The Shining, is now also the title character of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's recording of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec’s musical works inspired by architectural forms.

A new recording, American Counterpoints, sets two undercelebrated African American composers in counterpoint and brings to light a long-obscured musical masterpiece in its first commercial recording.

As part of a nationwide new music commissioning program, the Central Ohio Symphony will open its 2023-24 season with the Ohio premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain Suite.

During the last 25 years, Shirley has gone from the rhythm section of a rising-star rock band to L.A.’s Skid Row and, most recently, to a new career as a classical composer in his current home of Newark, Ohio. The story of Shirley’s path to central Ohio is one of loneliness and addiction, of mountaintop highs and rock-bottom despair and, ultimately, recovery and redemption. And music was the friend that led him to a new life.

At one point in time, the skies over North America were full of birds. The ravages of overhunting, industrialization, pollution and trading have silenced many of those species forever. Now American composer Christopher Tin has memorialized extinct birds in The Lost Birds: An Extinction Elegy, recently available in a recording by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and VOCES8.

What knits us to the soul of another? It’s one of the central questions of life, and it is the central question of the Philadelphia-based The Crossing choir’s recording Born: The Music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson, which invites us to consider how we walk with the creatures we encounter on our path.

A new album, Summerland, showcases world-premiere recordings of orchestral works from across composer William Grant Still’s nearly 70-year career, performed by the mother-daughter duo of violinist Zina Schiff and conductor Avlana Eisenberg with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The Catalyst Quartet's Uncovered series will showcase neglected chamber works by composers of color. Released earlier this year, Uncovered, Vol. 2 features chamber works by the noted African American composer Florence B. Price.