Welcome to SF Classical Voice’s year-end roundup of recordings released in 2024 by California artists! Our list isn’t limited to classical music — we’ve embraced everything from jazz to new music to traditional recitals and much more. We can’t claim that our roster is comprehensive, but we have tried to provide a solid sample of the musical wealth in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles (and occasionally beyond). There are so many great performances that we aren’t able to hear or review over the course of the year, and this is one way for us to catch up.
We offer this listing with minimal editorializing and reviewing. Blurbs are drawn primarily from the artists and their labels’ promotional materials. Album titles and cover images are linked to websites with more information and purchasing options. We hope you find something new and interesting as you peruse the listing below:
American Bach Soloists/Jeffrey Thomas
Concertos & Sonatas for Three Violins
From the first track of Giovanni Battista Buonamente’s gorgeous Sonata for Three Violins to J.S. Bach’s opulent Concerto for Three Violins, this new audio recording from American Bach captures not-often-played gems from the Baroque, featuring violinists Cynthia Keiko Black, Elizabeth Blumenstock, Tomà Iliev, YuEun Gemma Kim, David Wilson, and Jude Ziliak and harpsichordist Corey Jamason. The recording also includes performances by violinist Gail Hernández, violist Ramón Negrón-Pérez, cellist William Skeen, and Steven Lehning on violone. (ABS Media)
Brian Baumbusch/San Francisco Contemporary Music Players
Polytempo Music
Bay Area composer Brian Baumbusch’s Polytempo Music, which has been described by Peter Margasak at Bandcamp Daily as “a work of such intricate detail, contrapuntal grandeur, and fizzy propulsion that it feels like an act of nature,” was released this year in three different formats — as a Meta Quest headset app, a mobile app, and a CD. While the VR apps allow the listener an opportunity to look inside the music, the sonic experience stands brilliantly on its own. Performed by San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Polytempo Music draws influence from Indonesian gamelan music and minimalism, with their interlocking rhythms, stable harmonies, and kaleidoscopic instrumental colors. (Other Minds Records)
Cantata Collective/Nicholas McGegan
Bach: Mass in B Minor
San Francisco-based early-music ensemble Cantata Collective continues its major series of J.S. Bach’s choral works with the Mass in B Minor, a towering testament of sacred music and the composer’s crowning achievement of his final years. With celebrated conductor Nicholas McGegan, four of today’s most distinguished early-music vocal soloists (soprano Sherezade Panthaki, mezzo-soprano Rhianna Cockrell, tenor Thomas Cooley, and bass-baritone Paul Max Tipton), and a refined chamber choir, this live recording exudes a spontaneity that reveals the depth and passion of Bach’s glorious affirmation of faith. (Avie Records)
Cappella Romana/Nadia Tarnawsky
A Ukrainian Wedding
Ukrainian American folklorist and singer Nadia Tarnawsky leads the women of Cappella Romana with special guest folklorists from Ukraine to perform this unique offering of Ukrainian wedding songs. The songs sung in preparation for the wedding employ the vocal techniques of village singers, while the chants and choral works sung during the wedding ceremony itself reflect the sublime style more prevalent in church singing. From engagement through marriage, the rituals of a traditional Ukrainian wedding are accompanied by songs that help bring forth good health, prosperity, and many children. (Cappella Records)
Ian Carey/Wood Metal Plastic
Strange Arts
The debut album from trumpeter and composer Ian Carey’s ensemble Wood Metal Plastic and his seventh album as a leader. The seven-piece group, which features stellar musicians from across the San Francisco Bay Area, tackles a challenging array of Carey’s intricate compositions, which bridge the worlds of chamber music, straight-ahead jazz, and free improvisation, ranging from lush harmonies and counterpoint to spiky modernism. The title refers to Carey’s exploration of the aesthetic connections between his music and the eclectic creations of his father, visual artist Philip Carey, who died in 2022. With violinists Alisa Rose and Mia Bella d’Augelli, cellist Jessica Ivry, saxophonist Kasey Knudsen, bassist Lisa Mezzacappa, drummer Jon Arkin, and Carey on trumpet. (Slow & Steady Records)
The Destiny Muhammad Trio
The Destiny Muhammad Trio, Vol. 1
Standing on the legacy of jazz harp legend Dorothy Ashby, The Destiny Muhammad Trio styles itself as a cool and eclectic chamber jazz trio. The ensemble features harpist and composer Destiny Muhammad, drummer and percussionist Leon Joyce Jr., and upright acoustic bassist Arthur “Chico” Lopez. The group’s debut recording, The Destiny Muhammad Trio, Vol. 1, includes fierce original jazz compositions by Muhammad, interviews with each member, and a reimagined Celtic jig. The Destiny Muhammad Trio, Vol. 1 was made possible by the generous gifts of ZooLabs.org, and the album hits the ground running on Dec. 20.
Lara Downes
This Land
This Land is a probing, nuanced reflection on the kaleidoscopic diversity of stories and journeys that have converged and collided throughout American history from a pianist renowned for her musical explorations off the beaten path. Downes celebrates the beauty of the American experiment while offering an unflinching acknowledgement of its flaws and failings, ultimately embracing the power of hope and humanity as a pathway to finding common ground and building a brighter future. At the heart of this deeply personal collection is Edmar Colón’s radical new reimagining of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, celebrating the centenary of the piece’s premiere while reflecting on an American century of immigration and transformation. (Pentatone)
Ensemble for These Times
Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood
This digital EP features music by many of the talented emigre composers who fled Europe during World War II for Los Angeles, going on to write film noir and other movie scores and establish the Hollywood style that we hear in the music of John Williams and so many other film composers today. Soprano Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, and pianist Margaret Halbig perform chamber music, arrangements, and songs by eight composers — including Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Miklós Rózsa (both of whom went on to win Academy Awards), as well as Hanns Eisler, Bronisław Kaper, Arnold Schoenberg, Alexandre Tansman, Henryk Vars, and Eric Zeisl. (Centaur Records)
Inna Faliks
Manuscripts Don’t Burn
Los Angeles-based pianist Inna Faliks says that this is her “most personal CD yet, with premieres written for me in celebration of my favorite book, The Master and Margarita, [as well as] my Ukrainian-Jewish heritage, my poetry-music series Music/Words, my hometown of Odesa, and my newly published memoir, Weight in the Fingertips, A Musical Odyssey From Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage.” The album’s title is a famous line in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita — the 20th-century cult novel of an artist surviving in a totalitarian regime. (Solo Luminus)
Corey Field
Releases on First Leaf Music
Composer Corey Field put out three recordings on First Leaf Music this year. The Trial of Benjamin Britten is a mini opera in nine scenes for tenor, horn, and strings, based on a true episode from the composer’s life. And I Am Somewhere Worlds Away is a dramatic song cycle for baritone and piano, inspired by the deeply personal world of the poems of Countee Cullen (1903–1946). And Her Soul in the Stars for string orchestra is a dramatic scena, an elegiac song of farewell sung by violins, with the other string voices supporting, consoling, and commenting. (First Leaf Music)
Giacomo Fiore
Lost Horse Wash Drone
The concept for this album grew out of Fiore’s weeklong residency at the Lou Harrison House in Joshua Tree, California, in March 2023. Immersed in the surroundings of the desert, Fiore delved into an exploration of Harrison’s musical legacy, drawing inspiration from the late composer’s creative practice and his commitment to environmental conservation. Armed with a fretless electric guitar, a resophonic guitar (a copy of the instrument Harrison designed for his last composition, Scenes From Nek Chand), and his recording equipment, Fiore ventured into the heart of Joshua Tree National Park to capture the aural essence of the desert landscape. (Other Minds Records)
Teja Gerken
Test of Time
San Francisco Bay Area guitarist Teja Gerken’s Test of Time, which Acoustic Guitar magazine called “a sonic marvel from top to bottom,” represents his acoustic fingerstyle playing the way a typical performance would. Playing six-string, 12-string, and resonator guitars, Gerken applies his keen melodic awareness, experimental spirit, and masterful technique to a set of road-tested favorites that span the wide range of solo guitar styles that he is known for. While Gerken’s playing has always been centered around his own compositions, Test of Time also has him explore pieces that are part of common repertoires for jazz, classical, and Celtic players. (via Bandcamp)
Gabrielle Haigh/Erie Coast Cellists/Steven Smith
Voices From the Other Side
A collection of evocative chamber works performed by cello octet, conducted by Steven Smith — several with soprano soloist Gabrielle Haigh. Included are Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and L’abbé Agathon, as well as the beloved Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Two works by American composer Margi Griebling-Haigh are featured: the title piece (a setting of three otherworldly poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay) and a single-movement work called Cantilena that allows the cellists to shine individually as well as together. The disc was recorded and produced by David v.R. Bowles of Berkeley’s Swineshead Productions. (Navona Records)
David Kaplan
New Dances of the League of David
Los Angeles-based pianist David Kaplan asked 16 composers to write responses to Robert Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, recorded here and presenting a startling range of compositional approaches, though all unified by their common engagement with the original piece’s spirit. Between Schumann’s idiosyncratic qualities as a composer and Kaplan’s deft curation and realization of the newly written works, the album presents as a contemporary statement. In the program notes, Kaplan writes about how Schumann’s collage style approach to mixing and matching affects, moods, and otherwise contrasting material has attracted him since childhood. (New Focus Recordings)
Kronos Quartet/Red Hot
Outer Spaceways Incorporated: Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra
Produced by Kronos Quartet first violinist David Harrington, this is the fourth in a series of albums being released by Red Hot inspired by the music and vision of Sun Ra. Featuring a diverse cast of collaborating musicians, composers, producers, emcees, and artists, Outer Spaceways Incorporated seeks to pay homage to an artist who existed beyond easy definitions. Ra’s cosmic spirituality, sophisticated harmonic sense, and insistence that the beauty of the world is beyond what the eye can see are etched into every note. (Red Hot)
Joëlle Léandre/Lauren Newton
Great Star Theater, San Francisco
Bassist Joëlle Léandre and vocalist Lauren Newton have been performing together for nearly 30 years, having met in the mid-1990s in Paris. Throughout that time, they have always favored exploring musical textures that are not arranged conventionally but rather are scattered, diffused, and dispersed through layers of sound. Their improvisations flow from the pure joy of creating and performing sound songs that are both original and very personal. This CD features a brilliantly captured live recording of the duo’s improvised performance at Other Minds Festival 26 on Oct. 14, 2022. (Other Minds Records)
The Lee Trio
Midsummer Night Magic
The Lee Trio is delighted to release Midsummer Night Magic on Chelsea Music Festival Records, with premiere recordings of Fern Flowers by Uljas Pulkkis and Five Trios by Edmund Finnis, alongside Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke and Piano Trio No. 2. Finnis’s timeless landscape and Pulkkis’s Finnish childhood legends interweave with Schumann’s tales of vulnerability and hope. The album has been praised by Gramophone for how the three players “share phrases with loving attention to detail and balance even as they celebrate the varied conversations in the music at hand. … The juxtaposition of old and new music is as seamless as The Lee Trio’s playing.” (Chelsea Music Festival Records)
Yuri Liberzon/Piotr Pakhomkin
Piazzolla: Music for Guitar
Astor Piazzolla’s introduction of new rhythms and harmonies into the tango won him worldwide fame. Tango Suite, for two guitars, is one of the finest duo works in the repertoire, offering fireworks and percussive effects as well as exquisite melancholy. Yuri Liberzon has arranged the much-loved Oblivion for guitar, while Leo Brouwer’s arrangement of La muerte del ángel is full of vivacity and color. Cinco Piezas was Piazzolla’s first work for classical guitar and embraces peasant dances and complex cross-rhythms alike. The composer’s Tango Etudes, originally for flute, show the guitar’s range and versatility in Manuel Barrueco’s idiomatic arrangement. (Naxos)
Los Angeles Philharmonic/John Adams
Girls of the Golden West
Girls of the Golden West is John Adams’s eighth music-theater piece to be released by Nonesuch Records. Adams’s stage works are among the most performed contemporary operas of our time and include Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, and Doctor Atomic. Girls of the Golden West is a California opera, telling the story of the Gold Rush not through familiar timeworn myth but in the words and deeds of real people. Longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars drew from period sources to create the libretto. The composer leads the LA Phil in this recording made in Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Nonesuch Records)
Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel/María Dueñas/Los Angeles Master Chorale
Gabriela Ortiz: Revolución diamantina
The first full album of orchestral works by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz, who has written some of the most intense and arresting music of our time. Ortiz’s compositions unite disparate worlds and lives through a compelling rhythmic drive, a street-born authenticity, and a vivid sense of color. Recorded live at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2022 and 2023 during performances by the LA Phil and Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, this new album includes three works: Altar de cuerda, Ortiz’s new violin concerto, performed by María Dueñas; the striking Kauyumari; and the epic Revolución diamantina, featuring the Los Angeles Master Chorale. (Platoon)
Norma and Richard Mayer
Holiday Music 2024
Norma and Richard Mayer play a fiery brand of chamber music not often associated with their rare musical blend — unaccompanied voice and flute. Their operatic arrangements have been acclaimed as a groundbreaking direction in modern music. The compositions on this album are a selection of holiday pieces from the Mayers’ repertoire of more than 700 numbers. Norma and Richard have performed to great acclaim, from Russia to Germany to France to California to points in between, with a vast repertoire encompassing early music, classical music, African American spirituals, show tunes, and jazz. (via Bandcamp)
Lisa Mezzacappa/Beth Lisick
The Electronic Lover
The Electronic Lover, an audio opera in nine episodes by Bay Area-based composer Lisa Mezzacappa and New York-based librettist Beth Lisick, transports listeners to an early ’80s chat room. The opera boasts a diverse cast of characters, an engagingly relatable storyline, and a score by Mezzacappa that Lisa Hirsch at San Francisco Classical Voice describes as “endlessly inventive,” with “bits of polyphony, drones, sound effects, Sprechstimme (speech-voice), ballads, horror movie music, operatic arias, and more.” The comedic drama features 14 vocalists, a synth-driven power trio, and special guests Del Sol Quartet and the Premier Ensemble of the San Francisco Girls Chorus. (Innova Recordings)
Ann Moss/Justin Ouellet/Ed Broms
What Shall I Sing Today?
This eclectic collection of art songs by Antioch-based composer Nancy Bachmann showcases the versatility and vocal elegance of soprano Ann Moss in songs of love, betrayal, hope, and the shared trauma of the pandemic. In performing settings of the composer’s own poetry, Moss and her collaborative pianist, Ed Broms, masterfully express a broad emotional spectrum, from playful to profound. Produced by multi-instrumentalist Justin Ouellet and recorded by Grammy Award-nominated engineer John Weston, What Shall I Sing Today? also includes four songs on texts by celebrated poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, composed specifically for the soprano-viola duo of Moss and Ouellet, exploring the eternal subjects of transformation and rebirth. (Angels Share Records)
Ann Moss/Carrie Smith
Dreamland: Songs by Garry Eister
Brought together in 2018, guitarist Carrie Smith and vocalist Ann Moss discovered a mutual artistic calling to grow their music-making beyond the confines of their classical upbringing. With a song library ranging from ancient to modern, including bespoke works from living songwriters and composers, Smith and Moss derive pleasure from crafting live sets and recordings that juxtapose disparate genres in unexpected and delightful ways. On their 2024 EP of songs by California-based composer and guitarist Garry Eister, Smith performs on an array of instruments, offering an expanse of colors and textures in a set list that centers themes of childhood, memory loss, death, and remembrance. (Angels Share Records)
Pacific Symphony/Pacific Chorale/Carl St. Clair
Fiat Lux
This summer, Pacific Symphony and Chorale released the first recording of Fiat Lux by composer James MacMillan and librettist Dana Gioia, a past poet laureate of California. The world-premiere performances (in June 2023 at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall) and the commissioning of the work were made possible by a generous grant from Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, Fieldstead and Company, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Fiat Lux serves as an invocation, blessing, and benediction to the glory of God’s creation, salvation, and the resilience of nature and man in California. (Tonsehen)
Palaver Strings/Nicholas Phan/Farayi Malek
A Change Is Gonna Come
A Change Is Gonna Come celebrates the rich legacy of American protest songs, from beloved anthems to new commissions. These arrangements of 1960s classics explore the sonic palette of strings and voice (tenor Nicholas Phan and jazz singer Farayi Malek), with nods to the iconic originals as well as today’s cultural landscape, evoking the sound worlds of film scores, contemporary chamber music, fiddle, gospel, and more. These songs reflect on individual experiences of oppression and call us to join the collective work of liberation, confronting our past and present and celebrating the act of protest as one of our most precious rights. (Azica)
Nicholas Pavkovic
Träumerei
Robert Schumann’s “Träumerei” (from Kinderszenen, Op. 15) is perfection, but what if it unfolded with modern jazz harmonies? This reimagining captures the original’s dreamy mood while venturing into new territory. The outer sections of this wistful journey shimmer with contemporary voicings, while the middle evokes the late-Romantic spirit of Brahms. Pavkovic is a prolific composer for film, has served as executive director of the Ross McKee Foundation, and has been a professor of musicianship and music theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Karen Power/Quiet Music Ensemble
… we return to ground …
This double CD features three of Irish composer Karen Power’s large-scale pieces pairing natural sounds with musical instruments, written for and with Quiet Music Ensemble over an eight-year period. Power’s approach to composition, creating space for interactions between field recordings and human performers, allows for the emergence of new sonic dialogues with the natural world. In his liner notes, David Toop writes, “What we are hearing is not reducible to ‘music’ and ‘nature’; there is an acknowledgement that the senses are not separate. They are fluid, sometimes interchangeable in their perception of worlds, and those worlds overlap, become each other.” (Other Minds Records)
Anne Sajdera
It’s Here
The third album from San Francisco-based pianist and composer Anne Sajdera takes listeners on an uplifting and groove-filled journey via Sajdera originals, familiar standards, and a Slovak folk song. Funded in part by a grant from InterMusic SF, the new album continues in the classic jazz quintet format Sajdera employed on her previous release (New Year, 2018). Personnel includes bassist Gary Brown and drummer Deszon Claiborne, plus trumpeter Mike Olmos and alto saxophonist Jesse Levit. The fiery Czech duo of trumpeter Miroslav Hloucal and alto saxophonist Jan Fečo return to play on one track. Sajdera, a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, debuted as a leader with the Brazilian-themed Azul (2012). (Bijuri Records)
San Francisco Symphony/Esa-Pekka Salonen
Adriana Mater
The world-premiere recording of Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater, the composer’s second opera — and second collaboration with librettist Amin Maalouf. Adriana Mater explores the relationship between a mother and her son in a war-torn country as they navigate the violence that defines their past and present and threatens to claim their future. This recording captures Salonen and the SF Symphony’s June 2023 performances at Davies Symphony Hall, directed by Peter Sellars, delivered mere days after the composer’s death. Mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron sings the title role in a cast that also includes Axelle Fanyo (Refka), Nicholas Phan (Yonas) and Christopher Purves (Tsargo). (Deutsche Grammophon)
San Francisco Symphony/Esa-Pekka Salonen
Releases on Apple Music Classical
Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the SF Symphony have continued a partnership begun in 2023 with Apple Music Classical. This year, the orchestra released digital-only spatial audio recordings of Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird, music from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. This recording of The Firebird, captured live in concert in October 2022, is nominated for the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. All three recordings are available exclusively via the Apple Music Classical app. (SFS Media)
Strobe
Strobe
Strobe is an award-winning ensemble showcasing the unique timbre of oboe and strings. In 2016, the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra’s principal oboe, Laura Griffiths, along with violinist Stephanie Bibbo, violist Caroline Lee, and cellist Krisanthy Desby, prepared a concert of oboe quartets by Mozart and Benjamin Britten. Composers offered to write new works, and Strobe received grants to support the creation of music for oboe quartet. This CD presents the artistry of three California composers with a rich spectrum of styles and textures. The music travels through time and space, depicting Joan of Arc, shimmering ponds, and San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
Michael Tilson Thomas
The Complete Columbia, CBS, and RCA Recordings
Michael Tilson Thomas has become one of the world’s best-loved musical figures and most successful recording artists, with a dozen Grammy Awards to his credit. Sony Classical’s 80-CD box set collects, for the first time, his entire RCA, CBS, and Sony Classical discographies from 1973 to 2005. Tilson Thomas says, “Before and after this collection, I made other recordings, but this edition represents a special period where the daring and exuberance of the musicians, the expertise of the technical team, and the support of recording companies enabled me to present a wide range of repertoire.” (Sony Classical)
Michael Tilson Thomas
Grace: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas
In celebration of his 80th birthday, this four-disc set spans more than five decades of Michael Tilson Thomas’s compositional career. It features 18 works, from premiere recordings to remastered archival recordings available for the first time. The deluxe collection also includes an extensive booklet containing composer’s notes, original essays, and a timeline of archival photos chronicling MTT’s life as a pianist, conductor, composer, recording artist, and teacher. All proceeds from Grace will be donated to brain cancer research at the UCSF Brain Tumor Center. (Pentatone)
Alisa Weilerstein/Inon Barnatan
Brahms Cello Sonatas
Cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Inon Barnatan present Brahms’s two Cello Sonatas alongside their cello arrangement of the composer’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major. This Brahms portrait is a logical next step after the duo’s acclaimed interpretation of Beethoven’s complete cello sonatas, released in 2022. In his time, Brahms opened a new chapter in the history of the cello sonata, realizing a glorious marriage of equals between cello and piano. This congenial relationship is further enhanced by Weilerstein and Barnatan, whose musical partnership (in addition to their thriving solo careers) has continued over many years. (Pentatone)
Wild Up
Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence
In June, Los Angeles-based new-music group Wild Up released the latest entry in its ongoing anthology exploring the works of Julius Eastman, the late composer who not only took innovative approaches to orchestration and musical notation but injected a defiantly Black queer perspective into the overwhelmingly white straight world of classical music. With The Holy Presence, Wild Up digs ever deeper into Eastman’s oeuvre, performing lesser-known works that represent a mystically charged and spiritually reflective vein of the composer’s dynamic catalog. (New Amsterdam Records)
Christian Wolff/Wendy Eisenberg
The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar
A limited-edition 12-inch 45 RPM vinyl disc of music by Morton Feldman and Christian Wolff, performed by Wolff and Wendy Eisenberg. Side A features two interpretations of Feldman’s The Possibility of a New Work for Electric Guitar, written for Wolff (who professes to be “not really a guitar player”) in 1966 as an experiment on the instrument. Side B includes Eisenberg’s recording of Wolff’s 2004 piece Another Possibility, an homage to Feldman’s composition. The album, from Other Minds Records, is also available as a digital download. (Other Minds Records)
Dann Zinn
Two Roads
The title track of Bay Area saxophonist and composer Dann Zinn’s sixth album was inspired by the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken” but took on graver significance following a jogging accident that resulted in Zinn damaging his right hand. He found he could no longer manipulate several keys on his horn and, even after surgery, was forced to contemplate the end of his playing career. While the music on Two Roads was recorded before the accident, it provides a view of what was at stake for Zinn — whether he could continue on his lifelong musical path. (With some adjustments, he can and is.) Featuring Zinn with pianist Rachel Z, bassist Jeff Denson, and drummer Omar Hakim, plus percussionist Brian Rice on two tracks. (Ridgeway Records)
